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Okay, I seem to only blew the phase board on the negative side the one without the large diode All the other ones looks normal no blown marks. just that one board one of the I'm tuessing mosfect was blown up. and the plug transistor board on the control board is blown. So I think just those need to be replace and it should be back in working order.
I know one thing, and I hope its a revision on it, but the bolt or screw or what ever it is that is being used to attach the coil wires to the heat sink needs to be changed to allen or hex instead of a phillips, I could not even budge the blasted screw and I didn't want to push my luck even trying. But luckly I don't need to move it from what I can tell the other mosfect board on the negative side looks fine.
If I power up the system are their lights on those ? if so I can have somebody look to see if there is any green? light coming from the other three boards if they will light up even if its missing one board.
I might go yank the master down and get those two boards from it and put in this GS to see if it comes all the way back to life then at least get one unit going.
Okay, took the master down and pulled the two boards off of it that I know that I can tell that is blown in the slave, put those in the slave and fired it up. I had somebody confirmed there was two green lights on the left and right and one green solid light on the top. So I'm guessing its fixed? even though it says its off in the html which I fiugred it would be since the input isn't being triggered to turn it on.
is there a mode I can switch to enable inverter and then I can switch it back to split mode? if so where do I go in the menu to do that? I'll have to get somebody to remote into my computer and use the remote screen to change it for me.
Well here is the burnt relay on the master control board center relay.
@the-blind-wolf Please stop spamming every communication modus you have. It doesn't help.
Same photo as you sent to me. And I don't see any visual problem with that relay. The little scuffs near the top right corner of the relay likely are from a soldering iron when making minor corrections to the PCB (which I can see were made in the lower left corner of the photo.)
Okay, took the master down and pulled the two boards off of it that I know that I can tell that is blown in the slave, put those in the slave and fired it up. I had somebody confirmed there was two green lights on the left and right and one green solid light on the top. So I'm guessing its fixed? even though it says its off in the html which I fiugred it would be since the input isn't being triggered to turn it on.
Please don't do this. You'll just risk blowing up everything that wasn't damaged before.
AC backfeed usually damages all four FET boards (even if only two of them had visible damage). You're fortunate that the inverter (being in slave mode) didn't try to drive the FETs, or you'd likely have blown out the good FETs transplanted from the "master" inverter.
@sid-genetry-solar So your saying that I'll need to replace all four fet boards? and the fet board on the control board? Well I'll go yank it back out and put back in the master then. . . Was only trying to get at least one of the gs up and going. I fgured that if all green lights were going then it was good.
Its done back the way it was. I did a video and the light on the control board is staying solid green as it clicking away , the four fet boards are solid green as well.
Usually it's wise to replace all the fet boards.
At minimum you need to validate no continuity from the fet board risers (power from mainboard) to the back of each fet. If there is continuity, a fet has failed closed and will result in a dead short the instant the inverter is turned on. (Which will likely blow more fets)
I'd imagine it's also possible that a fet fails open - in which case more current will be shunted through the remaining fets - increasing the odds of failure at higher loads.
Usually it's wise to replace all the fet boards.
At minimum you need to validate no continuity from the fet board risers (power from mainboard) to the back of each fet. If there is continuity, a fet has failed closed and will result in a dead short the instant the inverter is turned on. (Which will likely blow more fets)
I'd imagine it's also possible that a fet fails open - in which case more current will be shunted through the remaining fets - increasing the odds of failure at higher loads.
Ah, that makes since. though I don't know how to test them unless our talking about testing each leg while having a clamp on the heat sink, if both legs make the meter go off, then its a bad fet?
Well, the easy way to test for a failed-closed fet is to continuity check from the brass risers between the mainboard and the fetboard (one of the center ones) - to the heat sink the fetboard is attached to. Most of the risers are connected in parallel, and obviously so are the backs of the fets. If you get continuity - at least 1 of the fets on the board has failed -- so best to replace not only that fet, but the fetboard too - since some component (like a resister) on it was probably damaged.
Checking for failed-open fets is not practical -- unfortunately. The best way to do it for the layman would be to run the inverter on medium load and monitor (starting when everything is still cold) with a thermal camera to see if there is uneven heat distribution among the fets - A failed-open fet would be notably cooler than the others since no current would run through it. Of course - you can't do this until you've verified that there are no failed-closed fets first.
Just be aware that i'm a layman in this arena. There are other things that could fail like the driver board.
@notmario Yeah, well. Sid basicly says to replace them all, because of something like your saying could be the case. and for me to find it would be like asking a person to get out of a salt mine with no light source :P.
If the little board that is on the control board that can be removed, yeah it blown it. I've been kind of scratching my head on how the fet board system works. I'm guessing the heat sink conductive? and the six small screws are going to six different channels? I didn't noticed until last time I was looking that there is four heat sinks, I thought it was two big ones. Its pretty intresting how this stuff works.
Well, the easy way to test for a failed-closed fet is to continuity check from the brass risers between the mainboard and the fetboard (one of the center ones) - to the heat sink the fetboard is attached to. Most of the risers are connected in parallel, and obviously so are the backs of the fets. If you get continuity - at least 1 of the fets on the board has failed -- so best to replace not only that fet, but the fetboard too - since some component (like a resister) on it was probably damaged.
Checking for failed-open fets is not practical -- unfortunately. The best way to do it for the layman would be to run the inverter on medium load and monitor (starting when everything is still cold) with a thermal camera to see if there is uneven heat distribution among the fets - A failed-open fet would be notably cooler than the others since no current would run through it. Of course - you can't do this until you've verified that there are no failed-closed fets first.
Just be aware that i'm a layman in this arena. There are other things that could fail like the driver board.
The main reason I recommend replacing all 4 boards after a catastrophic failure, is because sometimes there is invisible damage to the FETs which may not show up until you try to run the inverter. In 12kw inverter tests, I once tried making a set of four MOS boards by finding "good boards" in the pile of boards from previous failures. Ran "Test" mode and verified that all four of them switched on and off just fine.
So I hit the "Normal" button to run the inverter--and instantly the FETs exploded. But a full set of replacement FET boards worked just fine.
Driver board sometimes survives--it all depends on how the FETs blew. Generally speaking, if the driver board doesn't short out the power supply (which it appears to do in @the-blind-wolf 's case), or doesn't have visibly blown chips...it is probably good to use.
@notmario Yeah, well. Sid basicly says to replace them all, because of something like your saying could be the case. and for me to find it would be like asking a person to get out of a salt mine with no light source :P.
If the little board that is on the control board that can be removed, yeah it blown it. I've been kind of scratching my head on how the fet board system works. I'm guessing the heat sink conductive? and the six small screws are going to six different channels? I didn't noticed until last time I was looking that there is four heat sinks, I thought it was two big ones. Its pretty intresting how this stuff works.
I would imagine it would be quite difficult without sight. I wouldn't advise being unnecessarily cheap like myself and risking further damage - but since you seemed eager to turn it on, i figured i'd at least give you a way to reduce the risk.
So basically (the way i think it works...) the backside of the fets (the drain) are conductive to the heatsink. For each board, a single riser is used to drive ALL the fets. (kind of like the starter solenoid on a car) The other risers supply the power for the source. The driver board supplies power to the gate risers for each fet board independently in a binary pattern that approximates an AC wave. When the gates are driven, the fets short the source to the drain - which basically alternates the connection between the DC source and the transformer primaries. Which fet board is activated (gate driven) dictates which polarity reaches which part of the transformer.
You can kind of think of the driving process as a series of pulses dictating the polarity (or 0v) to the transformer primaries. A sequence like 11211211212221211211211,11011011010001011011011 ("AC positive", "AC negative") kind of describes a ternary representation of the rise and fall of an analog AC wave - where 1 would be the "no DC" (no fets driven), 2 would be "positive DC", and 0 would be "negative DC" to the transformer primaries. Of course the inverter generates a much more granular sequence - with many thousands of numbers representing just one wave.
You can imagine how a fet that has failed closed would be an issue - two fet boards would essentially be shorting both + and - to the same transformer lead.
The main reason I recommend replacing all 4 boards after a catastrophic failure, is because sometimes there is invisible damage to the FETs which may not show up until you try to run the inverter. In 12kw inverter tests, I once tried making a set of four MOS boards by finding "good boards" in the pile of boards from previous failures. Ran "Test" mode and verified that all four of them switched on and off just fine.
So I hit the "Normal" button to run the inverter--and instantly the FETs exploded. But a full set of replacement FET boards worked just fine.
Driver board sometimes survives--it all depends on how the FETs blew. Generally speaking, if the driver board doesn't short out the power supply (which it appears to do in @the-blind-wolf 's case), or doesn't have visibly blown chips...it is probably good to use.
Basically you tested the fets and they seemed to work -- but when actually driven at 60hz, something went wrong? How interesting, not even any load put on them? I guess quantum physics was demanding some respect.
On the topic of bad fets and fetboards ... i only have 2 "guaranteed fine" fetboards left. You guys ever gonna put up a "spare parts" listing on this fancy new website?