I've been dealing with a messed up inverter/charger for the last few months which has driven me to near madness. I'd like to get feedback on the relative merits of three specific units - the one I have now, the one the
repair tech says I should have, and the one I think I want to get instead.
Currently, I have a Xantrex SW2000 2kw/80amp (model: 815-2012) - installed it about 3 years ago and have nothing but problems, TWO breakdowns requiring new boards at high cost, and this thing is heavy and hard to remove and re-install, which I have now done 3 times over the last 3 years. And now it has s**t the
bed again, and in a totally new way of course. Each time it has failed in a completely different way. The first time could have been caused by operator error - I accidentally started the
engine without shutting off the
charger. Ka-ching. The second time the
repair tech said maybe bad
power coming in, maybe I overloaded it (??) but he was not conclusive. Ka-Ching.
Now comes a new issue which seems to have been coming on for a few months - I've noticed the
charger (always the charger by the way with this thing, never had a problem with the
inverter side) - will just randomly reset. As in, it acts as if incoming AC was interrupted and then re-acquired, starting the 3-stage
charging cycle again with Bulk. It used to be once or twice a week I noticed this, lately (last 3 weeks) I am noticing it several times a day.
I've taken to manually forcing the
inverter back to Float mode when I notice this. Obviously a bad sign and I have been meaning to do something about it. But, I checked all the error and warning messages and there were none! I wasn't really sure if maybe it was a bad
power connections on the
dock causing incoming power to be
lost randomly.
Now I am staring at the controls all day and I finally see a clue when this rest happens - on the
control panel, sometimes when a decent sized DC load comes on (anything over 10amps for example) I see on the
control panel the "Inverter On" light comes on for a second, then goes off, then whammo, Bulk mode. But the thing is I have the inverter "Disabled". I've tried sitting here staring at the control panel flipping on various DC loads (lights, blowers,
heater,
instruments - most are small loads but occasionally I turn on something like the
heater (Espar) which draws about 15amps, or the reefer
compressor comes on, that triggers it I think.
But, starting yesterday things have totally gone sideways - I noticed the charger was reading Bulk mode, but the
battery was showing a net loss of 70amps, which was the amount of amps being used by the massive (circa 1999) 1 HP DC reefer
compressor which was running. Normally when the compressor runs (and pulls about 70amps) the charger is able to put out the full 80amps it is capable of which balances the power usage of the compressor resulting in a net gain of a few amps, basically keeping the
batteries at float while the compressor runs.
But now the charger won't put out more than about 22 amps no matter what. Bulk/Absorption all seem to be happening, but only 22 amps max is coming out of the charger, regardless of how much load is being drawn. Right now the charger is in Float mode, my
batteries are at about 13.8 (Gell cells) and the charger is putting out about 14amps which accounts for all of the DC power we are using on board as I type this. So, everything LOOKS normal at this stage, until some DC load comes on and resets the charger again...
Last night I turned off the inverter/charger completely after dinner (cutoff switch, completely dead, no power going to the unit) - by morning we were down only about 30amps, mostly from using
computers the night before -batteries are still around 13.0, and so I turn the charger back on, and from my experience, it should have gone to Bulk mode and started pouring in the amps and driving up the voltage to about 14.40 before switching to Absorption mode. But instead I get 22amps and about 5 or 10 minutes we get up to 14.4 and sure enough, switch to Absorption, but still only 22 amps.
There are now errors on the display under Fault Log - "Transformer temp unreadable" and "FET1 Over Temperature" - sounds to me like something burned out. Of course I felt the unit on several sides and it's cool as a cucumber. And I don't care what the repair tech says is wrong with it, no way am I putting more
money into this POS.
SO, after the last repair, the tech told me that he thinks I may be pushing the unit too hard and that I really need the SW3000 (3kw/120amp) - and then I realized the unit I bought 3 years ago does not include support for
Lithium charging, and I am planning to upgrade to
Lithium batteries this coming summer, so, I was thinking I would just upgrade to the SW3000 and sell the SW2000 for
cheap and recoup a few bucks maybe.
But now I am so disappointed in this thing I can't see spending more
money on another Xantrex product and I am leaning towards the
Victron Multi 3000.
Of course everyone raves about everything
Victron makes, and I can only assume it is all true, but, the same Xantrex repair tech was very clear when I asked him about the relative advantages of each unit and he basically said the Victron was lightly built, capable of light
service, and would not last long. He (somewhat tritely I thought) said it boiled down to weight and that the Xantrex is heavy because of the huge mass of coils/metal/whatnot inside the box which by nature is a longer lasting, more robust design.
To me, that seems logical on the surface, but I suspect there is more to the story. Frankly, I would LOVE to install a unit which is almost 30lbs lighter than the Xantrex3000 (SW2000=50lbs SW3000=68lbs Multi3000=40lbs). Not to mention it's about $400 less. What's not to love?
There are also some difficulties involved in making this change due to cable routing and location of connectors on the Victron compared to the Xantrex. I am hoping I can just mount it on its side, but I haven't checked yet if there is a warning against doing that.
Let me add, as far as I can tell, the
wiring in general is in excellent condition and sized for the demands of our original 3k inverter/120amp charger.
I will close by saying that I have had a great experience with Xantrex chargers/inverters, BEFORE this unit. I had a
ProSine 2.5 which worked flawlessly for 10 years (before it was accidentally drenched and destroyed). It seems clear to me the company's products have gone downhill of late.
Thanks in advance and apologies for the length of this post.