Inverter Dying?

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Sandero

The unit which went down was purchased in 2005 and does NOT use ring connectors as the new model which replaced it does (I added ring connectors to attach to pos and neg for the new one) the old had "compression" fittings... strip the wire.. shove it in the hole and tighten the screw. The connector was isolated from the chassis with by a plastic block.

I am using marine grade tinned copper wire.

Wow!

Get that starter cable (bottom right) portion of the picture clamped ASAP. It's laying right on what appears to be the engine bed bolt - Short circuit is headed your way!

<Edit> Also the 2 negative cables at the bottom look dodgy. One is laying up against a through hull and one goes under a bulkhead and appears it can chafe.

There is also a heavy orange (positive(?) cable laying against a smaller red cable and it appears the anti-chafe between them is some tape.

Finally at the top of the pic a bunch of stuff goes through a bulkhead hole and appear to be laying against the sharp edge. Might consider a grommet here.

[mitiempo]

In addition the positive bus in the picture isn't covered.

I have seen inverters fail when one of the 2 DC leads melted while the other looked perfect - not that rare at all. In one case I was hired to replace a dead inverter - 2000 watt Freedom - and the first thing I noticed was cabling way too small, 1 or 2 gauge for a long run. After convincing the owner to replace the cables ("But it was professionally installed") we removed the old cables to get their length. The positive wire was near perfect but the last few feet of the negative at the battery end was bare as the cover had melted off and the wire here was stiff and corroded. We went with 3/0 for new cables.

I attended an inverter fire once as well.

The wire with the most resistance will get the hottest and in a marginal situation of too small cabling and/or too long a wire run it may not happen when new but after a while, sometimes years it certainly can.

If Xantrex states 6' as a maximum abide by it. With the 13' x 2 run my calculator comes up with 2/0 for a 2% drop so with your overlong run 2 gauge was way too small.

[sparrowhawk1]

I've been waiting for someone with more electrical experience than me to comment on the fact that some inverters combine the neutral with the ground. This allows the negative cable to have ac current in some situations. There are several youtube videos on the dangers of hooking this type of inverter up to your house wiring

[transmitterdan]

All inverters in the US connect ground and neutral at the inverter. It is an electrical code requirement in the US to connect neutral to AC ground at the source. This is the only place they may be connected together.

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

All inverters in the US connect ground and neutral at the inverter. It is an electrical code requirement in the US to connect neutral to AC ground at the source. This is the only place they may be connected together.

That is correct.

[sparrowhawk1]

That's why I wanted someone with more experience to explain it. I probably should have phrased it the neutral-ground is connected to the negative battery cable. There's YouTube videos showing how this causes AC current at the batteries. Some inverters are safe to hook up to your house wiring some are not. hopefully someone will explain it better than me

[sparrowhawk1]

Ok just watched the video again. He put the voltage meter between the neutral and the ground and got AC . I should have watched the video again before I made my original comment. And he says that if you connect ground and neutral on that type of inverter it will go poof because both the hot and neutral are actually hot

[sparrowhawk1]

The video is from knurganr24. He also states with this type of inverter you will have AC current from ground to either battery terminal if hooked up to a house wiring. I'm leaving out some details so watch the video. Oops knurlganr24. And disregard my first two posts I got a little confused.

[rwidman]

You can't put anything on the Internet that's not true, right?

I haven't watched the video and I'm not going to. Follow the manufacturer's instructions when installing anything. If you have a question, contact the manufacturer.

[transmitterdan]

There is always AC current at the battery. Inverters draw both DC and AC from the battery. If you put a clamp on meter on the negative cable you will be able to measure a DC current and if you switch to AC mode you will also measure some AC current. This is normal.

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by sparrowhawk1

Ok just watched the video again. He put the voltage meter between the neutral and the ground and got AC . I should have watched the video again before I made my original comment. And he says that if you connect ground and neutral on that type of inverter it will go poof because both the hot and neutral are actually hot

On any properly wired AC circuit neutral and ground will not give you 120 volts. Hot and ground will as will hot and neutral.

120 volts between neutral and ground shows reverse polarity.

All AC has neutral and ground connected at the source, whether it be shore power, a generator, or an inverter.

[sparrowhawk1]

So no one wants to watch the video? I am in no way an electrician but from what I understand the reason the neutral is hot is because half of the wave is on the hot wire and half of the wave is on the neutral wire, almost reverse sync to give you a modified sine wave for cheap. But he explains it much better than me. Edit: and the person that did the video is not the only one that will tell you that.. I knew about this a long time ago that's why I got confused when I tried to explain it the first time

[transmitterdan]

No I don't want to watch the video. What you are describing makes no sense to me. If a meter between neutral and AC ground measured a voltage then the inverter is modified, broken or not designed per the US codes.

[sparrowhawk1]

Or not designed to housing codes

[sparrowhawk1]

The first video was a bit long winded. xboxer 1985 says the same thing.quickly and near the beginning of his video 0sp tigerclaw 1500 inverter performance and application