How long before your inverter died?

[fatjay]

Coming from another thread, I see 3 people who have recently had their eg4 inverters die. It got me to thinking, how frequent of an occurrence is this? I think we've had long enough to gather some data.

When did you put it in operation? How long until it died? What brand and what kind of failure happened

 

[MattiFin]

Interesting to see the comments but I think your voting poll doesn't work as intented?

Now brand and lifetime are not connected so 50% victrons with +4year lifetime get mixed with "other" at 0 year lifetime.

 

[SoakedUp]

Victron 12/1200. Died around 2 years. AC out terminal failed. Internal portion on the HOT side melted. Dealer sent the info with pictures to Victron; they agreed the inverter was at fault and replaced it at no cost.

 

[timselectric]

What if you haven't had an inverter die?

 

[1201]

sma sunny islands- from 2012 and 2013. still going strong

 

[fatjay]

Hmm, i think we'll need to rely on comments for the brand/lifetime, i don't see a way to incorporate multiple poles and having an option for every time period and brand sounds excessive.

 

[fatjay]

What if you haven't had an inverter die?

Then you don't have to do the poll.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

Coming from another thread, I see 3 people who have recently had their eg4 inverters die. It got me to thinking, how frequent of an occurrence is this? I think we've had long enough to gather some data.

When did you put it in operation? How long until it died? What brand and what kind of failure happened

If people are honest this will be interesting.

 

[SplitUniverse]

Does not working correctly right out of the box count?

 

[SparkyJJO]

Does not working correctly right out of the box count?

In my line of work we call that a "0 day-to-fail" and that's a big big problem.

 

[1ufvlsi6x]

I don't see a never option and I'm worried.

 

[SplitUniverse]

Voted,
Solark 15K,
Issues from the day I turned it on; 6 months later, still not resolution from Solark.

 

[gpracer1]

Maybe we need another opposing thread to show how long your inverter has been going and what brand, etc. That way it can show trends of good units/brands.

 

[SplitUniverse]

I'm honestly more concerned with how the companies deal with the issues and "duds". If it important if you got a unit that croaked day1 or day 2 or after 3 months if the company took care of it in a proper and timely manner?

Personally I don't care if the unit they ship me is crap as long as they make it right, after all, even the most reputable manufacturers have issues from time to time. I had a large Mitsubishi condenser that was throwing a fit right out of the box (dead compressor based on diagnostic), called support and was told to drive straight to nearest dealer (they told me which one had the unit is stock); by the time I got there the unit was waiting for me on the loading dock, it was not even the dealer I bought it from, they didn't ask for anything like credit cards on file, etc. Shit happens, important is who mops it up and how they do it.

I'd rather deal with a company where I have a 10% chance of failure but the certainty of having it fixed than a company where the failure probability is 1% and they don't care about it. I usually "account for my things" based on the warranty period and everything else is just cream on top.

 

[1ufvlsi6x]

Maybe we need another opposing thread to show how long your inverter has been going and what brand, etc. That way it can show trends of good units/brands.

Failure stories are amazing, because they avoid survivorship bias. Most of the culture is survivorship bias (we tend to follow the ones who succeeded and we often forget some of them are just lucky).

 

[fatjay]

In my mind if it’s dead on arrival, it’s grounds for a return from your retailer. Are there places that they’re not returnable?

 

[SplitUniverse]

It wasn't dead, it's still not dead; just doing things that it's not supposed to do and acting up from day 1.

 

[SunDave]

Not a huge issue because it's just for fun, but this won't make much sense. Even if people do respond accurately (which from the comments isn't looking good), every brand sells at a different rate. Without knowing the numbers out there, it doesn't mean much. Adding in the Still Working/Isn't Dead category actually solves some of that problem in this case.

 

[fatjay]

It wasn't dead, it's still not dead; just doing things that it's not supposed to do and acting up from day 1.

What’s it not doing?

 

[HighDesertOffgrid]

Thus far I have installed 20-30 inverters. Of those I have had 3 failures.
Go-Power 3500 mod sine wave- connected a 1000w grid tie inverter to it in parallel (not understanding phase shift). Replaced blown caps and sold it functional. It bounced all over the US in my rv prior to that without problem.
WZRLB 3K/24V- Mosfet failure within 6 months (likely due to overheat) replaced fets and put back in service. (I have 4 others of these in service at the moment).
Voltworks 3k/12v- Improperly torqued DC connection melted plastic mount thingy. 3D printed another thingy and put back in service. Still using as vehicle mounted AC supply.

The commonality of these is operator error with the possible exception of the WZRLB.

Perhaps I'll update if something gives up the smoke in the near future.

My vote in the poll would skew the results, so I've refrained.

And bad mistakes
I've made a few
I've had my share of sand kicked in my face
But I've come through (and I mean to go on, and on, and on, and on)

 

[1ufvlsi6x]

I wouldn't be surprised if most "failures" are user error. Those cheap hybrid inverters are used by novices that know nothing. I've seen youtubers connecting the grid to them with the neutral and live reversed and think nothing about it; they have no switches anywhere or fuses; they treat them like literal phone chargers.

 

[timselectric]

Thus far I have installed 20-30 inverters. Of those I have had 3 failures.
Growatt 3500 mod sine wave- connected a 1000w grid tie inverter to it in parallel (not understanding phase shift). Replaced blown caps and sold it functional. It bounced all over the US in my rv prior to that without problem.
WZRLB 3K/24V- Mosfet failure within 6 months (likely due to overheat) replaced fets and put back in service. (I have 4 others of these in service at the moment).
Voltworks 3k/12v- Improperly torqued DC connection melted plastic mount thingy. 3D printed another thingy and put back in service. Still using as vehicle mounted AC supply.

The commonality of these is operator error with the possible exception of the WZRLB.

Perhaps I'll update if something gives up the smoke in the near future.

My vote in the poll would skew the results, so I've refrained.

And bad mistakes
I've made a few
I've had my share of sand kicked in my face
But I've come through (and I mean to go on, and on, and on, and on)

You need to start a new thread called "how many inverters have you killed". lol
I could actually post in that thread.

 

[HighDesertOffgrid]

You need to start a new thread called "how many inverters have you killed". lol
I could actually post in that thread.

I haven't killed any! Some were in ICU for awhile though.

 

[SplitUniverse]

What’s it not doing?

It's not working according to settings.

If set as "limited to load" (the entire house is on Load side) it creates a loud "buzzing sound" from the breaker disconnect on the Grid side, which it doesn't if it's set as "limited to home".
It doesn't charge the batteries to the set 90% if the TOU is activated.
It randomly throttles the 3 DC connected solar strings, especially with the TOU activated.
Depending on the TOU and limiter setting it shows random readings from it's sensors (the battery was 100% SOC when one of the techs started changing things, all of the sudden it was reporting 14KW grid import instead of about 12KW export just the moment before, the Load numbers stayed the same).

This is not in any particular order, just random thoughts at the moment.

It started Day1, dead dongle, a couple of days later, "dark screen", replaced dongle, replaced "display board", updated firmware repeatedly. That took in excess of 2 months.
It worked as designed while offgrid for a little, then was set up again by Solark (settings wise) upon getting the interconnection agreement and worked as designed to only start acting like this a couple of weeks later (with no changes in the settings). Supposedly this is quite common with these inverters, or at least that's what the person on the phone told, they've been with solark a couple of years.

 

[tinyt]

Six months running, 6 KVA DIY inverter. Until I loaded it with a 5-ton hvac compressor.

Surprised it was only a small burn area.
.