What About Dust Buildup Inside Components?

[alcook62]

I got to thinking today about what (if any) affects the buildup of dust inside my sw4024 inverter or the classic 200 charge controller. Wyoming is a very windy state and even with snow covering the ground I currently have much dust in my house (we do dust weekly). How will this impact the electronics, fans, etc... over time.

My system has been powering my house now for three years. Do I need to power down and do some preventative maintenance? Do I even need to be concerned? Has anyone here ever taken the covers off their equipment after a few years and seen what the inside looks like?

 

[Bluedog225]

If you are careful, it shouldn’t hurt anything to blow the dust out. Compressor or canned air. Power down and q-tip the heat sinks if you feel really ambitious.

 

[alcook62]

If you are careful, it shouldn’t hurt anything to blow the dust out. Compressor or canned air. Power down and q-tip the heat sinks if you feel really ambitious.

I'll go ahead and do that, if for nothing else than peace of mind. The cover on the charge controller looks very easy to remove. The cover on the Conext sw4024 not so much. One side butts up to another part of the interconnected system. I'll have to look at my inverter manual and see how it separates.

 

[Bluedog225]

I don’t know if it has capacitors. Worth knowing.

 

[Texas-Mark]

Has anyone here ever taken the covers off their equipment after a few years and seen what the inside looks like?

Fans are the main thing I check on periodically.

 

[alcook62]

Fans are the main thing I check on periodically.

Yes. I've had to replace a 12v computer-style fan that I use to ventilate a small space. It had been caked with dust over a 1 1/2 year span. The replacement is still doing fine and is noise/vibration-free. The first one was beaten to heck the first year with the burst of construction-related dust and sawdust during construction.

 

[HRTKD]

I camp a lot in Wyoming, so I can sympathize with your dust issue. I've considered using a standalone air filtration system to try and capture the dust.

 

[alcook62]

I camp a lot in Wyoming, so I can sympathize with your dust issue. I've considered using a standalone air filtration system to try and capture the dust.

Filtration would/could be a solution going forward. I was more concerned with what has already accumulated during the previous three years. I plan on pulling the cover off of my charge controller today and assessing the situation. I'm not sure yet how to pull the covering off of the sw4024 inverter. It appears, at first glance, not as user-serviceable as the charge controller.
Maybe I'm being overly paranoid about this, but I am a little surprised that this hasn't, as far as I can tell, been addressed anywhere.

 

[HRTKD]

I'll have to poke my nose into the inverter that I just removed from my trailer. I has been in the trailer for four years, but not used that heavily. My solar charge controllers are sealed and passively cooled. A blast of air across the heat sink every couple of years probably would be appropriate for mine.