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I'm back from my week of being grandpa, and have some things for your consideration.
Different people are approaching this from different ways based on their theory and their goals.
Some want only to have a motor that runs for free, and could care less what they get out of the inverter. Some want the AC output of the inverter and would just as soon get rid of the motor. Frankly, I could care less, as long as we get a stable working system that produces usable power.
So lets talk about that power for a moment. Unless I see it in front of me and can measure it with a meter and a scope, I have a hard time believing it exists, which means if I can't replicate it, to me it is suspect.
So I want to talk about facts, not theories. I have toasted three inverters with this setup and one voltage regulator. I believe some others have experienced the same thing. I know the exact circumstances for each melt down.
In the case of two of the inverters I had a very heavy load on the motor...so much that it was barely able to turn, and I was adding loads to the inverter to speed up the motor. I was between 600 and 800 watts of load on the inverter trying to balance the system. As anybody who has tried this knows, the voltage on your primaries is sinking like the Titanic when you try to do this because of the load on the motor and the load on the inverter, so you have to be FAST until you get it balanced.
In both cases I added a load to the inverter and "POW", it smoked like a bad cigar. In the third situation I also had a huge load on the motor and had put a huge load on the inverter that I thought was MORE than what I needed to balance it out. I was REDUCING the load on the inverter. The motor had sped up and I was removing small loads from the inverter to balance the two. I had already removed a few 3 amp bulbs, removed one more and "POW", the inverter smoked. In the final case, which is the voltage regulator, I had it in place to keep the inverter from smoking. I had a huge load on the motor and was adding loads to the inverter and it smoked the regulator. In none of these cases do I know if the device smoked because of voltage input to them or because of amps input to them, but it would have to be one or the other wouldn't it?
The voltage regulator was rated for 60 volts input. I have no idea the amps rating on it or the voltage input limits or amps input limits on the inverters that smoked.
Those are the facts. Any number of theories could be created that those facts could support. You make up your own. I have mine, but it has not been proven or tested. It is just a theory. My THEORY was that when I was adjusting the load and trying to hit that balance point, whether I was adding loads to reach it, or removing loads to reach it, when I hit it, something happened that caused some kind of surge that blew out the inverters and/or the voltage regulators. Whether it was a surge in voltage (it would have had to be a surge of over 60 volts to blow the regulator) or a surge of amps, I do not know, but that is my theory.
Anybody up for toasting some more regulators or inverters? It's an expensive hobby!! Maybe the simplest thing to do would be to use a whole bunch of 12 volt lights you can get from an RV place that sells lights for 12 volt systems instead of an inverter. They screw into a regular socket. Then if there's a surge, you explode some glass or burn out some bulbs. I have a row of those bulbs, but maybe I need to get some more.
But it is that surge that interests me. What is it, and where does it come from? If it is a high voltage surge, it must be over 60 volts. Is it momentary, or can it be sustained? Is it a surge, or is it a pulse that will repeat, or is it a steady flow? Is it an increase in voltage or amps. In either case, where does it come from? It does NOT take much of a voltage increase to blow an inverter. They are not built to have an input much over 12 volts, (in MOST cases) especially the cheap ones I am using. But the voltage regulator I smoked WAS designed to take a high voltage input (60 volts) and take it down to 12 volts, and it too was smoked. If it was an increase in amps OR voltage, why did it happen when I REMOVED loads from the inverter?? That fact led me to suspect the "balance" issue and that when you balance the loads this surge happens.
None of this gets us anywhere until someone else replicates it and until we see if it is more than a single surge. But if you have toasted an inverter, you have already seen what I am talking about.
Dave
Different people are approaching this from different ways based on their theory and their goals.
Some want only to have a motor that runs for free, and could care less what they get out of the inverter. Some want the AC output of the inverter and would just as soon get rid of the motor. Frankly, I could care less, as long as we get a stable working system that produces usable power.
So lets talk about that power for a moment. Unless I see it in front of me and can measure it with a meter and a scope, I have a hard time believing it exists, which means if I can't replicate it, to me it is suspect.
So I want to talk about facts, not theories. I have toasted three inverters with this setup and one voltage regulator. I believe some others have experienced the same thing. I know the exact circumstances for each melt down.
In the case of two of the inverters I had a very heavy load on the motor...so much that it was barely able to turn, and I was adding loads to the inverter to speed up the motor. I was between 600 and 800 watts of load on the inverter trying to balance the system. As anybody who has tried this knows, the voltage on your primaries is sinking like the Titanic when you try to do this because of the load on the motor and the load on the inverter, so you have to be FAST until you get it balanced.
In both cases I added a load to the inverter and "POW", it smoked like a bad cigar. In the third situation I also had a huge load on the motor and had put a huge load on the inverter that I thought was MORE than what I needed to balance it out. I was REDUCING the load on the inverter. The motor had sped up and I was removing small loads from the inverter to balance the two. I had already removed a few 3 amp bulbs, removed one more and "POW", the inverter smoked. In the final case, which is the voltage regulator, I had it in place to keep the inverter from smoking. I had a huge load on the motor and was adding loads to the inverter and it smoked the regulator. In none of these cases do I know if the device smoked because of voltage input to them or because of amps input to them, but it would have to be one or the other wouldn't it?
The voltage regulator was rated for 60 volts input. I have no idea the amps rating on it or the voltage input limits or amps input limits on the inverters that smoked.
Those are the facts. Any number of theories could be created that those facts could support. You make up your own. I have mine, but it has not been proven or tested. It is just a theory. My THEORY was that when I was adjusting the load and trying to hit that balance point, whether I was adding loads to reach it, or removing loads to reach it, when I hit it, something happened that caused some kind of surge that blew out the inverters and/or the voltage regulators. Whether it was a surge in voltage (it would have had to be a surge of over 60 volts to blow the regulator) or a surge of amps, I do not know, but that is my theory.
Anybody up for toasting some more regulators or inverters? It's an expensive hobby!! Maybe the simplest thing to do would be to use a whole bunch of 12 volt lights you can get from an RV place that sells lights for 12 volt systems instead of an inverter. They screw into a regular socket. Then if there's a surge, you explode some glass or burn out some bulbs. I have a row of those bulbs, but maybe I need to get some more.
But it is that surge that interests me. What is it, and where does it come from? If it is a high voltage surge, it must be over 60 volts. Is it momentary, or can it be sustained? Is it a surge, or is it a pulse that will repeat, or is it a steady flow? Is it an increase in voltage or amps. In either case, where does it come from? It does NOT take much of a voltage increase to blow an inverter. They are not built to have an input much over 12 volts, (in MOST cases) especially the cheap ones I am using. But the voltage regulator I smoked WAS designed to take a high voltage input (60 volts) and take it down to 12 volts, and it too was smoked. If it was an increase in amps OR voltage, why did it happen when I REMOVED loads from the inverter?? That fact led me to suspect the "balance" issue and that when you balance the loads this surge happens.
None of this gets us anywhere until someone else replicates it and until we see if it is more than a single surge. But if you have toasted an inverter, you have already seen what I am talking about.
Dave
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