Author Topic: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked  (Read 19652 times)

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Offline sean

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #15 on: December 07, 2014, 11:52:22 pm »
If you don't trust myself to do this, then... there a problem there is the ban me from buying off them as i give bad feedback so i may have to get friend to try fix it as i never done this kind of work before i have to sit with a web cam with you on how to fix it but i don't think you have to time to do that for a person you dont know and i hate to ask that from you i be a pain sorry

one more thing your not a sales guy from this power jack group are you? as i read your post on it before i buy mine off ebay you mad it sound so good so i got on this one then i see techitout blow hes one and i was thinking gee hope mine dont die like hes did then the very next day mine blow how unlucky am i

Offline oztules

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #16 on: December 08, 2014, 01:36:12 am »
Hehe.... no definatley not a power jack man.... but I do admire the electronics of the board and chip as an inverter.

If you read all the stuff I have written on these things, it will always be.... great inverter, needs a few tweaks to make it MY inverter, but I have told it as I have found it.

I have blown up three or four in the time I have played with them.... never have I blown one from normal use as an inverter, and I have done some grievous things when testing out the original one... It has copped a few repairs, but once when I shoved a chrome temp probe between the mother board and the heat sink... bang....
Then somehow I managed to do it again... as if I hadn't learnt the first time.

But the other two were both when I used it as a battery charger, and when I turned it off.... bang. First time I thought it was dumb luck, second time I'm gun shy from using it in that fashion.

It has been rehoused, bigger transformer, and is being driven way above the power jack recommendations, and has never looked like failing with any load thrown at it. It behaves like the grid, can't say enough good things about the mother board and power board... but only as an inverter. It can run the hotwater, jug, water pumps, and the fridge, 700 liter freezer and tv and wall warts... in other words the house.... and never gets hot even.... happy as hell.

I will never use it as a charger again, or a UPS... no matter what they claim


How did you blow yours up?

I am on an island in Bass Strait, and our "grid" to use the term loosely,is forever dropping out... now I am off grid, that has not happened. Tas Hydro has a tough time with our windy conditions.... so do the trees.

People turned up, so will finish this later.

........ oztules
Flinders Island...... Australia

Offline sean

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #17 on: December 08, 2014, 02:01:43 am »
wow the bad units you see on ebay they are more peolpe with blown inverters.
The seller relist them then they tell the person that like there money back to send it to the person that buys it. and you have to pay postage for this to hate to see a guy buy it from usa lol
 i just got told from the seller they need 3 days to sell my bad unit to sell then the sell the part to who buys it.
 i just seen a bad unit go for $153 plus $100 p&h to someone there must be alot of them out there in a AUS just to let you know guys as you guys know how to fix them be ok for you guys you may end up with my blown inverter 

 or up for sale is my bad unit what i payed for $480 plus you pay postage lol  jokes i just like a working inverter this is getting to me sorry to be a pain again i'm not good at this it pays to go in a shop to buy gear so can take it back

oztube it be ok if i give you my teamspeak so we can have a change to let you know how i ended up here thats if you use teamspeak or do you have skype?

I had problem with charging 1st so i stopped using it as one but know i have no inverter  would you beleave me that under 100w of christmas lights killed my inverter so a low load can kill them even but i did use it on a aircon for 3 of the hot days we had last week use 888w the most i seen from the aircon and that was only for 3 to 4 hrs each day all i can run for a i dont take my batterys under 12v my solar tracker runs only 3x 200w 12v panels on it so i dont have alot of solar yet.


i love to live on island next door to oztules that way can knock on he door ask for help and hope hes a beer man to have a drink with him

Offline oztules

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #18 on: December 08, 2014, 04:00:25 am »
Is this a 12v unit?

Scary current you have for those voltages. 1kw will be near 100 amps... hope you have plenty of battery...... 8kw = 800 amps..... cant imagine that...

Anyway, not they don't die from low power... or high power either from my experience.... only silliness or turning off grid when in charge mode.

The only other thing I can see is over heat, but thats hard to believe at 100w of chrissy lights.... very unusual.

That leaves poor connections.... quite possible, as I have said many times, quality control is not their strong point. A poor connection can lead to HV inductive sparks in the wrong circuit...



I don't skype or anything else broad band... we have a wet piece of string for an internet connection to the mainland 200kms away.

It it has gone back further than the drivers, your into the main chip, and this is not recoverable..

I have had this happen with a W7 inverter, but it was due to a spider, dying and smearing it's bodily fluids underneath the 20 pin connector... and it then shorted between the 60v rail and the data line, under the plastic connector land.... bye bye W7.....

My experience though is that they really are tough..... but no way would I guarantee PJ workmanship.. but still less than $500 for a 4000w unit is not too bad either....but you need to QC it yourself from the looks.

I notice about 300 for sale on Ebay, and 2 bad ones for sale.....I wonder if that means 150:1 good to bad?? I tried to buy one but missed out a few months back.... They didn't have it as it turned out, and gave me two 15kw control cards instead.... happy me. ( same as all the rest really, but different software set points, and heavier current transformer..... and much much longer ribbons.,.... just saves using current bypass wire to get up in the 8000w mark on a normal board.


...........oztules





Flinders Island...... Australia

Offline sean

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #19 on: December 08, 2014, 05:41:35 am »
here i found more burnt marks on this little board not sure if i buy the part for $179 o ebay then i still have this to deal with and not sure as cant see any numbers on it all burnt up

Offline JustinJ

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #20 on: December 08, 2014, 05:55:34 am »
Hi oztules,

I am a mate of Sean above and I am a junior electronics man (even though I am 37 :) ).  I am guessing the photo above is the control board and its cooked.  How do we check if the main chip is damaged?  I am guessing from your statement its not fixable if this is gone.

One of the mosFETS is totally char grilled as well (along with the control board as shown).

Justin.

Offline sean

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #21 on: December 08, 2014, 07:20:17 am »
Is this a 12v unit?

yes it is 12v i know i know i get it all the time up the volts

Scary current you have for those voltages. 1kw will be near 100 amps... hope you have plenty of battery...... 8kw = 800 amps..... cant imagine that...
i have 5x200ah ac delco all linked with 50mm weilding cable yes i have 1000ah

Anyway, not they don't die from low power... or high power either from my experience.... only silliness or turning off grid when in charge mode.
never did that

hes the thing i 1st got it i had my battery bank down to 12.1v so i said i try the charger out 1st turn it to number 4 on the charger for lead batt then turn it on and seen 2500w on the screen on the inverter thinking to myself thats high hope i dont kill my batteries hope comes down on watts and then the alarm went off and it turn itself off so i let it cool down turn on again and went to 1750w then charge fine then on so i tested it with aircon in bed room run fine used it that night with ac kick in and out next day i tryed to charge again seen 2500w again and over heat and turn off again so i send email to seller told her what it was doing she said was normal to turn off safe mod she said so i got on skype with her with my webcam and show her what it was doing for the 3rd time charger over heat turn of  i said it cant be right so i ask for her to ask the tech if it can turn the charger down so it don't over heat  and she said she ask and get back to me and never did so i give bad feedback to seller saying (charger over heats they said was normal, stay away) so i new if i use charger it kill my batteries or charger over cook and inverter die so i stop using the charger never again i said so only solar from then on as on the meter on it i used $2 on power so new it not change if i used the power just keep going up i used $6 all up on the meter and stopped working long way off the $480 cost me 
this inverter run fine it run washing machine fine 6 loads 360w max and the vacum cleaner fine 2 times 15min each time 2000w max and microwave fine for 3 mins don't rember the watts for that but worked fine the big test for it was my aircon i plug it in and its only 888watts most i seen it get to the fan come on some time then turn off i run it for 3hrs one day then and 4 hours 2 day and about the same on the 3rd day and that's it all plug in one at a time the morning it died the missus put a load of washing on work fine then not used all day was that night i pulled the chissy lights out and one at a time i plug in to see what the watt went up each set of lights and i got to the last set and she stopped working, walk in to see the smoke and alarm going off turn it off as i never seen the smoke like that was thinking it go on fire next so got on ebay next day till seller and she said i have no warranty as i give the bad feedback and there it is sorry long read again
 
The only other thing I can see is over heat, but  that's hard to believe at 100w of chrissy lights.... very unusual.
each time i come under to see the watts on the meter on the screen on the inverter i got up to 80w the fan never even come on thats why i say 100w of light 

That leaves poor connections.... quite possible, as I have said many times, quality control is not their strong point. A poor connection can lead to HV inductive sparks in the wrong circuit...

just my luck i get a bad one


I don't skype or anything else broad band... we have a wet piece of string for an internet connection to the mainland 200kms away.

maybe if you like to look at the last teamspeak 2 i still run a teamspeak 2 server and have a solar room there for talking maybe some thing you like to look in to talk with your mates and also all members of this website its real good on net can talk fine on old dial up net so it be fine for all users i also have teamspeak 3 server as will i happy to open them up to all members to your site to chat on inverters and power needs even wind as i'm in to wind generators

all you need is a cheap headset to use

 bet you get the wind down there mate i just lost a blade on my 1kw wind gen in a storm last week with 3 solar panels and some of my roof got to fix the wind gen know and this inverter

It it has gone back further than the drivers, your into the main chip, and this is not recoverable..

hope it not that bad

ok i have a mate he alot better at fixing things like this i just fix car motors ,hes better then i am i have to get him to talk with you i say he be doing the work on this  inverter to try get it working again as i was just going to buy a w7 and you just put me back again not sure on what to do getting me down or you think a W7 be fine for me long a the spiders stay away from it lol

Offline oztules

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #22 on: December 08, 2014, 09:46:00 am »
The W7 is a much better quality controlled version of the PJ..... but and it is a very big BUT...... the transformers in the W7 do not allow you to bring the idle current down.
On the 48v unit, this means losing around 4amps@50v or 200w or more usually that you don't get back.

On a 12v unit I have not heard what the idle currents are for an 8000w stack of transformer......but it would have to be similar, as the amount of iron to magnetize is the same, but the voltage is lower. As amp turns deliver the magnetising field,  so you think you may do better than the 200w... but probably not, as the turns are only 1/4 of the 48v version, so the current should go up to about 16amps... but I have not seen  or measured the 12v version.

A story i did here: http://www.anotherpower.com/board/index.php/topic,780.0.html
The relevant circuits are there too.

You will get the idea, that the W7 needs much more in the way of conversion to get useful operation out of it.

The good thing with the W7..... is you do get the power they claim, and the charger seems to work more smoothly... thanks to the lossy transformers I suspect.

They are essentially the same cards, resistor for resistor etc etc. slightly different programming parameters.

I like the W7 as an honest workhorse. If you are going to run it very hard for short periods where the idle won't catch up with you, they are very nice.... otherwise you stand to lose 4-5kwh just turning it on for 24 hours... big big drawback.

I will answer your friends questions on here or Personal Message me when he is in need of advise, but I don't wish to tie myself to the computer for verbal discourse.
If he is a techy, then the circuits on here will give him the help he needs, if he is not a techy type, he will probably not fare too well, as they  are intricate on the mother board.... and will need soldering skills of some experience... very fine work, but not difficult technically.

If you run amok, we will see what else we can do.


.................oztules
Flinders Island...... Australia

Offline JustinJ

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #23 on: December 08, 2014, 06:30:44 pm »
Thanks for your help oztules.

The company selling the PJ is being very unco-operative, so playing the threaten / response game at the moment to hopefully get them to send us some spare parts.  If that fails then I will pull unit apart and see what seems blown (apart from control board and obvious cooked FET).

I am not bad at electronics, but I don't have the time to learn troubleshooting on circuits.  If someone points a finger and says replace that, I can do it.  I find analog a bit of a drag actually (although I respect it) its just not for me.  I am a programmer by trade, and live in microcontrollers and the minimal circuits I require to talk to A/D devices I might need.

So I know what a transformer/mosfet/resistor/cap/ind/optocoupler etc etc is, but if you asked me to design an inverter - I can't do it.  If you asked me to modify one electrically on paper - I can't do it (I could wind a transformer, but don't intend to do that). 

Also if its not something simple (like a nut bolt, lose wire, or short etc) I can't diagnose why something would blow up (like this one).

Justin.

Offline oztules

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #24 on: December 08, 2014, 10:08:25 pm »
ok Justin, you should be able to handle this then.... it is simple stuff, and if it dosent work, nothing you will ever do will get it to go.... but i expect $30 or so worth of parts will do it.

We are not going to trouble shoot, just replace the active components in the out put stages.
We only need to buy the opto's ( on net)
then the two types of pnp and npn transistors
24 fets IRFP4110  ( less than a dollar each, I just bought 400 for less than a dollar each for a different project ( solar water pumping BLDC motors)
and 24 resistors.. I replace all the fets and resistors on the power board....no matter how well they test.. for the few cents, it is time well spent.

The circuits here http://www.anotherpower.com/board/index.php/topic,780.0.html

Will give you the part numbers for the transistors and the opto ( you will still be able to read that anyway, the IRFP4110 fets and the resistors 51r or thereabouts ( I have heaps of that size... so use it instead of the original 46 I think) the blown surface mounts are the 2sa1213-y and 2sc2873-y ( SOT89)

The little transistors will be the problem, as they have probably burnt the board and ruined it... but if you use a circuit drill to clean it up, you can re-track ( messily) and get it going... or you can use through hole ones, and use the long legs to some advantage.

equivalent through holes are 2sa1020 and 2sc2655... I think , 2A 50v.

After that it will probably work fine again.
Look carefully at where the fet legs go, there may be erosion between the pads the lands.

and thats it.
Disassembly and assembly will cost the most time.
Cut the legs off the fets, and take the legs out independently, and the resistors the same way is easiest by far.  Double sided boards with large copper areas are hard to unsolder all at once... even with a sucker I think.

Generally thats all we have to do. I have seen the power supply chip fail, 3842 pwm  chip,and some zeners on the high side power supply /s that drive the opto's.They will fail short if they are causing a problem, and test like a normal diode if not. .....


You should be good to go.... darn cheap to fix when you have to.
"
Also if its not something simple (like a nut bolt, lose wire, or short etc) I can't diagnose why something would blow up (like this one)."........... me neither. These things are terribly robust if used only as an inverter..... why that one blew.... I can't begin to guess..... and certainly under virtually no load... check for loose power wiring to and from the transformer and battery inputs.... even the input terminals from the battery, and battery cables to terminals etc etc.... looking for a spike.....

Just remembered, your fets are different... your are only 12v ones... take the numbers from them... irfp4110 are for 48v units... will do 24v too apparently.


...............oztules
Flinders Island...... Australia

Offline JustinJ

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #25 on: December 09, 2014, 05:07:33 am »
BOOM!

And THAT is exactly the help I was looking for :)  The FETs on this 12V one 190A - 80V ones (will get the part number, but local suppliers don't have them).  Trying to get something similar.  From RS Australia/Element14 the FETs will be around $2.6 for cheapest.  Do you the thing irfp4110 would work (180A - 100V) or should we stick with the 80V (I have found a 214A one at this voltage- $4.6 each though!)

I will check the burn out on the control board see how bad it is, but I am handy at fixing circuit boards...the circuit diagrams will definately help here.

Thanks again :)

Offline oztules

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #26 on: December 09, 2014, 01:48:55 pm »
the 4110 is probably good enough for your purposes. I thought they had higher capacity ones for 12v
What is the part number they use in yours.

If it's rds on  is not much  better than the 4110, then that is the way to go.

I bought plenty of those, and the driver trannies and the opto's. If you have trouble sourcing, I can make up a rescue package.......$2.60 is a bit rich for fets when you need 24 of them.... starting to get too expensive just to see if...

I will admit, the current in a 12v system scares the hell out of me... driving huge amps through those tiny fet legs.... makes me shiver.... but I guess they work. For the topology, I think they should not offer a 8000w peak unit@12v... I would limit it to 2kw... maybe 3.... and that is still a lot of amps.

At 48v when I'm using 4000-5000 watts, I am still only in the 100 amp range.... more my comfort zone.... and then still only 6 fets per leg...... looking at the leg wires..... don't know how they survive, but they do.

The 180 amps for the 4110 is the  silicon limited amount ( continuous), but   the package limit , it is about 120a...(continuous)
Pulsed drain current can be 670amps, and dissipation max is  370 watts. rdson typical is 3.7milliohm... not bad for a 100v device.

 we'll look at the spec sheets for yours when you give me the numbers... have not played at 12v before... as you may have guessed.

............oztules

EDIT I mentioned irfp4110... that should read IRFB4110.... the P version is to247 and the B version is TO220... the 247 version is too big physically... my bad.   

So look for IRFB4110 not the IRFP4110.

example:.. you will need to cut and paste the whole thing, as the auto thing here will not do the whole address.
 http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_odkw=irfp4110&_from=R40|R40|R40|R40|R40&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xirfb4110&_nkw=irfb4110&_sacat=0
Flinders Island...... Australia

Offline JustinJ

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #27 on: December 09, 2014, 07:56:46 pm »
From memory and search on eBay (america) - I think they are RU190N08.  $8US for 5 :) much better.  So much more on US ebay for this stuff.

Offline oztules

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #28 on: December 09, 2014, 10:35:51 pm »
looks like $8 USD for 5units  is about 2 AUD a piece....... bit expensive by twice....or $40USD for 25units
They look like 180a 80v 4.5mohm.... looks like the 4110 would do fine.
Can't read the Chinese to see the power dissipation.

However looks like this would do as well at half the price.... 25 units for $29AUD
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/25-pcs-IRFB4110-FB4110-POWER-MOSFET-Transistor-TO-220-LI-/131191694960?pt=AU_B_I_Electrical_Test_Equipment&hash=item1e8ba26670

............oztules
Flinders Island...... Australia

Offline sean

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Re: power jack lf8000/48v blew up and smoked
« Reply #29 on: December 10, 2014, 07:34:47 am »
i got it apart and to find the red wires lose as if i had of tightened the screw 2 more turns i maybe have a working inverter still hey? here i am thinking i lose my warranty if i looked in side it.

also is this  the numbers you guys are after UV190N08R  i think  and one blow with black smoke burnt up and one just like good it open but not burnt

and the little board burnt up the whit chip don't look in right not sure was see on the new parts 

thanks for the help guys          Sean......