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Chinese inverters on ebay

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jack11:
there is a whole bunch of chinese inverters listed on ebay, the ones displayed by the playboy bunnies.

see for example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/220990186480?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

500 to 8000W power levels, 12 and 24 Vdc, 110 and 220 Vac, pure sine wave output, and cheap, some about $0.08/W.

the name of the outfit that makes them is not listed.

I got a hold of the user's manual, they are extremely detailed in explaining how to repair the mosfets, diodes, resistors, etc in their troubleshooting guide (perhaps because they break all the time).

I don't want to be the fist sucker to fall for what possibly may be a piece of junk. On the other hand, this may be a product comparable in quality to say Harbor Freight inverters that I have had some luck with (also from China).

Has anyone bought any of these before, and if so then can you provide feedback?

Wolvenar:
Well, even one of the big name inverters are made in China now. (Xantrax) or that is Schneider Electric as its now named.

oztules:
I have heard mixed reviews of the power jack inverters. I have had some experience with their grid tie inverters which I purchased just to see how they worked.

It was not long into testing that I noticed the capacitors starting to "leak"... which surprised me some. Obviously the ripple killed them quickly. I don't know how that equates to their normal inverters.

Chinese stuff ranges from the excellent to the poor, and price is not the only indicator. I bought a 6000w 18000watt surge inverter as can be seen here: http://www.anotherpower.com/board/index.php/topic,780.msg7498.html#msg7498

As explained, it is very hungry on idle without modification, but apart from that is a very sturdy device for off grid applications.

For the money, the power jack style does not seem  like  a kings ransom to find out, but gee.... I would look at the filter caps early on in it's service to see how they fare.

People seem to be unaware of just how damaging ripple is to caps. A few years from now there will be a lot of grid tie inverters being fixed or tossed because of just this.... and most other newer devices like LCD LED and plasma tv's. .........Starting to see a few now even here. In nearly every case, the caps start to fail, and take the pwm chips with them....... mostly chips I have never heard of before too....

I would not know what to recommend in this space, but it will have something to do with how your using it....permanent or spasmodic.

I trust the "heavy low frequency inverters" far more than the HF inverters...... plus you get galvanic isolation of the output from the input via a meaty transformer, and the circuitry seems easier to follow and the switching is done before the transformer.... gives a bit of "give" in wicked conditions.

The HF switching ones do the H bridge switching after the isolation, and seem a bit more prone to fizzle with different loads without good reason.... they are exposed directly to the load.

One rule to note: Try your best to keep the unit cool. Caps last much much much longer at cooler temps. They are the weak link, assuming the circuit is sound to start with.


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

Edit. PS:  I have it on fairly good authority... that I would not be allowed to keep the bunnies.... she said so :'( :'(

Wolvenar:
I am not sure how it relates to inverter applications, but besides the heavy ripple,
China seems to be still making or at least shipping devices with extremely inferior caps.

The problem that started in the 90s has not been fixed.
I have seen more just plain bad caps out there than I care to keep track of, most are just by age break down without the device ever seeing use.
At the same rate I have a few devices that are only months old with capacitor troubles already in a circuit that shouldn't.

Premature leaky caps can be bad caps, poorly designed circuits, or just hostile environments, so it's always a case by case of course.

More info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague


Side note:
For anyone interested,  the Dish VIP922 is one device that widely and invariably suffers this fate.
If you own and want to keep this model of receiver, your only working solution is to replace all the electrolytic caps in it yourself.
Otherwise Dish will replace it with "The Hopper"

I should do a post on how to repair and tweak this receiver someday.

oztules:
Very interesting article... and powerjack is from Taiwan  (Republic of China).......Maybe buy the unit and replace the caps early on, then maybe a good deal... who knows with these things.
Thanks for the read.



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

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