The death of an inverter

[Rick Brown]

My Heart (now Xantrex) Freedom 25 inverter/charger quietly quit both charging and inverting.  The tech said "both boards are bad and $800+ to repair."
It doesn't make a lick of sense for me to spend that kind of money on a device subject to such expensive failures.  Thus, I am going to replace the inverter/charger (24 Volt system) with two boxes.  About 2500 Watts for the inverter and 1000 for the charger.
My question: Do you recommend the unit(s) you own and what are they?
You can sign me up as a negative reference for Heart/Xantrex.
Thanks for anything you offer.
-Rick Brown in Reno

[H3Jim]

I have the trace 4024.  very happy with it. I've had it for several years and its always worked flawlessly and done everything I've needed it to.

[TomC]

I have an older Trace 2500watt with adjustable 130amp charger (I have it set at 85amps now with the AGM batteries).  Zero problems, just works the way it is supposed to.  Good Luck, TomC

[Stan]

I had one of the first inverter/chargers built by Heart, with bipolar transistors. When a transistor failed after a few years, the parts were no longer available. Heart offered to send me a new model inverter at what I considered a very reasonable price. It was not my fault that it failed and it was not their fault that the part was not available. They gave me a very fair deal in the interest of company PR. The next bus I converted got a 2500 watt Trace inverter/charger that was still working when I sold the buss after nine years.

I expect Xantrex has different policies than either Heart or Trace. You can spend your money and take your chances, get advice from other users or research it yourself. You are still faced with the problem that the company may no longer be in business if you need them.

[buswarrior]

Hello

I echo H3Jim.

Trace 4024 and very happy with it.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[jjrbus]

I have had for 5 years a Trace/Zantrex DR3624 (modified sinewave) Three stage battery charger built in, about $800.  I find it odd that both boards in your inverter would go bad at the same time? Maybe you should research the cause befor shelling out more money. Lightning strike, power surge, wireing crossed?

[ol713]

Hi;
     I also have a Trace inverter.  (before Xantrax)  Have had no problems
     in over 10yrs.    Guess our vote is Trace mostely.
                           Good luck,   Merle.

[pvcces]

Rick, we've had two failures with black case Heart 32 volt units. The first was repaired by Xantrex, no charge, and the second was a "no longer supported". Both were built when Heart was Heart.

I believe that the second failed because I disconnected the NEGATIVE cable while the inverter was on. While both power supplies still worked, the charger and inverter both died quietly.

There is a warning in the Link manual to never disconnect the NEGATIVE battery cable before shutting off the inverter and disconnecting the positive cable first. This is backwarks of the common advice today of disconnecting the negative first on cars and other vehicles. Treat inverter equipment as the exception to the rule.

We currently run one black case and one white case, both 2500 VA, one 12 and one 24 volt. We've had no problems with either.

While I'm not too fond of trying to deal with Xantrex, it's really hard to beat the bang for the buck you can get for $500 to $600 off of eBay, especially if you have any need of power sharing. This lets you use small shore power sources effectively, such as an extension cord, and it can't be done with separate pieces.

By the way, if you were ever hooked up to a long extension cord, and the microwave was being difficult because of the voltage drop, disconnecting the shore power while you run the microwave works really nicely. This applies to people without a power supplementing inverter, not those folks with the good Trace units.

For what it's worth.

Tom Caffrey

[Rick Brown]

Here's the final analysis and plan.  The "both boards bad $800" diagnosis tells me the man who looked at it didn't know what was wrong (replace everything and it will probably work diagnosis).  But he may be correct, so the Heart has gone to the bone yard.  It never got along well with the generator anyway so, if you don't count the money, it isn't that great a loss.

I found a 6, 12, 18 24Volt 30Amp shop grade charger with 200Amp start boost at McMaster Carr in LA (the world's greatest hardware store) for around $280.  That fit in nicely and doesn't give the generator fits.  I've seen any number of 1500 - 2000W inverter only devices for a dime to a quarter per Watt.  1800W will run all I have plus one air conditoner.  So one of those is going in now and a second (for the other air cond) will go in if I ever feel the need to run both ACs while driving.

Thanks for all of your comments.
-Rick Brown in Reno, NV

[jjrbus]

Thanks for letting us know the outcome