Inverter Problems

[bobofthenorth]

.... or just give it a good slap.  At the very least it will make you feel better.

[niles500]

Luvr, with your prior (bad) experiences with batts, I would load test them , FWIW

[Dave5Cs]

Clifford also check what it is set too for incoming power. If it is set to 15 amp incoming power and the bus is plugged into 30 amps it may not let the power pass through and then would show overload...

Mine does that if I forget to reset when we come back to the ranch after being on the pole.
Dave5Cs

[Geom]

I have 2-4024SW stacked the way it is wired both need battery power and turned on for the shore power or the generator to work,it is a manual switch gear but 1 will flash the overload on shore power or the generator with nothing on inside the coach. What is up !!!! it works fine for maybe 5 or 10 minutes when I reset it.

They both feed the same circuits if one flashes shouldn't both flash if there is a overload or a short some where ?    

I'm trying to figure out how the two inverters are inter-connected.
On the victrons, for example, you can "combine" the power output of two inverters together, increasing overall capacity. But they have to be synched, internally (usually through some wire and private network/connection).
They definitely would have to synch the AC sine wave or some serious voltage issues could occur; especially since you mentioned they feed the same circuits.

If they feed both circuits, at the same time, then I would assume the hot and the neutral wires (output) from both inverters are connected to the same bus bar inside the coach? If so, then they have to be synched together.
It's possible that one of them is out of sync, or somehow lost contact with the other unit.

If, however, one runs one discrete bar and the other another bar, then one is either seeing too high a load and is trying to power-assist, or is maybe losing input voltage on the incoming 50 amp mains-input-feed.
I would assume, if it is hooked up in this way, then one leg of the 50 amp feed is input for one inverter, and the other leg is an input feed for the other inverter, and they share the same neutral.

Also not sure what switching circuitry you have to decide between shore power and gen input. But it's possible that that switch is having issues.

I'd start off by isolating the two units, one at a time.
I'd unplug the working unit's AC input and test voltage to neutral.
Then I'd try to run the inverter that's acting up. See if it continues to flake out when alone.
Then I'd unplug the bad inverter and test AC voltage to neutral.
Then I'd try swapping the AC inputs around and see if the problem moves with the wire or the unit.

Good luck, HTH,
George

[digesterman]

Clifford check your cooling fan in the one flashing red. I had same thing going on and it turned out the fan, similar to a computer fan, was faulty. It allows fast build up of heat inside inverter which caused my overload light to go on. Factory told me to replace which I did, fixed.

[luvrbus]

I solved the problem when I installed the isolator and solenoid to charge house batteries from the engine alternator I left a cable off all is good now   

[gumpy]

I solved the problem when I installed the isolator and solenoid to charge house batteries from the engine alternator I left a cable off all is good now   

Been there, done that!  Nearly burned my bus up when I moved my batteries. Forgot to reinstall the frame ground. It found a ground through a 14 ga wire to my heater.

Glad you found the problem.

[paul102a3]

I had the same issue with a pair of SW4024. The red overload light would come on from time to time on only one unit. It had nothing to do with loads on the inverter as the coach was in the garage with everything turned off other than the fridge. I had to reset the inverter each time to get it back online. Over time, the frequency of overload errors increased until one day it wouldn't reset. Replaced it with a new (old stock) unit and never had the problem again. No other changes were made when I swapped units, same batteries, same connections, etc.

The overload error had something to do with the charging side of the inverter. All of my errors would occur after a power outage. The SW4024 goes into charging mode everytime there is a drop in shore power. There is no way to "shut off" the charging cycle on a SW unit. The best you can do is reduce the charging amps to 1 amp (which I did) but the overload error would still come on.

In my case it took about 6 months from when it first started showing the overload to complete failure. Called several repair facilities that still worked on the SW series and was told that diagnostics and repair could go as high as $2,000. Not wanting to invest that much into an already 10 year old inverter, I replaced it with NOS.

[daddysgirl]

I was going to ask if you had double checked the connections, and the inside of the plug connections, but I didn't want to ask a dumb question.
So glad you found it

[daveola]

You forget about load sharing. If the load is greater than the incoming power, it will supplement from the battery bank.

Unfortunately on the SW4024s it doesn't actually load share, it switches over completely to battery power if you try to draw more than the shore.  I would be much happier if it actually split the load.

And someone else mentioned setting the inbound current too high (such as having it set to 30A and then hooking up to 15A) - not a problem as that setting is just a max at which it stops drawing current.

[gumpy]

Unfortunately on the SW4024s it doesn't actually load share, it switches over completely to battery power if you try to draw more than the shore.  I would be much happier if it actually split the load.

SW4024 does load share. If the load is greater than the incoming limit, it's supplements with battery. It does not switch completely to battery.