Nerd Inverter Design Steriod Food (A Link)
http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-042711-190851/unrestricted/PWM_Techniques_final.pdf
Forum Discussion
Hi,
A wagan review
"Living off grid, I thought it would be a good idea to have a large inverter. This inverter seemed to work fine until summer came on. Any time the air temp got over 100F the inverter would overheat and shut down. Didn't seem to make any difference if it was under large load or practically no load. Cannot reccommend. Too much money for an inverter that only works only in cool weather.
Follow up 18 mos later: The original inverter went up in a shower of sparks and fire that could have easily burned down a house. Fortunately, the inverter was in a metal shipping container so no major damage done. Wagan sent me a new inverter as the original was still under warranty. The replacement sat in dry storage for 6 mos before I needed it. When I unpacked it and wired it into my system it too went up in a ball of fire when I turned it on. Since the replacement was not under warranty I took it apart. The electrical fire had started in a row of power transistors. Could clearly see where the arcs had jumped from the transistor leads to the heat sink bar then to the frame. Couldn't figure out why this would happen until I found water marks on the circuit board that showed the inverter had gotten very wet at some time. As the packing had been multi layers of plastic and the inverter was dry when I opened it, must have been exposed to water at the factory. As the arcing of both of these machines was intense, any surrounding combustible material would likely have been ignited. Poor inverter. Good fire bomb."
A wagan review
"Living off grid, I thought it would be a good idea to have a large inverter. This inverter seemed to work fine until summer came on. Any time the air temp got over 100F the inverter would overheat and shut down. Didn't seem to make any difference if it was under large load or practically no load. Cannot reccommend. Too much money for an inverter that only works only in cool weather.
Follow up 18 mos later: The original inverter went up in a shower of sparks and fire that could have easily burned down a house. Fortunately, the inverter was in a metal shipping container so no major damage done. Wagan sent me a new inverter as the original was still under warranty. The replacement sat in dry storage for 6 mos before I needed it. When I unpacked it and wired it into my system it too went up in a ball of fire when I turned it on. Since the replacement was not under warranty I took it apart. The electrical fire had started in a row of power transistors. Could clearly see where the arcs had jumped from the transistor leads to the heat sink bar then to the frame. Couldn't figure out why this would happen until I found water marks on the circuit board that showed the inverter had gotten very wet at some time. As the packing had been multi layers of plastic and the inverter was dry when I opened it, must have been exposed to water at the factory. As the arcing of both of these machines was intense, any surrounding combustible material would likely have been ignited. Poor inverter. Good fire bomb."
