xantrex XW6048 FE1 (W57) FE2 (W58) warnings - over temperature

pcguy2u

My xantrex XW6048 has been working correctly for a few years now.  Yesterday I received the warning messages FE1 (W57) FE2 (W58) warnings - over temperature, ambient temp was 60f in the garage where the inverter is and there was no load on the inverter.  The unit was continuing to sell to the grid and otherwise acting normally.

Removed the front panels but failed to take a temp reading initially.  When I finally put a spot meter on the upper left capacitor, the temperature was 104f - the manual says the sensors will activate the warning when the temp is above 85c.  85c/185f is huge and a bit confounding.  A few minutes later I put an external fan on the unit and within a minute, the warning disappeared.  This all happened within a period of 5 minutes or so.

Could the manual be wrong and it should possibility read 85f?  That would coincide with my 104f reading.

In any case, since both FE1 and FE2 were over temp, according to the warnings, and the voltage was at 244, it seems that the culprit is the fan (I could be a heat sync, but not both at the same time).  However, the fan is not visible - anyone know where it is or have any experience here?

Many thanks,

Nick

mike95490

I hear the fan turn on in mine occasionally, but not sure if it's at the top or bottom of the chassis. Never got a thermal warning,

Dave Angelini

You do have a 5 year warranty BTW. You definitely should hear the fan in your application. Offgrid the loads are not usually that large that long! You should see the black fan filter screen (clean it) under the red/black DC I/O.

pcguy2u

 

Out of warranty now by a couple of years.  Did some more looking/searching and found the screen which was somewhat rusted and about 50% blocked.  Got it out and cleaned it up.  Removing the screen exposes the fan a few inches above the screen - typical computer fan (maybe one size larger).  Don't know for sure if it's 12V or not and don't know where the thermistor resides so it's a bear to isolate the specific issue for sure.  The fan spins freely and the magnetic influence indicates that it's 12V.

BTW, there's not much space to work in while on your back lying on the battery pack cover.

Yesterday, after being gone for part of the day, I took a reading on the upper left capacitor (it's the hottest of them all by just a bit) and it was 60c/140f and there was no warning.  So I guess the 85c/185f statement in the manual is accurate.

The manual states that the fan is turned on when the internal temp reach 45c and if the 60c/140f  reading is any indication, the fan should have been on, but I couldn't be sure - since I don't know where that test is made, it's hard to tell if the fan should be working or not???  Guess I'm going to pull the fan to see if I can bench test it.

I'll follow this up with the end result.

Dave Angelini

Multi-speed fan BTW and most start spinning with a KW load @75F.  You could "call " support and see what they recommend. Get a case number to e-mail with them. Depending on their staff level they can be hard to e-mail with unless you have a case number.

I have never had one of my XW fans go bad in about 80 apps back to 2006.

Phone: +1 866-519-1470
Email:  re.techsupport@schneider-electric.com

The pix is their mini PDP that can run a couple 100adc fuses for 2 600v mppts and about 12KW of solar. Nice, small and reasonably priced compared to the PDP.

pcguy2u

It seems they no longer provide any support for the XW series inverters, so if you want anything related to fixing it or even just buying parts, you have to send the inverter to one of a few repair centers that know anything about them.  It's probably cheaper to buy a new one, and then you may have some spare parts???

In any case, I assumed the fan was DC and I traced the wire to a board in the lower right corner (I seem to recall it's the communication board) pulled the plug off the board, tested the fan for resistance (7+ Mohms which seems high, but?) and then momentarily applied 12VDC with the polarity suggested by the red and black leads.  No response from the fan.

That seems to coincided with the fan not running as described above, but now I'm leading the witness.  Looking for your thoughts.

Thanks again,

Nick

Dave Angelini

They will support the XW with parts for 10 years minimum. They just won't sell them to you because you are not a dealer. They have had the XW listed for well over a year now as a discontinued product replaced with XW+.

I am curious, you said this was running for 2 years but it is out of warranty. Did you buy it used?

As for my thoughts, become a client and I will help. I would think if you bought this from the store here, they would help you!

Good Luck!

pcguy2u

Purchased new in Sept of 2008 from Northern Arizona Wind & Sun (aren't they the sponsors of this forum?), so what store are you referring to Dave?  Unless CA has some requirement (I thought the CA requirement was 10 years), it's out of warranty.

Have had not so great an experience with Xantrex - in this thread (http://forum.solar-electric.com/discussion/4749/Xantrex-xw6048-fault-f49-dc-over-voltage/p1), the system seemed like the firmware needed a fix and after sending them a white-paper on the logic of my suggestion, they finally sent me a firmware update. My system has been fine since then.  Getting them to do the update seemed to take forever.

As for the fan, I can not get it to turn when powered up and it is a 12VDC fan per the label.  I dug up a couple of other 12VDC fans and they all work correctly.  Moving on now to the cause of the fan failure, which could be because of an improper output from the board, but that seems unlikely.  My thought is to plug my replacement fan in and see what happens as the day goes on.

BTW, I wasn't necessarily asking for thoughts from any one individual.

pcguy2u

After hooking up the right connector to another fan and waiting for the unit to heat up, the new fan works perfectly.  Hopefully when the sun comes up tomorrow, the fan will not be operating, initially.  If so, I will button the whole this up and call it done.

Many thanks for the help,

Nick

mike95490

often, when you dig out the old fan, you can read the mfg code label and obtain an exact replacement, and not have to guess if the fan will draw too much and fry the controller circuit electronics

pcguy2u

The label on the fan only said 12VDC - no reference to watts/amps.  Unfortunately, the new fan slows down but does not turn off - it ran all night, albeit very slowly, like 500+- RPM.  I suspect this is the reason the fan died.

My guess is that the thermistor is giving a false reading and never gets below the 40C benchmark where it's supposed to turn the fan off.  FTR, it was 57f in the garage overnight and the chassis was dead cold to the touch.

Anyone know where the thermistor is located?