Trace SW 4024 Crash, Help needed ASAP

Dave Angelini

Re: Trace SW 4024 Crash, Help needed ASAP

solorone wrote: »

many parts are not available. The guy in California has quit working on them. there is someone in Jersey and NC, that might do it, but I guess it would not be wise to sink 600/800$ in shipping and repair into an 11 YO unit.:frown:

Was this Robert in Richmond Ca.? If so he was great and always had parts and loaners for me. I never went inside the SW's as they were not easy enough, for me... The XW's are designed for Field Service. Nice modules and not as daunting to look at. You should go to their site and check out the video of the system if you have a high speed connection.

solorone

Re: Trace SW 4024 Crash, Help needed ASAP

halfcrazy wrote: »

I could not imagine even thinking of buying a new inverter till I new what was wrong. The SW has 2 separate ac inputs so even if one was flaky the other should work I would think. I still say generator issues and I would be testing simple things before I dump 3 grand or better on an inverter and set there embarrassed when it did the same thing.

That is my 2 cents but in today's economy that's pretty useless.

I did swap inputs to no avail, something mechanical happened inside the trace. The dull thunk.


"thats pretty useless" How so???
If you live off grid you must be prepared for such failures, this is why I will not use the new higher voltage controllers.

I normally kept a extra inverter around, but let my last 2412 go to a old customer, also off grid. Never got around to buying a backup. a lot of stuff happened the last 4 years, and my PV system fell off my radar, but it just kept ticking along. I did make a bad mistake not buying another SW4024

I will remedy that. Some people live where they do regardless of cost, 2k or 3K stashed in storage is money in the bank.

If the trace had not come back I would have had a new one aired in today. Rain was in the forecast and a house full of company this weekend.

niel

Re: Trace SW 4024 Crash, Help needed ASAP

solorone,
i have to sidetrack here for one moment on your signature line saying " Help save earth, it's the only planet with chocolate". as my wife would say, "cute saying", but i'd like to know how it is you know that no other planet has chocolate on it. was it because you visited them all to know?:p

solorone

Re: Trace SW 4024 Crash, Help needed ASAP

niel wrote: »

solorone,
i have to sidetrack here for one moment on your signature line saying " Help save earth, it's the only planet with chocolate". as my wife would say, "cute saying", but i'd like to know how it is you know that no other planet has chocolate on it. was it because you visited them all to know?:p

Yes! Before Spock died, he whispered to me the secret of folding time.;)

clivejo

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but the PDF posted has been very help in the past. and there seems to be a number of very knowledge people here.  Firstly, I'm in Europe so nominal voltage is 230VAC @ 50Hz

I have a Trace SW3048E which was working great until a few nights ago.  It is programmed to connect to the grid and charge the batteries using off-peak electric.  On the 25th June I noticed that the inverter had not connected to the grid and my batteries were very low due to some heavy loads being powered by the batteries, rather than pass-thru from the grid.  I monitor the grid health and could find no reason why the inverter was not connecting to grid.  The next morning I check the inverter at 6am and the grid light was flashing, I measured the voltage, at the grid input at 239V @ 50Hz.  However, when going into meters display on the inverter, the measured voltage on grid was ranging between 80-130, way below the inverter range of 200-250.  I hooked the grid up to the gen input and it was doing the same.  So I disconnected both AC inputs and just powered the loads via the battery.

Yesterday morning the inverter was making strange noises so I shut it down and opened the covers to see if there was any obvious issues (previous failures have been caused by insects etc.)  but nothing visually wrong that I can see.  I reconnected the battery and noticed that the clunk didn't sound quite right on power up.  So I monitored the voltage on both relays while powering up.  While the grid relay clicks on and off, the gen relay seems to be staying engaged and is feeding the inverter output back in the generator input.  If I put a 100w light bulb across the gen input, and turn on the inverter it lights up!  If I leave the inverter on, it starts to make this weird noise, it's like it is trying to sync itself to itself!

The issue seems to be the control board, engaging the gen relay, but what could be causing this behaviour?  The initial problem, I  am guessing is the voltage sensors on Grid & Gen inputs were faulty (yet the inverter sensor seems to be functioning fine).

Does anyone have a diagram of how the control board functions?

littleharbor2

I could understand power at the AC in terminals, in Sell mode but not at the Gen input.  Can you go into the menus and do a factory reset?  Do you think that might help?

 Do you have a manual for this inverter. Pretty sure the diagrams are in there

clivejo

littleharbor2 said:

I could understand power at the AC in terminals, in Sell mode but not at the Gen input.  Can you go into the menus and do a factory reset?  Do you think that might help?

 Do you have a manual for this inverter. Pretty sure the diagrams are in there

For the inverter to engage these two relays, it MUST be in sync and voltage matched, otherwise there will be magic smoke.  I have reset the unit and left it powered down (disconnected from battery) over night.

I have a bunch of manuals from different models, and none of them go into the technical detail I need.  I made another post prior to this and uploaded some photos, but it must have been deleted.

Dave Angelini

You should really start a new topic. You have a better chance of getting what you need.
I use to install these back in the day. It is very much long, long out of support. There was a troubleshooting tree and manual from Trace and then Xantrex for the old SW's. 

 I wish I still had it but there was very little on the Euro model as they sold very few of them, from my memory, I believe. 

littleharbor2

clivejo said:

littleharbor2 said:

I could understand power at the AC in terminals, in Sell mode but not at the Gen input.  Can you go into the menus and do a factory reset?  Do you think that might help?

 Do you have a manual for this inverter. Pretty sure the diagrams are in there

For the inverter to engage these two relays, it MUST be in sync and voltage matched, otherwise there will be magic smoke.  I have reset the unit and left it powered down (disconnected from battery) over night.

I have a bunch of manuals from different models, and none of them go into the technical detail I need.  I made another post prior to this and uploaded some photos, but it must have been deleted.

Don't know if this would help till you find the cause of the problem, but you can still find a lot of the circuit boards for these inverters on eBay.
Scroll down this page for mor options.
Xantrex/Trace SWPlus4024 Control Board NEW | eBay

clivejo

Is there some kind of moderation? Some of my posts are not getting through

Dave Angelini

Yes Bill is the moderator/Admin

https://forum.solar-electric.com/profile/512/BB.

You can message him below
https://forum.solar-electric.com/messages/add/BB.

clivejo

littleharbor2 said:

I could understand power at the AC in terminals, in Sell mode but not at the Gen input.  Can you go into the menus and do a factory reset?  Do you think that might help?

 Do you have a manual for this inverter. Pretty sure the diagrams are in there

The inverter has been reset and disconnected from the batteries for hours at a time now and still the main control board is completing the circuit for the Gen relay to be energised  The only time this relay SHOULD be closed in is when the inverter circuitry is in sync with the gen input and it is being used to charge the battery. If I was actually feeding this input with power (ie from the grid) it would blow the inverter up.

I have the manuals but they are nowhere near the level I need to figure this out.  The attached PDF diagram has helped me in the past (Post #4 by RCinFLA ).  I have snipped wire #33 on the ribbon cable and the inverter is working and outputting 230VAC as per specs.  

I am afraid to connect up the Grid to it in-case it suddenly decides to energise the Grid relay and release the magic smoke! There is no logical reason for the GEN relay to be engaged!  I might snip the Grid wire #34 too, just to be sure it doesn't start to feed the inverter output back to itself again like how it was doing on GEN side.

clivejo

littleharbor2 said:

Don't know if this would help till you find the cause of the problem, but you can still find a lot of the circuit boards for these inverters on eBay.
Scroll down this page for mor options.
Xantrex/Trace SWPlus4024 Control Board NEW | eBay

The FET board is actually quite new.  It was bought in 2011 and was still in its protective packaging until about 6 months ago when I was testing a control board which turned out to be faulty and it blew the wee fuse on the FET board.  As I had to strip the entire unit down to get at the fuse, I decided to install the new FET board and replace the fuse and keep older one as spare. The main control board is the newest of the 2 I have as spares.

As I mentioned on my blocked/deleted post, I have found the PDF file on post #4 very useful and was hoping that someone might have a diagram for the main control board.  I have snipped one of the wires on the ribbon cable to prevent the gen relay from closing and the unit is no longer putting inverter generated output feeding to the Gen input.

clivejo

Dave Angelini said:

You should really start a new topic. You have a better chance of getting what you need.
I use to install these back in the day. It is very much long, long out of support. There was a troubleshooting tree and manual from Trace and then Xantrex for the old SW's. 

 I wish I still had it but there was very little on the Euro model as they sold very few of them, from my memory, I believe. 

I know, but I was hoping to connect with the person who posted #4 and supplied the diagram of the IO board in the hope that there are diagrams for the control board.

On the contrary, there was a lot of them sold in Ireland and Scotland for remote locations with hydro or wind turbines and having fixed a few in my time people have contacted me with broken ones which I break down and use for parts/spares. My first one was in 1997 for a Proven wind turbine and if treated right can give many years of service.

BB.

Good evening,

Yes, your posts where stick in the spam queue--probably because of the new poster filter.

I have restored your posts, and it should not happen again.

Sincerely,

Bill "moderator" B.

Dave Angelini

https://forum.solar-electric.com/messages/add/RCinFLA

You can message him above. He is on here from time to time. My comment on the Euro models is based on what I  heard from Sales folks. I do not have any data but for a market to thrive there has to be more than people reselling used electronics. Good Luck !

clivejo

Thanks Dave, I have sent a message via that link.

That's true, but these Trace later Xantrex/Schneider Electrics units were built to last, unlike the "cheap" (in quality and price) compared to modern tat that is on the market these days which honestly look like they are designed to fail when you take a look into how they work!

Even with this current fault I have on my unit, it is still able to power my home.  Thankfully there is plenty of solar energy being put into the batteries, so happy to snip the two relays which disables the ability to charge from AC sources.

Dave Angelini

You could buy an external charger. Most of these old SW's are for sale because the relays are shot. People sell them and I end up telling a client to get rid of it. Most do not have the talent to replace worn out electronics.

All I use is XW and know what you mean. When it was first put up for sale in 2005 by Xantrex, the development team named it Xantrex Wins or XW.  A 78 pound Toroid, convection cooling the the SW's never had. Along with a channel seal from dust on components. The major difference of graphics based networking and monitoring below.

• 6.8 kW continuous power
• 8.5 kW power for 30 minutes
• 12 kW power for 1 minute
•