Inverter 1/2 fried

mcgivor · October 2016

My first setback so far, the Cotek SK 2000-224 inverter I purchased a little over a year ago made some arcing sounds and went into fault with a cloud of smoke. As making a warranty claim was complicated, bought in Canada and live in Thailand, decided to open it up and see what happened. Sandwiched between the PC board and a heat sink were the fried remains of a gecko (small lizard ) the board had a hole burned about 1 cm, tried to repair it but it is double sided and too damaged. Contacted Cotek to see if I could obtain a new board, no luck, they suggested buy a new replacement. Well I never give up that easily, I studied the circuitry and discovered that it was made up of two 1000 watt units stacked so decided to remove the damaged and see if it worked as a 1000 w, sure enough it did so lost half an inverter. Have since tropicalized by covering fan holes and grills with stainless mosquito mesh along with a cheaper replacement I purchased. The things you learn !!! I'm not known as mcgivor for nothing other than my is Ivor, not a technical point per say but interesting none the less.

westbranch · October 2016

good to know you have a 1/2 operating unit as an emerg standby... I might have to peek into my 1500...

animatt · October 2016

First atleast in the states it was MacGyver . A quick search to verify a spelled it correctly I see there is now a reboot of the series. I am a big fan of the original. Not sure I dare watch the new one.

Anyway back to topic.
Have a 2000 watt cotek inverter as well. I left it on offgrid site in mexico. To my disappointment workers overloaded it with a 1hp well pump along with 9 inch angle grinder. Was probably pushing 22 amps . Not sure how long that went but could not be to upset about it. I figured on overload conditions unit would self protect internal breaker or fuse etc.

Well my unit fried the internal fuses. Which are a little tight fit. The fuses are soldered on board. Would have been nice with sockets. Make changing fuses easier.

Bigger issue is it fried half the fets. Not being very strong into electronics I hoped that was all that was wrong.

I bought the replacement parts and had a local electronics repair place swap the parts. Tell him exactly what needs to be done. This way I get charged fairly. Cost me $10 usd plus another $10 -$15 in parts. Not bad at all.

We are back in business again. It is now a spare inverter. But next time I will be wiring inverter to a 10 to 15 amp breaker. Hopefully trip breaker before it self destructs.

Photowhit · October 2016

I guess some inverters have over draw protection, that shuts down the inverter without burning a fuse. I too regularly screw up and over draw my Prosine (1800 watt) inverter, I had the water heater (900 watts) going and was microwaving oatmeal and toasting yesterday. what surprised me is that it handled the over load for a couple minutes and The Microwave and toaster had turned off, before it shut down! I shut things down and turned it back on with no issues.

I'm under sized on the inverter, and do this maybe once a month over the last 3 years, inverter is hanging in there!

mcgivor · October 2016

Reply to animatt, the mcgivor name was given to me at work in Canada because I would first try to repair things in a disposable society, having come from a country with economic sanctions in Africa where everything was repaired, it was a take on my name, Ivor, hence the spelling.
Back on track, the design of the fuses is pathetic on the Cotek, my cheap replacement has sockets and came with spare fuses, not sure if they expect them to blow, being the reason, but it seems to work fine so far.

westbranch · October 2016

I guess that geckos are not too easy to plan/design for... as opposed to Over Loading the inverter...

Inverter 1/2 fried

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