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Inverter/charger


locostmike

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Hi,

I've recently fitted new leisure batteries, the starting battery is fine. I'm plugged into shore power.

The Sterling inverter/charger fan keeps coming on, might there be a reason for this or is it likely to be faulty? The fan used to come on fairly regularly before changing the batteries. I don't live on the boat any more and nothing is turned on except the Inverter.

Thanks for your help

 

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The fan comes on automagically when a sensor inside the combi inverter charger reaches a certain temperature to cool the inards. It could come on because it is a warm day, as it has been for the last week up till now, or because there isn't enough ventilation to dissipate the heat, or because the charger, or inverter are working hard. Is there any way you have of measuring current in and out of the batteries? If a lot of current is going in, then the charger is working hard for some reason and that needs investigating, if going out, then the inverter part of the combi is having to supply a lot of mains to something. Is there a closed door on the area where the combi is, or has the cupboard been filled with "stuff", restricting the air flow.

The fan coming on isn't a problem on its own. It is just doing its job. If it is doing it more, then something has changed. Could even be drift of the sensor as it ages. Not a problem unless the combi overheats to the extent that it shuts itself down to protect itself from damage.

Jen

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IIRC Sterling's configuration of these units is somewhat conservative - better to blow air at the electronics before heat causes any problems.

The amount of power consumed is very small. I just assumed that C.S. designed the box that way....

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I had a Sterling Inverter (not a charger) whose fan came on according to the load current and not according to temperature. In theory it came on when the load on the inverter reached 2/3 capacity and went off again when it dropped to 1/3 capacity; at least that was the theory. The inverter came in a range of different sizes, ours was a 1.5kW version and sure enough the fan came on when the power consumption exceeded 1kW (even if only for a fraction of a second), but it didn't turn off again until the load dropped below 50 watts because the smallest unit in the range had a capacity of 150W and the switch-off figure had been set not as 1/3 rated capacity but as "1/3 of the rated capacity of the smallest unit in the range". The result was that the fan ran for most of the time; the spike when the fridge turned on was enough to trigger it, and it didn't stop again until the fridge, TV, VCR, phone chargers, etc were all off. The trouble was that the fan was quite noisy, and the unit was positioned underneath our daughter's bed so it kept her awake. Sterling exchanged the unit for another which performed identically, then admitted that I'd apparently found a software fault but they weren't going to fix it because I was the only person complaining.

 

After much arguing, CS agreed to exchange it for a more powerful quasi-sine inverter of the same value; after it destroyed out TV, phone chargers, and the control unit of our gas-oven, I sold it on eBay.

  • Greenie 1
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