Video by BenjaminNelson via YouTube
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Uh oh. Boom! I wrecked it!
Please click SHOW MORE!
So, I was getting ready to show off my Vehicle to Home project at the upcoming MREA Energy Fair. https://www.theenergyfair.org/
As part of that, I really needed to clean up the wiring and get all the switches and balance of system inside some enclosures. After doing that, the inverter no longer worked! What happened!
The fuses were blown. Everything else looked good. I put in new fuses. Tried again. Nothing. I checked THOSE fuses. Also blown. WHAT WAS GOING ON?
It took me a while to puzzle out. I had to disconnect some of the wiring to get it all cleaned up and back in the box. The cable from the car to the DC fuse box does not follow DC wiring color conventions. When I put it all back together, I had accidentally REVERSED the polarity to the inverter! It got 360 volts DC BACKWARDS, instantly frying the inverter and blowing the fuses!
Once I figured that out, I was able to use my multimeter in continuity testing mode to check the PV input. The + and – were directly shorted to each other! Oh no! No wonder fuses would blow instantly when connecting the car to the inverter! This likely meant that the MOSFETS were blown in shorted position! The inverter would now mostly be junk.
I had another piece of an inverter power module that I got from AliExpress. At least I could still use the nice power connections and disconnects with the H6 inverter. I tried testing the cheap basic power unit with the car. A few minutes later, I heard a POP and that quit working as well.
It was NOT my day.
And now I wouldn’t be able to show off my project this coming weekend.
I worked on something else for a few minutes and finally had a realization. The Solar City Delta H6 Inverter has TWO solar inputs…
I checked the second input and crossed my fingers. It did NOT show continuity between the + and – of the input, although the first input did. Did that mean input Two was still good?
I was actually down to only one last fuse, so I loaded that into the CHAdeMO handle. I didn’t want to do any more wiring and rewiring in my input box, so I used some brass tube as "dummy" fuses to complete the circuit in to the car. If there was an issue, the fuse in the handle would still do its job.
I connected everything up and went through the sequence of power up when… The display on the inverter came on! It was still alive!
So, the good news is that I only HALF blew up the inverter! Better than that, the fuses and other safety features all worked exactly as intended. In fact, the only way a person would even see that things were NOT working was the inverter display wouldn’t come on. There was never any actual explosion, noise, or "letting out of the magic smoke".
I’m hoping I can quick get everything cleaned-up, make it portable, and show it off at the Energy Fair June 24-26, 2022. (I won’t be there on Sunday though, so come see me on Friday or Saturday!)
Until next time, stay charged up!
-Ben
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