Samlex SSW-2000 Pure Sine Power Inverter Repair: Part 1

[@Ont785]

I would love to see a video on how to address low-voltage output. Great video btw

[@Bassguitarist1985]

Do you have the same model? How low is the output voltage? I no longer have this unit sadly. Should have kept it.

[@handsomwhitedevil4213]

I have power inverter that went bad, I suspect mosfets. Theres 4 of them IRFP260M. Do any other letters on it matter or not? I have P514J? Cant find exact mosfets, only IRFP260M part, other letters dont match. What else could be wrong with it if not mosfets. It powers on, shows voltage, says for a sec it uses 500w, then goes to 0. Cant power anything. I checked with multimeter the outlet, voltage is all over the place. No blown fuses. Maybe transistors? Nothing blown. Caps all good, connection to bluetooth shows all good. No alarms.

[@jaynewbold8155]

Do you have to hook to two 12 v batteries to run electric heater

[@Bassguitarist1985]

For a 1500 w heater yes the DC voltage drop and amperage draw would be too much for one battery to do for very long.

[@ryanking4559]

Just finished swapping the fuses out on the same inverter I have on my boat. Was partially submerged for about 10 minutes while running. Blew out 8 of the 10 fuses. Now it powers up, but seems like its caught in a loop. Fans rev up then it makes a single quick beep or chirp. Then the fans spool up and beeps again, maybe every 3 seconds. Green light is on, no output on the outlets. Curious if you ran into something similar along the way?

[@Bassguitarist1985]

Hard to say. If submerged could have shorted many things.

[@jimjulian4443]

You should remove the pcb and leave it out in the sun for several days, a week to be safe. Water can seep into small spaces and take days to evaporate.

[@bill767667]

advance,,, how long did you're Victorian Phoenix last???I too was considering one of those,,,look nice however considerable coinage$$$,,,I have a cheap modified sine wave h. f.1500/3000watt inverter,and a pst 300 12 volt Samlex,Samlex is for my tv and other sensitive electronics,mod I use for my old refrigerator.

[@reecefu3925]

hello, ive seen youre pretty good at commenting back so i figured id ask you about my inverter. i have 2500 watt pure sine wave inverter and a multi-cycler heavy duty deep cycle battery. made the mistake of switching polarities so fuses burn out. replaced them, hooked up inverter correctly, made 1 spark and then just didnt do anything. i did notice the power button was on when i connected the wires. i dont see any burnt marks or anything really messed and also checked to see if the switch worked witha multimeter. im desperate for some type of answer! thank you!

[@Bassguitarist1985]

+Reece Fu You likely burned out the partly or the entire input boost stage. There are fuses that protect the FETS and caps, if you are lucky just the fuses blew. Worst case is the fuses, caps, pull down resistors, and FETS all have burned out. There is a chance the input push/pull drive circuitry was damaged but not sure, hit or miss. can it be repaired, I'm sure it can, but it takes know-how, time, parts, some cash, and hopefully a schematic to follow.

[@fromceotonomad8746]

Hi saw your video and wow great stuff. I have a inverter Aims power last week it worked great yesterday all I get is power to it from the battery bank but no AC coming out of it. I check the outside fuse in the fuse is not blown. Have any ideas I have not opened it but I checked the continuity of the fuse and it checks out to be OK

[@Bassguitarist1985]

FROM CEO TO NOMAD thank you for watching dude! Honestly hard to say. So many places to check. Does it have a GFCI AC outlet? If so can you reset it? When you take it apart be careful but probe the leads going to it for power? If the unit boots up and doesn't pop fuses, it may be something simple, then again, hard to say

[@billjones7834]

No GFCI just straight wires coming out from unit black white green wire. I connected those to a power strip. No power on the strip. But power when I turn inverter on. No reset anywhere on outside.

[@carlos_sacalul]

Hello. Please help me with some advice. I have a 12v 1500w continuously pure sine wave inverter from solartronics to which I put 230V voltage on its 230v output when it went. It burned all six of its 30A fuses plus 125A fuse between the batteries and the inverter. Of course it stopped. After I changed all the fuses, it displays the red fault light and beeps continuously. Inside it does not smell burns and there is nothing ars. Do you think I have a chance to fix it? Thanks in advance

[@Bassguitarist1985]

Marius Macovei hello. Hard to.say. popping fuses likely blew the drive circuits for both input and output stages. May not be worth repairing dollars and cents wise.

[@adnanemohamedmahmoud1536]

Hi, awesome what ur doin but the reason why im telling you that ur awesome is im searching for help for my 24V 800W Victron pheonix inverter, when i start it it shows green(normal) and red(error) light but the green goes off leaving the red one with an ennoying sound ; no output voltage ,so what do i need to look for or do to be able to know the issue or whats damaged and need to be replaced Sorry for my bad english

[@sammykalintosh5630]

Did you fix your inverter? How long did it last; if it, eventually, died?

[@Bassguitarist1985]

+Sammy Kalintosh still running! light duty!

[@jameshopson4402]

Hi I have a 1500w inverter had somebody install it without using the external fuse to avoid any damage inside an insted put the plus on the minus an minus on the plus is my invertor completely nackerd now or can be fixed did hear a pop inside an no power now

[@Bassguitarist1985]

James Hopson time for new inverter. Not worth the labor and parts to repair it. Fire the dude who didnt put the fuse on the DC input and piss in his front lawn or something.

[@jameshopson4402]

xboxer1985 iv taken it apart an doesn't seem any blown parts but there's solders little fuses that are blown but no damage to the motherboard do you have email to send you pictures see what you can make of it

[@Bassguitarist1985]

James Hopson if you can pm me i will send. Even if there is no visible damage. Reverse polarity will destroy some if not all of the drive FETS and likely the drive circuitry running them.

[@jameshopson4402]

xboxer1985 it's all fixed with a grand total of £53 lol luckily a few fuses had blown

[@Bassguitarist1985]

James Hopson good news! Lucked out it didnt blow the drive/boost stag components!

[@bill767667]

is there a place you can send inverters to for repair,I'm looking at a Samlex pst 600 12 volt inverter,4 year old for$100.00 if it malfunctions how could I get it fixed?

[@Bassguitarist1985]

i dont know of any shop. not sure if samlex takes them back for repair. its.tough as the daughter board i needed was not the exact one they gave me. depends what's broken inside it.

[@EETechs]

+xboxer1985 Samlex is crap. They somehow believe that paralleling fuses will work as one big fuse, which it NEVER will, due to slight differences in resistance of each fuse. Thus it will never be able to properly protect the circuitry from over current conditions. They should have used one large fuse. Also, they use crap capacitors made by Lelon instead of top quality Japanese branded ones. I changed out all caps and took out all fuses and put in one main 100 amp fuse in mine. For me, its inexcusable for the price they charge to cut corners like that.

[@Bassguitarist1985]

I agree. The input caps I beleive were the reason this one failed. Very poor quality components. Its made in China so go figure. Though designed in British Columbia Canada. Quality Control with China manufacturing is non existant. Goes out the window entirely.

[@ghengiscrayon]

Designed in China, bought and rebranded

[@garbleduser]

I rebuilt this very unit. Let me know if you want to talk.

[@Eksohcorg]

I heard the fan on these inverters are loud and annoying. Can you upgrade the fan some how and how hard would that be for someone with no experience taking these apart.

[@Bassguitarist1985]

the fans themselves are actually decent ball bearing brushless fans. what makes them loud is the fact that they have to spin very fast to push the amount of air cooling over the components. the new cooling design has the fans running constantly low speed at a low load and immediately spin up to full speed after a certain wattage threshold this prevents any possibility of overheating

[@Eksohcorg]

Thanks for the clarification. Are these inverters good for 24/7 use and do you have any tips on how to keep them from breaking down?

[@Bassguitarist1985]

The samlex yes. Built pretty well. Just keep the vents clean and periodically check that the fans are running smooth. Heat is the #1 enemy. Also make sure that whatever surge wattage you need, double the inverter running watts from that number. This will insure that the inverter is adequately sized to handle heavy startup loads.

[@Eksohcorg]

thank you so much for all your help. I have one last question, what gauge of wires should i use to connect the charge controller to the battery and the gauge for the inverter to battery with the 2000 watt inverter.

[@Bassguitarist1985]

0 gauge minimum between the battery and the inverter and charge controller will depend on how much amperage it can push out

[@NuttyCookie333]

I'm putting together a solar system for my apartment. I'm using this inverter along with 2 100 watt solar panels by windynation. How many many 12 volt deep cycle batteries would i need for the best performance?

[@Bassguitarist1985]

Depends how much of a reserve capacity you want. What is your average load draw at any given time? What will you be powering?

[@NuttyCookie333]

***** Just now putting this together. Learning as i go. How much would i expect with what I have if i add two 12 volt batteries? To start I like to run two portable swamp coolers to start. Symphony-USA 175 Watt Portable Evaporative Cooler. This is for an emergency situation really.

[@Bassguitarist1985]

Carol Williamson is 175 watts running? If it has an electric motor and compressor the surge wattage will be twice that. Two 100 amp hour batteries will get you started to handle a full 2k load, but run time is limited. Figure a 350 watt load with a 200 amp hour battery bank will last just under 6 hours if you power nothing else

[@Bassguitarist1985]

Carol Williamson keep in mind that it will be a little bit less than 6 hours because this inverter is not 100 efficient no inverter is. The more batteries you add in parallel the longer the run time.

[@NuttyCookie333]

Is Odyssey High Performance deep cycle AGM Battery - PC625 a good choice?

[@Eman2000]

i noticed the capacitors are branded nichicon witch are some of the best capacitors money can bye so they will not fail on you and the diodes you were talking about are probably at least rated for 20 amps with a zero not 2 amps for a 2000 watt inverter if those are the only 4 diodes

[@Bassguitarist1985]

Actually 16 amps 400 volts after looking up the specs. I'll post the next part soon, but my worst fear about the unit was realized today, the input drive circuitry took a dump. the logic board that runs the remote is still intact though. damage looks to be just on the input stage.

[@Eman2000]

that sounds about right but still a bit low for a 2000 watt inverter

[@Bassguitarist1985]

Agreed, not as beefy as I'd have liked. Even the input caps are rated 16 volts instead of 25 volts. Those are 4700uf a piece, two per stepup xformer. The output caps are good rated at 250 volts 680uf a piece

[@Eman2000]

16 volts is pretty low 250 is OK but not the best

[@Bassguitarist1985]

Yeah. Its a 430 dollar inverter new. I see better craftsmanship in the thor or go power inverters. Some of the higher series from samlex are built wrll too.

[@TimShelnut]

This board looks identical to my ntx-2000-12 that looks to experienced the same thing. Same mosfets etc. I started it but with the new BMS it caused this issue. Should have installed the precharged setup with resister.

[@Bassguitarist1985]

Yeah I'm sure the main drive circuitry is the same but the brain daughter board that operates everything is slightly different. I think they have discontinued this particular model however I'm sure many of them are still in service today

[@TimShelnut]

@@Bassguitarist1985 I contacted them they replaced mine with a new one. I was just over the warranty period sent all my documents to them and what I thought was the cause. Really good company to work with and fast.

[@Bassguitarist1985]

@@TimShelnut Nice! Great to hear!

[@jimjulian4443]

Anyone know where I can get schematics? I want to modify the fan circuit.

[@Bassguitarist1985]

Hey Jim I do not have a schematic for the main board. This is a very old unit and any schematics you get now would likely be different but I highly doubt that the fan circuit is that much different. There is a thermistor under one bank of fets that was the old design but the new design that I know of is the fans are running constantly and run off a transformer and proportional to the load the fan speed will increase.

[@reecefu3925]

thank you, youre awesome! any idea how much money itll cost for both scenarios?

[@Bassguitarist1985]

+Reece Fu I spent about $100 bucks in parts. I got the daughter board for free, and that i scored for free by the good graces of a friendly Samlex Engineer!

[@vrichmarketingrenewableene9418]

Sir, i have an issue in one of my cheap modified sinewave inverter..it beeps Fault whenever i draw large load like 500 watts and up from my batteries..i suspect the voltage sensor is damage..even i use other inverter to drive the load and the modified has no load..it will still beep for fault even it has no load, just turn on together with the other inverter with the Load on it.please share if you have idea on how to repair this..

[@Bassguitarist1985]

vrich marketing renewable energy low voltage alarm? I concur with a sensor issue of some sort. without seeing the internals wouldnt know what direction to point you to.

[@vrichmarketingrenewableene9418]

my inverter now beeps even at 13V without load

[@Манлетопия]

miss knurlgnar wish he would come back and regularly upload like the old days

[@Bassguitarist1985]

@@Манлетопия yeah not Sure what he has been up to recently.

[@chikiguites]

cOULD YOU GIVE ME THE ADRESS IN INTERNET WHERE YOU FIND THE MOFETS AND OTHERS ELECTRONICAL PARTS? pLEASE!

[@Bassguitarist1985]

mouser.com is the site I used, and if certain parts aren't there then digikey.com. I'm in the United States. If you are in another country I'm not sure where to point you.

[@whyme2500]

do you think you can fix mine plz let me know thanks

[@Bassguitarist1985]

you have the same inverter?

[@snn9019]

We have one in action on our channel. I ran our 5,000 BTU A/C unit on it for many hours.

[@كاظمالإبراهيمي-ط8ت]

شكرا اخي الكريم

[@maungsacca]

You know i think they put all those 30 amp fuses in not thinking anyone would replace them but as a fire prevention step. Removing power before it causes a fire.

[@jimjulian4443]

A good reason to solder fuses is vibration. After a few years, a fuse can loosen and lose contact. In a professionally designed and constructed circuit, that should not be a problem, though.

[@oropeiro]

F.......ing,high frequency inverters problems..I prefer low freq inverters ..Nice video ..

[@Bassguitarist1985]

Yea a lot more complex crap in high frequency converters

[@notyoung]

Unless you use silver-plated brass fuse holders, the voltage drop is much higher than for a soldered-in fuse. The production time is also less, as the fuses are just another pick-and-place part for the assembly robot/ Having fuses in holders may require a human to do the insertion...

[@GautamKumarGoswami]

I am an electronic engineer & served several multinational giants in product design & implementations. From my experineces I can say that component layout & related wirings are not upto the mark even - brand name may be anything even Samlex !

[@bill767667]

Thanks

[@frankz1125]

should have them burnt mosfets on a heat sink

[@Bassguitarist1985]

they are actually, its a large aluminum part that sandwiches between them all then the outer case covers that with the fans blowing over the built in fins. Well built unit, prolly significant changes since I worked on this 2011 version.

[@Darryl603]

It should probably be re capped right out of the box...

[@eastrockaway11518]

Your patient has a HMO !! Get a catscan

[@marcosborges8]

no shema :/

[@bill767667]

opps I ment to type adnane