All you need to know about inverters,faults and solutions

INVERTERS

hello pals,it another day of the week 

I am sure many of  us must have heard of what an inverter is, how it works and the reason why we all need to have it in our various home and offices,relax and don't worry about PHCN

Benefits Of inverters

Now,Lets look at some benefits of inverter

Read more below

Extended Power Supply: Get several hours of backup to meet your power need over most of the day.

Zero Running cost: There are no consumables like diesel, petrol or oil to spend money on. Also no frequent breakdowns like overworked power generators.

 Noise Free: inverter is noiseless. Now you can spare yourself all the generator noise..

No Oil Mess:  inverter uses no oil, causes no spill or dirt and is a decent appliance like other gadgets in your room.

 No Fumes: inverter is a clean device that saves your environment all the fumes of the power generator.

Auto-run: All the stress of starting, stopping, changing over, topping oil, pouring diesel, cleaning oil mess and all the other tedious chores of managing a generator are eliminated for you. inverters run in automated mode, requiring no manual intervention.

 Conserve, Optimize: inverter is an economy device, helping you optimize. Switch on only your TV and that’s the power you use, all else stays stored. For a generator, it must run at full capacity, burn fuel at full requirement, even if its just a bulb you want to light.

In addition to running without consumables, a solid inverter requires minimum maintenance, again saving you the huge expenditure otherwise incurred on maintenance of power generators, especially when used extensively.

                          Inveter is an apparatus which converts direct current into alternating current

though many of our appliances are designed to work with AC, small-scale power generators often produce DC. That means if you want to run something like an AC-powered gadget from a DC car battery in a mobile home, you need a device that will convert DC to AC—an inverter, as it's called. Let's take a closer look at these gadgets and find out how they work!

What's the difference between DC and AC electricity?

When science teachers explain the basic idea of electricity to us as a flow of electrons, they're usually talking about direct current (DC). We learn that the electrons work a bit like a line of ants, marching along with packets of electrical energy in the same way that ants carry leaves. That's a good enough analogy for something like a basic flashlight, where we have a circuit (an unbroken electrical loop) linking a battery, a lamp, and a switch and electrical energy is systematically transported from the battery to the lamp until all the battery's energy is depleted

In bigger household appliances, electricity works a different way. The power supply that comes from the outlet in your wall is based on alternating current (AC), where the electricity switches direction around 50–60 times each second (in other words, at a frequency of 50–60 Hz). It can be hard to understand how AC delivers energy when it's constantly changing its mind about where it's going! If the electrons coming out of your wall outlet get, let's say, a few millimeters down the cable then have to reverse direction and go back again, how do they ever get to the lamp on your table to make it light up?

The answer is actually quite simple. Imagine the cables running between the lamp and the wall packed full of electrons. When you flick on the switch, allthe electrons filling the cable vibrate back and forth in the lamp's filament—and that rapid shuffling about converts electrical energy into heat and makes the lamp bulb glow. The electrons don't necessarily have to run in circle to transport energy: in AC, they simply "run on the spot."

What is an inverter?

An inverter does the opposite job and it's quite easy to understand the essence of how it works. Suppose you have a battery in a flashlight and the switch is closed so DC flows around the circuit, always in the same direction, like a race car around a track. Now what if you take the battery out and turn it around. Assuming it fits the other way, it'll almost certainly still power the flashlight and you won't notice any difference in the light you get—but the electric current will actually be flowing the oppositeway. Suppose you had lightning-fast hands and were deft enough to keep reversing the battery 50–60 times a second. You'd then be a kind of mechanical inverter, turning the battery's DC power into AC at a frequency of 50–60 hertz.

Of course the kind of inverters you buy in electrical stores don't work quite this way, though some are indeed mechanical: they use electromagnetic switches that flick on and off at high speed to reverse the current direction. Inverters like this often produce what's known as a square-wave output: the current is either flowing one way or the opposite way or it's instantly swapping over between the two states:

These kind of sudden power reversals are quite brutal for some forms of electrical equipment. In normal AC power, the current gradually swaps from one direction to the other in a sine-wave pattern, like this:

Electronic inverters can be used to produce this kind of smoothly varying AC output from a DC input. They use electronic components called inductors and capacitors to make the output current rise and fall more gradually than the abrupt, on/off-switching square wave output you get with a basic inverter.

Inverters can also be used with transformers to change a certain DC input voltage into a completely different AC output voltage (either higher or lower) but the output power must always be less than the input power: it follows from the conservation of energy that an inverter and transformer can't give out more power than they take in and some energy is bound to be lost as heat as electricity flows through the various electrical and electronic components. In practice, the efficiency of an inverter is often over 90 percent, though basic physics tells us some energy—however little—is always being wasted somewhere!

How does an inverter work?

We've just had a very basic overview of inverters—and now let's go over it again in a little bit more detail.

Imagine you're a DC battery and someone taps you on the shoulder and asks you to produce AC instead. How would you do it? If all the current you produce flows out in one direction, what about adding a simple switch to your output lead? Switching your current on and off, very rapidly, would give pulses of direct current—which would do at least half the job. To make proper AC, you'd need a switch that allowed you to reverse the current completely and do it about 50‐60 times every second. Visualize yourself as a human battery swapping your contacts back and forth over 3000 times a minute. That's some neat fingerwork you'd need!

In essence, an old-fashioned mechanical inverter boils down to a switching unit connected to an electricity transformer. If you've studied our article on transformers, you'll know that they're electromagnetic devices that change low-voltage AC to high-voltage AC, or vice-versa, using two coils of wire (called the primary and secondary) wound around a common iron core. In a mechanical inverter, either an electric motor or some other kind of automated switching mechanism flips the incoming direct current back and forth in the primary, simply by reversing the contacts, and that produces alternating current in the secondary—so it's not so very different from the imaginary inverter I sketched out above. The switching device works a bit like the one in an electric doorbell. When the power is connected, it magnetizes the switch, pulling it open and switching it off very briefly. A spring pulls the switch back into position, turning it on again and repeating the process—over and over again.

Types of inverters

If you simply switch a DC current on and off, or flip it back and forth so its direction keeps reversing, what you end up with is very abrupt changes of current: all in one direction, all in the other direction, and back again. Draw a chart of the current (or voltage) against time and you'll get a square wave. Although electricity varying in that fashion is, technically, an alternating current, it's not at all like the alternating current supplied to our homes, which varies in a much more smoothly undulating sine wave). Generally speaking, hefty appliances in our homes that use raw power (things like electric heaters,incandescent lamps, kettles, or fridges) don't much care what shape wave they receive: all they want is energy and lots of it—so square waves really don't bother them. Electronic devices, on the other hand, are much more fussy and prefer the smoother input they get from a sine wave.

This explains why inverters come in two distinct flavors: true/pure sine wave inverters (often shortened to PSW) andmodified/quasi sine wave inverters (shortened to MSW). As their name suggests, true inverters use what are called toroidal (donut-shaped) transformers and electronic circuits to transform direct current into a smoothly varying alternating current very similar to the kind of genuine sine wave normally supplied to our homes. They can be used to power any kind of AC appliance from a DC source, including TVs, computers, video games, radios, and stereos. Modified sine wave inverters, on the other hand, use relatively inexpensive electronics ( thyristors, diodes, and other simple components) to produce a kind of "rounded-off" square wave (a much rougher approximation to a sine wave) and while they're fine for delivering power to hefty electric appliances, they can and do cause problems with delicate electronics (or anything with an electronic or microprocessor controller). Also, if you think about it, their rounded-off square waves are delivering more power to the appliance overall than a pure sine wave (there's more area under a square than a curve), so there's some risk of overheating with MSW inverters. On the positive side, they tend to be quite a bit cheaper than true inverters and often work more efficiently (which is important if you want to run something off a battery with a limited charge—because it will run for longer).

Although many inverters work as standalone units, with battery storage, that are totally independent from the grid, others (known as utility-interactive inverters or grid-tied inverters) are specifically designed to be connected to the grid all the time; typically they're used to send electricity from something like a solar panel back to the grid at exactly the right voltage and frequency. That's fine if your main objective is to generate your own power. It's not so helpful if you want to be independent of the grid sometimes or you want a backup power source in case of an outage, because if your connection to the grid goes down, and you're not making any electricity of your own (for example, it's night-time and your solar panels are inactive), the inverter goes down too, and you're completely without power—as helpless as you would be whether you were generating your own power or not. For this reason, some people use bimodal or birectional inverters, which can either work in standalone or grid-tied mode (though not both at the same time). Since they have extra bits and pieces, they tend to be more bulky and more expensive.

What are inverters like?

Inverters can be very big and hefty—especially if they have built-in battery packs so they can work in a standalone way. They also generate lots of heat, which is why they have large heat sinks (metal fins) and often cooling fans as well. As you can see from our top photo, typical ones are about as big as a car battery or car battery charger; larger units look like a bit like a bank of car batteries in a vertical stack. The smallest inverters are more portable boxes the size of a car radio that you can plug into your cigarette lighter socket to produce AC for charging laptop computers or cellphones.

Just as appliances vary in the power they consume, so inverters vary in the power they produce. Typically, to be on the safe side, you'll need an inverter rated about a quarter higher than the maximum power of the appliance you want to drive. That allows for the fact that some appliances (such as fridges and freezers or fluorescent lamps) consume peak power when they're first switched on. While inverters can deliver peak power for short periods of time, it's important to note that they're not really designed to operate at peak power for long periods.

Where type of Inverter is recommended for you?

There are products such as Sukam power inverter, Luminous power inverter, Epsilon Power Inverter, Genusus and Mercury power inverters. These brands has a proven track-record of performance and durability. there are offers for  a range of inverters including: 800VA, 1.4kva, 2.5kva, 3.5kva, 5kva, 7.5kva, 10kva, 15kva, 20kva and 30kva and Above.

Common faults and solutions of our inverters (AC drives)

Fault No.	Fault code	Fault description	Potential causes	Solutions
1		no display on operation panel after power on	R\S\T terminal without input terminal	Use a multi-meter to check input power whether it's normal
			Operation panel is abnormally connected with control board	Check the connecting line between operation panel and control board
			Operation panel extension line abnormal	Replace operation panel extension line
			Inverter 75kW and below power class without short circuited with copper bus Inverter 90kW and above power class without connecting DC reactor	Inverter 75kW and below power class should short circuited with copper bus between +1 and +2 terminal, Inverter 90kW and above power class should connecting DC reactor between +1 and +2 terminal
			Flat cable of control board poor contact	Flat cable between control board and function board should be sonnected reliable.
2	8.8.8.8	Operation panel display 8.8.8.8	Operation panel abnormal connect with control board	Check the connecting line between operation panel and control board
			Operation panel extension line abnormal	Replace operation panel extension line
			Operation panel extension line wiring is incorrect	Please check the wiring is correct
			Handshaking failed between inverter and host computer	Please check the communication protocol
3	E.oc1	Over current protection when acceleration operation	Low grid voltage	Check input power supply
			Startup too fast during motor rotating	Restart after the motor stops rotating
			Rotating inertial of load is too large and shock load is very heavy	Increase the acceleration time and reduce the occurrences of sudden change of load
			Improper setting of motor parameters	Set motor parameters properly
			Set start-up frequency too high	Decrease start-up frequency
			Acceleration time is too short	Lengthen acceleration time
			V/F curve ratio too large	Adjust V/F curve setting and torque boost
			Power class of inverter is small	Replace with inverter with proper model
4	E.oc2	Over current protection when deceleration operation	Low grid voltage	Check input power supply
			Rotating inertial of load is too large	Choose appropriate energy braking components
			Improper setting of motor parameters	Set motor parameters properly
			Deceleration time is too short	Lengthen deceleration time
			Power level of inverter is small	Replace to inverter with proper model
5	E.oc3	Over current protection when operation with constant speed	Sudden change of load during operation	Decrease load's abrupt frequency change and amplitude
			Improper setting of motor parameters	Set motor parameters properly
			Power level of inverter is small	Replace to inverter with proper model
6	E.oV1	Over voltage protection when acceleration operation	Motor short to ground	Check motor wiring
			Abnormal input power supply voltage	Check input power supply
			Fast start-up again when motor operates with high speed	Start again after the motor stop rotating
7	E.oV2	Over voltage protection when deceleration operation	Motor short to ground	Check motor wiring
			Rotating inertial of load is too large	Choose appropriate energy braking components
			Deceleration time is too short	Lengthen deceleration time
8	E.oV3	Over voltage protection when operation with constant speed	Motor short to ground	Check motor wiring
			Abnormal input power supply	Check input power supply
			Rotating inertial of load is too large	Choose appropriate energy braking components
9	E.PCU	Interference protection	Severely Interfered by exterior signal	Ask professional technicians to maintain
10	E.rEF	Abnormal comparison benchmark	Loose connection of connectors inside the inverter	Seek for technical support
			Abnormal internal switching power supply	Seek for technical support
			Abnormal signal sampling and comparison circuit	Seek for technical support
11	E.AUt	Auto-tuning fault	Enable auto-tuning function during motor spining	Perform auto-tuning after the motor stops to rotate
			Auto-tuning overtime	Check whether motor wirings are well connected Length of motor wiring within 100m
			Incorrect setting of motor parameters in group P9	Please reset the parameters according to the nameplate parameters on the motor
12	E.FAL	Module protection	Output over current	Check whether the motor the output connection are short circuited, whether the ground is short circuited and whether the load is too heavy
			DC terminal overvoltage	Check the mains power supply and whether the large inertia load has no function of quick stop at energy consumption brake.
			Loose connection of connectors inside the inverter	Ask professional technicians to maintain
13	E.oH1	Heatsink 1 over temperature protection	Ambient over-temperature	Lower the ambient temperature and strengthen ventilation and radiation
			Blockage of air duct	Clean the dusts, wools and other foreign objects in the air duct
			Fan failure	Check whether fan wirings are well connected. Replace a new fan of the same model.
			Inverter module failure	Seek for technical support
			Temperature detection circuit failure	Seek for technical support
14	E.oH2	Heatsink 2 over temperature protection	Ambient over-temperature	Lower the ambient temperature and strengthen ventilation and radiation
			Blockage of air duct	Clean the dusts, wools and other foreign objects in the air duct
			Fan failure	Check whether fan wirings are well connected. Replace a new fan of the same model
			Rectifier module failure	Seek for technical support
			Temperature detection circuit failure	Seek for technical support
15	E.oL1	Inverter (drive) overload protection	Input power under voltage	Check input power supply
			Fast start-up when motor operates with high speed	Start again after the motor stop rotating
			Keep overloading for a long period of time	Shorten the overloading time and reduce load
			Acceleration and deceleration time is too short	Prolong the acceleration/deceleration time
			V/F curve ratio is set too large	Adjust V/F curve setting and torque boost
			Power level of inverter is small	Replace to inverter with proper model
16	E.oL2	Motor overload protection	Input power under voltage	Check input power supply
			Motor rotation is blocked or load mutation occurs	Prevent the motor rotation from blocking and reduce the load mutation
			Common motor maintains running under heavy load for a long period of time	Replace the common motor with variable frequency motor or improve the running frequency
			Motor overload protection time is set too small	Increase the motor overload protection time
			V/F curve ratio is set too large	Adjust V/F curve setting and torque increment
			DC braking current is set too high	Reduce the DC brake current
17	E.oUt	Peripheral protection	External failure terminal enable	Check the external failure terminal status
			The speed incorrect because over current when acceleration	Check whether the external load is normal
			The speed incorrect because over current when deceleration	Check whether the external load is normal
			Over voltage protrection because the speed incorrect	Check whether the external load is normal
			The speed incorrect because over current or over voltage, and last more than 1 minute.	Check whether the external load is normal
18	E.CUr	Current detection abnormal	Current detection circuit failure	Seek for technical support
19	E.GdF	Output to ground short circuit	Wrong connection	Correct the connection error as per the user's manual
			Motor abnormal	Replace the motor after performing ground insulation test
			Invert module failure	Seek for technical support
			Ground leakage current at the output side of the inverter is too high	Seek for technical support
20	E.LV1	Abnormal power failure during running	Mains power fluctuation or momentary power failure	Check the local mains power
21	E.ILF	Input power failure	There is abnormal connection, missing connection or disconnection at the power terminal of the inverter	Check the power connections as per the operational regulations and eliminate the errors of missing connection and disconnection
			Serious unbalance of three phases input power	Check whether the unbalance of three phases comply with the requirements
			Burning of capacitor of the inverter	Seek for technical support
			The power-on buffer circuit of the inverter is faulty	Seek for technical support
22	E.oLF	Abnormal output phase	There is abnormal connection, missing connection or disconnection at the output side of the inverter	Check the power connections at the output side of the inverter as per the operational regulations and eliminate the errors of missing connection and disconnection
			Unbalance of output three phases	Check whether motor is kept well Shut down the power supply to check whether the terminal characteristics both at the output side and DC side of the inverter are consistent
23	E.EEP	EEPROM failure	EEPROM reading and writing failure	Seek for technical support
24	E.dL3	Relay contact failure	Loose connection of connectors inside the inverter	Ask professional technicians to maintain
			The power-on buffer circuit is faulty	Seek for technical support
25	E.dL2	Temperature sampling disconnection	Ambient under temperature	Check whether the ambient temperature complies with the requirements
			The temperature sampling circuit inside the inverter is faulty	Seek for technical support
26	E.dL1	Encoder cable disconnection	Encoder connection is incorrect	Change the encoder cable connection
			Encoder has no signal output	Check whether the encoder and power supply are normal
			Encoder cable disconnection	Reconnect
			Abnormal function code setting	Confirm that the relevant function codes of the encoder are set properly
27	E.P10	+10V power output abnormal	+10V power overload	Increase +10V power load impedance Utilize externally independent power supply
			+10V power supply and GND is short circuited	Eliminate the short circuit failure
			+10V power terminal circuit failure	Seek for technical support
28	E.AIF	Analog input abnormal	Analog input voltage is too high	Check whether the analog input voltage complies with the requirements
			Analog input circuit failure	Seek for technical support
			Analog input circuit signal interfered	Increase the P6.22～P6.24 AI filtering time
29	E.Ptc	Motor over temperature（PTC）	The motor temperature signal reaches the alarm setting value	Strengthen ventilation and radiation
			Thermistor resistance failure	Check the thermistor
			The sensor protection threshold of the motor is set improperly	Adjust the sensor protection threshold of the motor
30	E.SE1	Communication abnormal 1 (Operation panel 485)	The communication of operation panel 485 is disconnected	Check the connection of the equipment communications
			The communication of operation panel 485 is faulty	Check whether the data receiving and transmission complies with the protocol, whether the check sum is correct and whether the receiving and transmission interval complies with the requirements
			The inverter is set to master mode	Set the inverter to slave mode
31	E.SE2	Communication abnormal 2 (Terminal 485)	The communication of terminal 485 is disconnected	Check the connection of the equipment communications
			The baud rate is set improperly	Set compatible baud rate
			The communication of terminal 485 is faulty	Check whether the data receiving and transmission complies with the protocol, whether the check sum is correct and whether the receiving and transmission interval complies with the requirements
			The communication of terminal 485 is time-out	Check whether the communication timeout is set properly and confirm the communication cycle of the application program
			The failure alarm parameter is set improperly	Adjust the failure alarm parameter
			The inverter is set to master mode	Set the inverter to slave mode
32	E.VEr	Version compatibility abnormal	The software version of the operation panel is incompatible	Seek for technical support
33	E.CPy	Copy failure	The data error appears when copying the inverter parameters to the operation panel	Check the connections of the operation panel
			The data error appears when copying the parameters from the operation panel to the inverter	Check the connections of the operation panel
			The parameters are directly downloaded without undergoing copy and upload operations	Perform download before uploading the parameters
			Control board software version incompatible	Check if d1.09 is consistent
34	E.dL4	Expansion card connection abnormal	Expansion card connection is loosened	Ask professional technicians to maintain
			Expansion card failure	Seek for technical support
35	E.IoF	Terminal mutual exclusion check failed	The functions of X1 to X7, AI1, AI2 and DI terminals are set in a repeated manner	Modify the settings of X1 to X7, AI1, AI2 and DI terminals and ensure the setting functions are not repeated (excluding null function)
36	E.oL3	Hardware overload protection	Load failure	Check whether motor is blocked Replace inverter with proper model
			Input failure	Check whether there is phase loss
			Output failure	Check whether there are phase loss or short circuit
37	−LU−	Power under voltage	The power voltage is lower than the minimum operating voltage of the equipment	Check input power supply
			Input power terminal is not connected tightly	Tightening the input power terminals Use the multimeter to measure the input power and DC bus voltage
			If starting LU failure appeared	Please check the grid capacity
			Flat cable of control board poor contact	Please check the flat cable connecting
			Abnormal internal switching power supply	Seek for technical support

We need  inverter systems because of shortage and intermittent or fluctuation power supply in Nigeria. The electricity power inconstituency in Nigeria have resulted in a lot of disruptions in the day to day activities of business that rely on power.That is the reason for inverters innovation to rescue the Nigerians. Increasingly, Nigerians are seeing the wisdom in turning to the inverter solution to mitigate the power supply shortfall we face.

The other challenge is access to a reliable product or solution to overcome these challenges. As we know  inverters simply converts DC (direct current) to AC (alternating current) convert DC energy stored in a battery, to the electric current (AC) that your appliances require. An inverter taps current from the public supply or mains when that is on (it could be powered by a diesel or petrol or solar generator), stores that power in its battery bank as DC and converts it to AC when the power supply is gone. That way, the  inverter provides the power backup you need.

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