strange problem with inverter, it connects even with main line on.

J

joyceanblue

Adept
hi friends,
we have a microtek inverter which is approximately 3 years old. from last 3 days a strange problem has surfaced, each night around 11pm the inverter turns the battery back up on even when we have the electricity in mainline. and it turns the battery back up off and connects to main line by the time we wake up in the morning.
could it be a problem with the voltage fluctuation? perhaps higher voltage in night time?
 
joyceanblue said:
hi friends,
we have a microtek inverter which is approximately 3 years old. from last 3 days a strange problem has surfaced, each night around 11pm the inverter turns the battery back up on even when we have the electricity in mainline. and it turns the battery back up off and connects to main line by the time we wake up in the morning.
could it be a problem with the voltage fluctuation? perhaps higher voltage in night time?
Click to expand...

You have the problem of varying voltage. At night your voltage must be exceeding 255volts, so the inverter comes up to protect the circuit. By morning the voltage must be going down to normal levels so the inverter stops .
You can use a multimeter to check, have a look at approx 2/3 AM when the inverter is On.

This is a shady trick used by the electricity boards sometimes, so that there is a minor creeping increase in the bills by a small amount, helps them earn a wee bit more money, at cost of your blown up appliances.

Ask your electricity board to fix the issue, the linesman will adjust the voltage at the local transformer in your area.
 
Wth? Is it so?
Now I wonder why electricity bills have shooted to high even though usage is same.
But even on inquiry, mseb will simply point out to the units consumed so we dont have other way out.
 
Though not a regular phenomenon but the exact same thing happened couple of nights back at my place. The inverter switched to backup mode even with power supply on. Gradually a few CFLs blew up violently (those which were outside the inverter circuit), which indicated to a sudden surge in voltage. Immediately called up the distribution company who attended in haste and attributed the sudden surge to a fault in the transformer which was replaced. Thankfully, not much electrical appliances were in operation at that time apart from two AC units which somehow survived the fiasco.
 
We discovered this the hard way when many people in the area started to have fridges and other white goods conk off. Night voltage would hit 270 at times. While MSEB gave no compensation, there was a discretionary discount in the bills for some time. The complaint was attended to same day of providing the photo of the multimeters from a couple of houses. Fix took a few hours IIRC.
 
So mseb does this deliberately? Sarkari night corruption at cost of gadgets and common mans pockets.
Damn! How to counter it?
 
thanks for the help mates, axeman was right, it was due to higher voltage, i checked it in my ac stabilizer the input voltage was around 270, i also discovered a little switch on the back side of the inverter it had two settings for input voltage 1:150-260, 2: 100-300 volts, i moved the switch to 100-300 volts and it fixed the problem. i wonder if there is a downside to it.
 
The down side is that now it will pass on the high voltage to all the devices ,appliances connected to it.
Its a bad idea.
 
really? i was under the impression that no matter what voltage is through the input the output from the inverter would be the same. anyway i have switched it back to 150 - 260, if there is a voltage increase again tonight i will call the bses people.
 
Bses? Which city you reside???

Now that it fixed the issue and you have set it to 100-300 it shouldn't be a problem as appliances will withdraw the max they are suppose to no matter what the fluctuations between the range 100-300v.
 
Yes ,but in typical offline inverters the input voltage = output voltage ,unless it goes to battery mode.
Most appliance will fail at high voltages such as fans,bulbs,refrigerators,water motor,washing machine etc and all electronics devices are typically rated to operate at about 240v this includes the your mobile/laptop adapters,PC,Tvs etc .Unless you have a stabilizer for each of those devices or have a main line stabilizer/power conditioner ,setting the UPS to 100-300v is a bad idea,
 
joyceanblue said:
really? i was under the impression that no matter what voltage is through the input the output from the inverter would be the same. anyway i have switched it back to 150 - 260, if there is a voltage increase again tonight i will call the bses people.
Click to expand...
No, you can switch it to other way also i.e 100-300 volt, only downside is that if you have a computer connected to inverter point it will reset or switch off in "standard mode" i e 150-260 volts. Thats why the other mode (100-300 volts) is called as "UPS mode" in newer inverter model because in that mode your computer will not switch off in case of power cuts because it has faster switching.
 
Sorry for bumping this thread.
Still relevant today.
My Exide inverter was acting weird for past few weeks. Early morning it would turn off even when my main line was there.
After reading through, tomorrow I will place a complaint to the local eb.
My nas is getting shutdown abruptly .. Luckily it doesn't do anything at those times.
 
I'm facing the same problem since past few days in Delhi.
During evening-night times my Luminous Eco Volt Neo 1050 inverter has been switching to battery mode abruptly even when mains power is present.

I was observing that when the mains power is fluctuating (assumption), my inverter's switchover time from battery to AC has gone from milliseconds to minutes.
I thought something related to the switchover in the inverter has failed/degraded because of which my switchover time has increased exponentially.
Switchover from mains to battery is still immediate (PC stays on).

After reading this thread I'm thinking my mains voltage is also shooting upto 270V at times. I have observed near about 260V using a multimeter so maybe it does shoot upto 270V and that's when my inverter goes into panic mode.
How to mitigate this or is there a way around this? I keep my inverter's mode in Eco mode (non-UPS mode).

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EDIT: Confirmed! I had my multimeter plugged into the wall socket and observing. The voltage shot upto 280V and went down to 250V and the inverter went to battery mode.
 
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