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Update on TBS Inverters
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One of the huge advantages of the Internet over the printed
word is it is so easy to update, and keep the material totally current.
Since writing the inverter article we had a failure! During the
Brisbane
Sunshine Wanderers October 2002 Safari to the Millmerran
Camp Oven Festival we really couldn't really spare the time to
be away, so we had to work along the way. As luck would have it the inverter
failed to switch on at the free campsite at Yarramalong Weir
just outside Millmerran in Queensland, and we had customers expecting
updates. This happened in the afternoon. Amazingly, would you believe
we had fantastic CDMA reception even though we were miles
from anywhere. We fired up the Internet to find the email address for
TBS Inverters in Holland. We saved a bit of time here as the Internet
address for TBS is right there on the inverter. We sent an email to our
good mate Daniel Shoulton. We were dead unlucky as the gremlins
at Telstra Mobile wouldn't let us send an email with an
"nl" extension - Netherlands! Weird
stuff, but what usually happens when you are in a bit of a jam and in
a hurry! Oddly in all our years on the Internet we had never come across
that particular problem before. We simply sent it via one of our sons
and two hours later Daniel responded with how to disassemble and a list
of possible problems. This is a good example though of the age we all
live in, and how effective communications can save the day.
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| Now if you look at the pictures on the previous installation page you will notice what a lovely neat job it looks with everything totally enclosed in 20 mm conduit. Now Collyn Rivers DID point out to us when checking the story before this latest episode, that it could cause problems further down the track. Well he was 100% right as there was no way we could test if 12 volts was actually reaching the inverter. Daniel has a 40 amp blade fuse soldered onto the main board. This is there to prevent catastrophic failure in the event of reverse polarity. We were unaware of this safety feature. We carry a digital meter at all times and this checked out OK. Another email to Daniel which he answered from home on a Sunday mind you and he concluded the electronic switch had failed. He further suggested that we simply recycle the 12 volt supply and it should come back to life but without the standby feature. He was 100% correct - well after all he did design these gadgets! We never used the standby feature anyway due to the real risk of forgetting to turn the unit off overnight. |
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So the conduit went out with the bathwater and we got going again (see previous page). We have added a blade type switch (above right) giving very easy access to measuring voltage, plus you can see what's going on at all times. You can pick these up at Dick Smiths for about $6.00 from memory - ideal for swapping solar banks! We do have to lift an underseat bin lid to turn it on. One drawback is safety with exposed terminals, but anyone storing metal gear around an inverter is asking for trouble anyway, as they need clear airspace to work properly. It would not be a good move however to mount one of these switches in an exposed position. Summing Up Valuable lessons were learnt here! Always have easy access to the DC input side of anything you instal for easier fault finding. Always have the manuals for everything in your vehicle. Make sure your laptop has your latest email address book installed. Special thanks to Daniel Shoulton for bending over backwards to help us get going again quickly. However we would point out that the unit now does not work as before as the demand feature no longer works and the internal switch is inoperable. Yes we did rig up a work-around but this in our view is not 100% satisfactory. We were very disappointed that Daniel made no offer to fix this problem as this just shouldn't happen with such light usage very early in the life of the unit and for this reason we have changed to the all Australian Selectronic units with a no quibbles two year warranty and service readily available in Australia.
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