Hi there,
Recently i borrowed someones 12v inverter for use for soldering something on an automobile. The inverter is a Vector Maxx type 400 watt unit, they are colored red.
What happened was after connecting to the battery via the supplied clips, then turning the unit on, then after about 5 seconds smoke literally starts pouring out of the fan area as the fan blows the smoke out of the enclosure. It looks like the unit is totally blown, but that's not the case.
Connecting the soldering gun to the output 120vac connector and holding the trigger 'on' to get the gun to heat up, then turning on the inverter with the power switch, the gun works fine. So the inverter works just fine when it has a load. With no load, smoke comes out. It looks like the smoke from a resistor but i cant take the unit apart and examine it because it is not my unit.
Now many switching power supplies (this is also a switcher basically) need a load to work properly so i can estimate that this inverter needs a load too, but because it is a decent model i would have thought they would have built in some protection to keep it from smoking with no load, such as a auto shut down like PC power supplies have when there is no load.
So you think this unit is faulty or could it be that they overlooked something during the design phase? I think i've read about this in the past on the web but cant remember the web site.
Also, a schematic of this unit or a similar unit would be nice so i can examine it in detail and understand the problem better.
Recently i borrowed someones 12v inverter for use for soldering something on an automobile. The inverter is a Vector Maxx type 400 watt unit, they are colored red.
What happened was after connecting to the battery via the supplied clips, then turning the unit on, then after about 5 seconds smoke literally starts pouring out of the fan area as the fan blows the smoke out of the enclosure. It looks like the unit is totally blown, but that's not the case.
Connecting the soldering gun to the output 120vac connector and holding the trigger 'on' to get the gun to heat up, then turning on the inverter with the power switch, the gun works fine. So the inverter works just fine when it has a load. With no load, smoke comes out. It looks like the smoke from a resistor but i cant take the unit apart and examine it because it is not my unit.
Now many switching power supplies (this is also a switcher basically) need a load to work properly so i can estimate that this inverter needs a load too, but because it is a decent model i would have thought they would have built in some protection to keep it from smoking with no load, such as a auto shut down like PC power supplies have when there is no load.
So you think this unit is faulty or could it be that they overlooked something during the design phase? I think i've read about this in the past on the web but cant remember the web site.
Also, a schematic of this unit or a similar unit would be nice so i can examine it in detail and understand the problem better.
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