[Chester Stone]

This morning after leaving the RV park in Eugene and having the coach sit for about an hour while I searched for air springs, the inverter indicated the house batteries were at shutdown which is 10 volts.  I tried to start the generator, but not enough power.  Hit the merge switch, still not enough power.  Tried to start the engine, no dice.  For some strange reason, the house and starter batteries were both too low to do anything.  By this time we started smelling burnt electronics.  I turned the inverter off and there was anough juice left to start the gen.  I think my Zantex is fried.  Drove all day with the gen. working and everything is fully charged.  Tomorrow I will be in Modesto, CA, and will start looking for a Magnum or Outback inverter, and someone to install it before proceeding to Arizona.  Any suggestions and advise would be appreciated.

[encantotom]

my pure sine 3.o xantrex inverter charge overheats.

the internal fans are not working. i found some on ebay and got them and will try changing them out.

i was getting an overheating error and it shut down and wouldnt charge.

tom

[Richard]

Hmmmmm, you didn't have something plugged into the inverter that was pulling a big load did you?

But you may be on to something if the voltage rebounded when you turned the inverter off.

I just googled to get the best price on the Magnum. You don't need to buy the DC shunt again. The one with your Xantrex will work. And the connector cable with the Xantrex will work with a Magnum.

The Magnum gives you a ton of programming options if you need them. If you get tangled up programming it, give me a jingle.

[qcj]

My Outback has always worked well for me.  It also gives you tons of options.

[Chester Stone]

Richard, nothing needing a large amount of power was on at the time. It is showing fault #194 which I have not had a chance to look up. I like the idea that the Magnum uses the same connector cable which makes installation much easier. Not sure what the DC shunt is but I guess I will find out when I try to order. I will be working on this next week while I am waiting for my air springs to arrive. Will keep posting my progress.

[Chester Stone]

Richard, which Magnum do you think I should buy? My Zantrex is 3,000 watts.

[Fulltiming]

Chester, according to the manual, fault codes 136, 192-194 are "internal fault. There could be a fault inside the unit or the microprocessor is fooled by some external condition. Record the error code and contact Xantrex."

http://www.xantrex.com/documents/Inverte...Rev-A).pdf

[ccjohnson]

On my Xantrex charger, I have had to do a hard reset a couple of times to get rid of internal fault codes. That is disconnecting the charger from both 1220v input and also the 12V DC output to battery banks. For disconnecting from 12V DC, I have found that just unhooking the ground is sufficient. Need to give it a couple of minutes unhooked for codes to evaporate from memory. Then reconnect and restart the unit. You may have to reprogram the parameters. Mine is just a charger, not charger/inverter. So not sure if this will work for you. I had 3 brand new Xantrex chargers that were faulty. All 3 had same lot number. Finally got them to give me one from a different lot and all has been good other than having to do a couple of hard resets in that last 2-3 years.

[Richard]

Chester,

I used the MS2812. You will also need the ARC control panel, and the BMK (battery monitor kit). That's a 2800 watt inverter. The next model up, the 3000w version, has a lot of extra features to allow you to use the battery bank to supplement the generator. Uh, we don't need that, and it takes a lot of extra wiring.

The ARC remote control mounts exactly in the Xantrex hole. The BMK monitors the current in and out of the battery bank. Unfortunately Magnum requires this kit, while the battery monitoring wires directly to the Xantrex. It's a little bit deceptive when pricing the complete system.

If you go this way, it is easy to use the ARC (remote control) to monitor the State of Charge of your battery bank. It is a much more accurate way of looking at the bank than just voltage.

I bought the system because of the features of the ARC controller and how I could make it play nice with the LiPoFe batteries. If you go this way, I can help with the initial programming. My first read of the manual made my head spin, but it's not as complicated as it looks.

[Chester Stone]

Richard, thanks for the recommendations. I am sitting here in Modesto, CA, waiting for six air springs to be delivered to a friends home. I went ahead and ordered the MS2812 and RC-50 on Saturday so they would arrive on Tuesday, and hopefully installed before the springs arrive. As to the BMK, two years ago I installed a Zantex LinkLITE/PRO monitoring system. It is separate from the inverter and, among other information, gives me the percent of charge which is helpful. Since it and the shunt are already wired and in place, i see no benefit from buying the BMK. If you think I made a mistake ordering the RC-50 instead of the ARC, I can return it to Amazon and get the ARC. I really appreciate the offer to help program the unit. While I was in a hurry Saturday to get the inverter delivered, I found the best price at Amazon with free shipping.