Thread: Giandel Pure Sine Wave Inverters

Originally Posted by Homestar

Just a word of caution is dismantling to inspect and possibly repair - Inverters produce lethal voltages and SHOULD NEVER have repairs attempted by inexperienced persons - there is a lot in them that WILL KILL YOU if you are not careful.

There are plenty of extra low voltage electronics that are perfectly safe to learn on - inverters ARE NOT ONE OF THEM.

Please if you don't understand them, or electronics in some way shape or form and have appropriate test equipment - NOT a $20 ebay multimeter - do yourself a favour and let it go to God gracefully or have someone else look at it. Please don't start (and potentially end) your electronics hobby on one of these.

Sorry for the dire warnings but I have seen someone seriously injure themselves doing exactly this - even after I said I'd look at it for them, they couldn't help themselves and earned a trip to Hospital for their efforts - it could have been a lot worse.

Oh, and personally I wouldn't buy another one of those if it lasted 18 months, but that's just me. My secondhand Selectronic Inverter is over 20 years old now and still going strong - you can't buy them new any more, but they come up secondhand quite often. Not the lightest, smallest or cheapest, but designed and made right here in Australia and are the ducks guts IMO. If you have the budget, the Victron unit should last a lifetime too.

These are the units to keep an eye out for in the size you need - SA31 and SA41 Inverters - I've seen them secondhand for around $1300 when they surface, but you need to keep your eyes peeled. Pity they aren't still made - they start and run a decent AC system with ease and the fan only kicks in once they are running at more than around 50% load continuously so most of the time much quieter (silent) than other units. The 600 watt version comes up quite often as they were used in NSW Ambulances for years, so there are plenty more of those on the market and make great camping inverters as they'll peak at 1300 watts for 5 minutes, so can run a microwave, etc to reheat things. The 600 watt version is what I have. The also have a sleep mode so draw no power when not being used unlike many that actually draw quite a bit sitting there in standby mode.

Just to add to Homestars post. Inverters aren’t a simple rectifier power supply and are a lot more like a switchmode. Fixing them requires experience unless it is something very simple and obvious.

Originally Posted by Geedublya

Just to add to Homestars post. Inverters aren’t a simple rectifier power supply and are a lot more like a switchmode. Fixing them requires experience unless it is something very simple and obvious.

Thanks for the warnings guys. I have taken your advice & not repaired the inverter but I couldn't resist a look to see what failed.
The inverter was mounted on the van wall above the wheel, cushioned by air suspension. Still, a little circuit board which joined the main board at 90 deg has snapped off & 2 capacitors have blown spectacularly. That is what I can see. In hindsight, if the inverter was mounted flat, this probably would not have happened.

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So out with the 5kg cheap stuff, it has served its purpose & in with 18kg Victron Multiplus:

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Where has this thing been all this time? It is not only an inverter but a 120A battery charger & UPS if you like. Swaps seamlessly between mains & batteries without any 240V stuff noticing. It can combine mains power/generator power with battery power to allow bigger loads to be run for short periods off a small generator for example. Plus, I can see what is happening via bluetooth on my phone & the entire system is configurable by laptop.