(02-02-2019, 08:10 AM)Charly144 Wrote: No, just wait...

You don’t repair your car without having any issue either...

Well, sorta, ya do. You change the oil and oil filter, trans fluid and filter, serpentine belt, spark plugs/wires on a regular basis. It's called preventative maintenance At least, one is "supposed" to change these at regular intervals. Plenty of noisy clunkers going down the road because they aren't taken care of.

Would see that as maintenance and not tepair in advance... but get what you mean...

Ok, lemme add in timing chain/belt, u-joint, tires, and muffler bearings

Think of all that stuff you wouldn’t have to do if we converted them to lectrick! Put mechanics out of business.

I dont see the use in having replaceable caps. Yes caps wear out but thats generally not the biggest concern on a well built unit. Most cheaper units blow their mosfets or other stuff before that.

If you want a full blown system buy one with 10 year guarantee (they exist) and in 10 years the technology have for sure changed that much that its time to exchange the units anyways Unless you live offgrid and not care in that case i bet you dont need hot swapable caps anyways and can just bring out the screwdriver and a soldering iron and do the work.

The cheap units tend to have cheap caps in that are only rated for a few thousand hours, which is why a lot of cheaper car inverters are rated for home/emergency use... plug them in 24x7 and they fry in the first year.. some might only last a few hundred hours at higher temperatures. 65C rating of 2,000 hours on reasonable quality caps, let alone shortcut cost cutting caps....

(02-02-2019, 09:51 PM)completelycharged Wrote: The cheap units tend to have cheap caps in that are only rated for a few thousand hours, which is why a lot of cheaper car inverters are rated for home/emergency use... plug them in 24x7 and they fry in the first year.. some might only last a few hundred hours at higher temperatures. 65C rating of 2,000 hours on reasonable quality caps, let alone shortcut cost cutting caps....

Agree. Probably the best bet, instead of replacing caps, is to check that the unit is properly cooled. This will improve the life of all the internal components.

I went with AIMS 12K because I wanted 230v@50amp range and they have an ETL certification so my insurance will pay off if I burn the house down
I have been wondering about life-span - there is not much info - but at $3K for this I'm hoping for a long a life as possible.

Does it make any difference to caps (or other) that the average load is about 40% (4.8Kw) as apposed to 8Kw continuous? Does it make any difference that 1 115v leg of 230 is running twice the load as the other leg? I am trying to ask - what are key factors that cause caps to fail - is it age or use or both or other?