Hi everyone,am new to this board but have posted my problems on other ones. This might be a little long to give all the facts. I have the above Lifan inverter generator which i usuall y start up every month when not camping. Previous time i started it was okay everything worked ok. When i tried to start it in January and it being cold in the garage and hard to pull(senior 74) and since i had the truck warmed i pulled the side cover off and put the generator near the exhaust pipe,it started great and after i moved it to plug in power cord to put a load on it i noticed the overload light on with no power hooked up to it,checked overload breakers all seemed okay. Thinking moisture from exhaust i put a heater in front of the panel and after 1/2 hr tried again and everything ran perfect. Two days later when starting same thing again. Now BEFORE i used the heater it starts up green light comes on have power ,then after 5 second revs up a bit ,overload comes on and no power, It does this whether power connected or not, Ok when using heater to warm up inverter board first . Thank for your suggestions and sorry about the long post. Tom
energy storm Lifan 3600ier inverter generator
- Thread starter crewcab
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Gary RV_Wizard
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Water, various oxides of Nitrogen, CO2, and maybe even a little CO? I don't think any of those chemicals in exhaust (gas or diesel?) would harm the genset electronics, but I wouldn't place any bets on it either.
I confess I do not know why inverter-generators have an "overload" detection circuit in addition to the usual output circuit breakers, but most of them do. Apparently "overload" can happen for more reasons than just too many amps of power draw. It's a complex beast, producing multi-phase AC, converting that to DC and then inverting the DC back to 120vac @ 60 Hz. I guess "overload" means something in that process got stressed and did not stay within spec. Just what or why, probably only the engineers at Lifan could say. Does your manual give any Troubleshooting inf for "overload"?
I confess I do not know why inverter-generators have an "overload" detection circuit in addition to the usual output circuit breakers, but most of them do. Apparently "overload" can happen for more reasons than just too many amps of power draw. It's a complex beast, producing multi-phase AC, converting that to DC and then inverting the DC back to 120vac @ 60 Hz. I guess "overload" means something in that process got stressed and did not stay within spec. Just what or why, probably only the engineers at Lifan could say. Does your manual give any Troubleshooting inf for "overload"?
Thanks Gary , no it does not say in the manual any more then shut down generator ,reset the circuit breaker and restart. Some body on another site suggested a poor solder joint that is contracting in the cold and expands when putting warm air to it as it runs and works okay after that procedure. have not removed the board yet as it has been to cold in the garage,hoping somebody could pinpoint the problem or had experienced it. Tom
Gary RV_Wizard
Site Team
Was the breaker tripped? I understood from your earlier post that it was not, yet the overload light was on.
My only experience with this sort of thing was with an Onan inverter-generator and its possible "overload" causes was mostly engine related, where the engine was unable to deliver the power necessary to feed the inverter at the required level to allow it to produce 120v output. That typically happened under load rather than idle (zero load), but if the engine speed governor was out of whack, it could happen at any time.
My only experience with this sort of thing was with an Onan inverter-generator and its possible "overload" causes was mostly engine related, where the engine was unable to deliver the power necessary to feed the inverter at the required level to allow it to produce 120v output. That typically happened under load rather than idle (zero load), but if the engine speed governor was out of whack, it could happen at any time.
Thanks people for your suggestions,took off the board could not see anything wrong to my opinion,unplugged and replugged all connection,did the same for the upper panel. started up same thing,shut down pushed the high idle switch restart red light came on, idled it down no problems. Shut down,restart red light flashed once and went off,started it about 10 timed in the past week seems to be okay now,maybe it fixed itself i do not know,keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks for your help. Tom
Lou Schneider
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Gary RV_Wizard said:
Hardware engineers often call output transistors fuses that blow first to protect circuit breakers.
