Dead inverter

[Drains]

My inverter went pop after a pal spent 10 minutes directing grinding sparks etc into the vent. Any repairers out there?

 

[madkayaker]

http://www.diywelding.co.uk/ they had a look at an inverter for a mate of mine

 

[weldequip]

Went bust that mob. Somebody else has taken it on now though I believe.
What's the Inverter Si?

 

[the snooper]

i seem to remember a thread on here that caused a bit of a stir but the member (cant remember his name) was in the bussiness of repairing inverters quite cheaply from what i can remember and in the process upgrading the cheap n chearful chinese faults that caused it to fail in the first place

maybe someone can remeber who it was

 

[brightspark]

mike @ cut 40 wasnt it mike howard

 

[Drains]

Went bust that mob. Somebody else has taken it on now though I believe.
What's the Inverter Si?

Castolin Eutectic Ultramax 2.
I've had a quick peek inside, but without getting a proper look at the boards can't tell what went pop. Was a proper pop though, so should be fairly obvious (as a starting point anyway)

 

[Shox Dr]

More to the point, is he still your pal. And if he is then surely he should be sorting it for you, if he isn't then, he still needs to sort it

 

[Rosepuds]

The casolin eutectic inverters are not the easyist machines to repair and there are quite a few components in there that might gone with a loud pop. Was the machine being powered by a generator or on a long extension lead when it went pop? If the main power devices (mosfets) have not blown, it may be repairable at a reasonable cost.

 

[Drains]

Shox - he's still my pal, he'll be paying, I'll be getting it done, or replaced. He knows it's a £500 set to replace. He can't afford it, but he'll watch where he's pointing his sparks next time...

Rosepuds, thanks. Apparently the Ultramax is a rebadged (or made by) Fronius. More-or-less a top end Transpocket 1500 with lift and pulse. The set was on the mains, but on a maybe 10m lead. The pop was due to clag induced shorting though. I wasn't welding at the time - it was purring away with the fan running, then pop.

There's someone round these parts Rrunnach has pointed me at for fixing. We shall see what happens.

I'm still trying not to spend too much time growling....