question

@muelli

Look up DC ripple. This will kill any cap no matter the quality. What now made you think they are poor quality?

And what is usually what ages caps early. (Besides heat.) Blown caps can short which in turn will kill a mosfet.

Also not in use doesn't stop calendar aging. (I know I have a box of high quality completely mint caps here- dead) So there is that. Or bad pre charging which is also what alot of installers mess up.

And these are the two most common reasons I have seen. Besides short circuits either internally because of critters, or on the output.

FYI you won't get anyone from Victron giving your system personal attention, end user support is from local dealers. Your support period has ended as well (you won't get support from any manufacturer either, so not sure what you are expecting).

You will need to look for a person who repairs these for a living if you are really on repair. But component aging will make it not worth your while.

@muelli Caps tend to fizzle and pop when exposed to higher voltages than they are rated for, do check that.

DC Ripple is not relevant in my setup, according to my oscilloscope.

And yes, since I design PCBs myself and sell products with my design for cars (which is is an extremely challenging environment, as for temperatures and voltages/specifications), I know how to tell when caps are poor quality. In 10+ years none of "my" caps failed in these harsh environments.

>>Caps tend to fizzle and pop when exposed to higher voltages than they are rated for, do check that.

The caps are 35V/1000µF, so no problem here in my setup.

I would be sad if Victron did not care about this problem.

We have 2 suitable sayings in Germany for situations like these:
1. "Da hab ich Lehrgeld bezahlt!" - I learned my lessons/learning with money!

2. "Wegen Reichtum geschlossen!" - Company does not care because already rich enough.

If they really don't care, then be it. I will phase out all Victron products one after another and never look back. *shrug*

>>Swapping the input power lead polarity will also tend to turn caps inside out. And disintegrate semiconductors.

Please, guys, the next person will remind me, that hitting the inverter with a hammer is also baaaad m'kay! :)
The setup has not been changed during the years. No polarity fault, no hammer, no aliens, nothing as far as I know.

Hi @muelli,

I haven’t seen enough capacitor or mosfet issues reported on this site for me to flag a systemic issue.

Being outside the warranty period of 5 years it won’t be getting logged via that process, so this community site is really the next best place for such things to collect.

There is one other similar complaint from 2021, also with a similar rarely used profile as your own - https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/87308/slightly-bulging-capacitors-on-victron-energy-quat.html

Given the long amount of time it has taken, even if there was an issue with a capacity parts supplier then, it would have already been changed just through other factors.

If you’re worried about Victron equipment longevity there is an option to increase the warranty period to 10 years at the point of sale, that should reasonably cover it.

I am sorry to hear of this failure but to help/ understand why this happened we need more information please.

What where the environment conditions of where these were being used IE; hot, cold, varying temperatures, humidity, vibration??

Was It continually on or powered on and off when needed, what was the load??

There are lots more I can ask but to keep things short and understandable I will hold off until you provide more information.

FYI This is something that was posted elsewhere but it might help you understand the failure.

Once caps have reached this catastrophic failure, often they are now "shorted" and YES, creating a short in a circuit where there previously was no current being conducted can absolutely (and very likely) cause many other components to fail.

We are all trying to help and understand so the root cause can be identified and then posted to hopefully help others.

Good afternoon,

@MUELLI, I like to help;

We do not make manufacturers black, we help our utmost best, read these first; https://www.victronenergy.com/live/_media/ve.bus:4._ripple_in_a_ac_battery_system.pdf , https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/281098/vdc-ripple-rules.html , my system now almost 13 years old, https://vrm.victronenergy.com/installation/48664, here you can see my system ripple, voltage loss, etc, perfect on the tolerances!

Take a photo from the barcode of your inverter, give that to your local Victron supplier, he makes a RMA, this is send to a Victron repair station, they check the barcode and read the problem, if it is repairable then send the inverter via your local supplier and/or direct, problem solved.

If not repairable and/or the repair does not compensate the money then a new one will be offered through your local supplier, OR, you say you are a PRO, so, take the inverter apart, take photos of the parts you want and ask your local supplier to order these parts, faster and cheaper.

A new multi 24/1200 at the moment is about 650 Euro, the model 1 or 2, I presume you have model 1, right?

We do IMO-vessels, we see these inverters every day, all brands and makers, never a problem, always solutions, some are 20+ years old and have been on 24 hours a day nonstop, the ripple kills an inverter is the most found problem, most inverters run still ok with half the capacitors broken, but then you should have seen output voltage fluctuations before, as that's what the crew on board sees and then we repair, and mostly clean all connections and measure as above written in "VDC ripple rules".

With regards, Jeroen, check my installation, 24V/24KW quattros, 4200AH lead acid batteries. https://vrm.victronenergy.com/installation/48664 only with a computer, not with your phone!