message for Gary

It was only in the driveway. It was even lucky I went
to get something out of the van and know which day it happeded (You know the
usualy thing, all the good bits are in the van not the house).

We consider it good fortune the roof BT use is
not flamable and the melted plastic on the seats did not take..



Aftter the hail storm the other day the local good
repairer is booked for 6 months and by the time I can get to him it will be
longer. Were negotiating so we can take it back to it’s original home.





----------------------

Gary Harding

TriSys Engineering/III

Gary, Any wiser as to the cause ???? Looks like a holiday in Qld might be in order ...say around Noosa in Winter !!! Another option might be to rail it to Bris and if you can get cover for me to tow it I'll deliver it to BTi and take back to rail in Bris .... Anthony Explore this Great Land ...Do it Easy ...Tow a Bushtracker

Yeah, some juice through that! Assume you've checked your solar panels - sure to be at least one in advanced stage of melt down? Checked your batteries/cables/fuses in the line? No dangling power lines anywhere about getting blown around in the recent wild weather? Please give us a full damage report when you finally get it done - interesting to see if all the protective systems kicked in/could handle the load. Thanks Griff

Current thinking is that the solar regulator failed
with a resistance fault and the batteries did the rest. I understand that if
the unit failed in this manner, it would need much less than the 40 amps
pretection to kill it. What made the unit fail ?? Suspect lightning.

The wires are only dead at the solar regulator
connections i.e. unscathed in the cupboards, so we are saying lightning itself
did not directly do the damage. The unit itself ‘fried’, starting a
small fire which killed the cables at it’s base.

A dead short would have seen other cable damage
(maybe), although there is auto reset C/B on the battery leads to the unit. I’m
checing into how these operate and if they could keep pulsing on and off due to
resetting, manual ones may follow.



We may know more when BT have pulled it all off. They
have to re-roof for the hail damage so an inspection of the cables will occur.



One thing that maybe effected the result was I had
load and solar isolated at the time (testing the charger cycle). I maybe
barking up the wrong tree, but to me if there was a lightning stike, it may
have caused more issues with the regulator with batteries not there to accept a
surge and electronics open rather than closed.



Thaks for the offer re towing, but were not slow at taking
an opportunity to vist sunny QLD. Can’t wait till mid year for a fix as
no batteries, no use. Anyway we are Isa/Centre/Broken Hill/Copeton for
August/Sept.



Were booked in for 1st March for a repair
at BT, which they are saying is less than a week, so I am sure we will find
something to do in the area. It’s been a while since we have been to
Rainbow beach. I’ve only been back to Noosa once since my yearly surf
treks in early 1970’s and it has changed too much for the memories.





----------------------

Gary Harding

TriSys Engineering/III

Got a reply from Moning star on the failure of the
power regulator (see below). They were saying it may be connections etc until they
saw the picture. Seemed to indicate what we suspected i.e. lightning, then batteries
did the rest of the damage.





Gary,



It may be that the TVS (transient voltage suppressors)
were damaged with a

lightning strike. They can go resistive after break
down. This may have been

the source of the heat. Let me know if you have any
questions.



Regards,



Bill Mellema

MS Engineering Dept.





----------------------

Gary Harding

TriSys Engineering/III