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Thermal · 18-08-2007, 18:39

I had some unexpected fireworks on the 4th of July when I switched on my small (1500W) inverter. There was nothing plugged on at the time. It has since been replaced, and I just got around to taking the old one apart to look inside. I'd really like to know what happened, even though I only have a vague idea of how these things work. I'm guessing that the high-power transistors switch DC current on and off to generate 60HZ square-wave AC, and for some reason the 6 on the "hot" side of the output fried - many of the transistor leads are melted. These 12 transistors are in contact with the case/heatsink with thermal paste. Anybody have any idea what happened here? I could probably get some more fo these transistors and replace them for little money, and maybe the thing would work again as a spare, but that would be pointless if something else caused these transistors to melt down.