Renogy inverter failure; are they any good?
About 6 months ago, we purchased a heap of Renogy gear, and I was keen to see how it would go. We’ve just had our first failure, and it’s the 2000W Renogy Inverter that has been in our Isuzu Dmax for the last 6 months.
Want to see the rest of our Renogy 12V gear reviews? You can check them out in the link.
We paid for this product
These days, if we want something, we pay for it, and it takes any questionability out in terms of bias. There’s a lot of people taking gear for free (and we get heaps of requests), and I think its hard to tell whether they are being truthful, especially when many don’t even declare its been gifted.
I’ve mentioned on a number of occasions that we’re happy with the Renogy gear, and I’ll comment on that more below, but know that this post is honest, not meant with any ill intention, and written purely for the benefit of those following along. Take it however you want, but these are our honest thoughts.
Inverter use case
Traditionally, we were only using our small inverter in the Dmax for charging camera batteries, drone batteries, Ryobi 18V batteries and other small appliances.
However, when we installed a 230aH lithium battery, and I saw how cheap the Renogy inverters were (we also put a 3000W one in our camper, that is going fine, touch wood) It seemed like a no brainer to get a 2000W unit.
The idea was to still use it for our chargers, but also to run the induction cooktop when we were out and about, or when the camper batteries were lower.
We’ve used it full time now for 6 months, and only on about 1200W (the lithium BMS is capped at 150A draw), along with a 900W toaster, and similar wattage toasted sandwich machine.
We’d use the induction cooktop the most, but usually only when it was overcast, or we were camped in shade and the camper batteries couldn’t keep up. Normally it was for short periods to boil water for hot drinks, but we did use it a few times for longer cooking.
What happened?
Whilst camping at the beautiful Jamieson Creek Campground, I was running the inverter and induction cooktop at 1200W, for about 10 minutes, boiling water with potatoes in them, to make mash. I wandered over, and smelt hot electrics, and worse than the normal warm electrics smell that you get.
I opened the other side of the canopy, and could have sworn I saw a waft of smoke, so ran around and turned it off, and let it cool down.
We used it again a while later, and the smell seemed to disappear, but I noticed that one of the cooling fans seemed to chirp on start up, and take longer to get going than the other. They also varied in speeds a bit, which seemed weird, so I sent a ticket off to Renogy. It was strange though, as the outside of the inverter wasn’t getting overly warm.
Renogy took about 2 days to reply via email, and were quick to ask questions about how it was installed, and what it was being used for.
I told them it was mounted on its side, and how it was being used, and they came back a day later saying that it was installed incorrectly, and shouldn’t be installed vertically, and that the failure was due to user error.
Feeling annoyed at this point, I grabbed the manual which makes no reference to any mounting orientation, except for a ‘2.5 inch gap on all sides’, which mine did not meet. I replied, asking how it being mounted in this orientation would make one of the fans not work correctly, and received the below response:
‘The technical department indicates that vertical mounting may cause the inverter to malfunction due to gravity affecting the internal components, not just the fan.’.
Feeling like they were trying to fob me off, I pushed back further, asking what components in the inverter would malfunction with it being mounted in the way I did, and received this:
‘Our technical department answered as below：
1. All components inside the inverter and the fan control circuit may be affected by gravity
2. Insufficient space on the other side of the inverter may also cause overheating inside the inverter and damage it”
In the mean time, I continued to carefully use the inverter, until whilst at Lake Eildon I was warming some food up in the induction cooktop when it went off, with a loud wailing alarm from the inverter, and that was it.
The moment you plugged anything in it would wail and turn off, and after playing with it for a bit, even turning it on with nothing plugged in it would do the same.
Later that day I did manage to get it to run a toaster for about 5 seconds before it turned off, so I presume its completely dead.
There’s more to the story
Now, just when I thought that was the end of the story, we arrived at Cooks Mill campground, with camper trailer batteries that needed more charge, no sun on the solar and a full battery in the Dmax. I decided to plug the lithium in the Dmax into the DCDC inlet of the camper, and watched it move about 23 amps across from one battery to the other. Sweet.
However, checking on it about an hour later, I could see the charger would stop suddenly, and then start up again, and on one occasion the fridge happened to be on at the time that it stopped, and it shut the fridge off too, and this was happening every 30 seconds or so.
Thinking that something could be wrong with the battery, I turned the LED light on in the canopy (also supplied by the lithium), and watched it turn off, and then come back on each time the DCDC stopped. After looking into the BMS information and finding nothing, I realised that the inverter was going off on low voltage, when the battery wasn’t supplying power to it.
I went over all of the terminals, tightening some very slightly loose positive ones around the fuses, and it would still do the same thing; every time the DCDC started to take more than 15 amps the Dmax lithium battery would ‘turn off’ momentarily, and the lights would flicker.
On a whim, and after chatting to a mate online, I removed a stud in the chassis that was the primary earth for everything in the canopy (but it does also tee off back to the lithium battery), including the inverter, and found it in pretty average condition.
The lug and washers were filthy, with rust evident, and no paint had been removed from the chassis. Getting a drill out and sandpaper bit saw it all cleaned up nicely, with the paint removed and I reinstalled it.
This resolved the DCDC issue and it happily chugged away for several hours after that without any issue, so I confidently plugged the inverter and induction cooktop in again, only to have it alarm within 5 seconds. So, is the inverter damaged, or the battery BMS? Did the dodgy earth cause the damage to the inverter?
I have no idea, but will swap it over and see what happens.
Did Renogy replace the unit?
In their last reply, Renogy said they’d send a new unit out, and to ‘take care of the installation method’.
As our inverter was still working, I asked them to ship it to our place in Perth, and in the mean time it failed, so we’ll have to get it shipped over here, but its still a reasonable result
My thoughts about Renogy
Obviously, to have something fail so early on is disappointing, but given the ‘faulty’ fan, I think it was dodgy to begin with. According to their manual it was not installed correctly, although I’m loathe to believe this contributed to its demise.
My bigger gripe was that their advice was incorrect; you can mount it in that orientation (at least according to their manual) as long as it has ample clearance around.
Perhaps this was lost in translation as it felt like I was talking to a bot some of the time, but their manual should be clearer. Their initial emails specifically mentioned it needs to be horizontally mounted, and yet a huge number of them are not, and the manual doesn’t mention this, so which one is it?
EDIT – I clarified by email that it should be mounted horizontally, which shows there is a major issue with their manual.
I think Renogy products are good value for what you get. I also feel that their customer support is average in terms of response time, the fact that you can’t ring anyone, and their actual technical information, and I knew that when I made the purchases.
I have previously enquired about lithium battery voltages with a ticket, and received some rather underwhelming information in reply, so wasn’t expecting anything overly helpful.
There is an Australian distributor now, who is helpful (Zero Grid Australia), but if you want amazing customer support there are other companies like Redarc and Victron that have an exceptional reputation.
For now, I’ll get the inverter shipped over here, and try and install it horizontally (in a different spot as it won’t fit), and we’ll start our testing again.
In the grand scheme of things its not a major problem as I have a backup Projecta inverter for the small camera appliances (plus the 3000W Renogy Inverter in the camper), and we don’t really need to cook with the induction off the Dmax battery.
If the camper batteries are low we will just swap over to gas for now, which is much slower and more frustrating, but it still works.
Have you had any Renogy products fail? How did you get on with it?
Hey Marko,
Cheers for your thoughts, and sorry to hear you’ve had a bad run. I’m not convinced that the failure has anything to do with the horizontal mounting, but you never know. Either way, a big shortfall of Renogy not to mention this in their install instructions.
Not good about the near fire from either units, and certainly something you don’t want to have happen.
Redarc make premium products, but I hate the fact that you have very little adjustability.
Overall, I’m still very happy with the Renogy products. I’ve got their lithium batteries, two inverters, three different types of solar panels, two different DCDC’s, a shunt, a couple of bluetooth modules and a 60 amp solar controller, and they’ve almost all been used full time, for nearly two years under fairly arduous conditions
Looking the other day, and we’ve done 330kwh on one system, and about 700 on the other, which is pretty significant.
My auto electrician uses Renogy almost exclusively, and has had very few failures, but at the end of the day, if you aren’t comfortable with them, that’s perfectly reasonable too.
Take care mate
Aaron
Had pretty much the same crap just happen to me with the Renogy 2KW inverter. I had mine installed horizontally like you, on the rear wall partition surrounded by massive amounts of space. The manual said nothing about mounting it that way was wrong.
I used Bat 0 cable running to the inverter from the bus bars, via a chongus ANL fuse holder, it ran fine for several months, then out of the blue decided to thoroughly melt the fuse holder and cable rather than doing the expected decent thing and blowing, leaving a nice burn mark on the ply behind the fuse. Neg cable was cold. The 300a positive bus bar was warm, battery cables were fine.
I should have put a circuit breaker in instead of a fuse, but on install day it was still coming, so I used what I had with the intention of swapping it over. It still should have blown.
I suspect the worm screw type bare cable terminals aren’t all that good an idea resistance wise, and that combined with a cooling fault on the Renogy inverter caused it to fly into overcurrent.
I rewired the positive with the 200a chunky type breaker, and ran a 1.4kw airfryer off it, it tripped after about 5 minutes, so I think the inverter is done for. I’ll test it again with a lighter load.
Kicking myself for not getting the 3kw one, I only had 2 x 100aH continuous lifepo4 batteries so talked myself out of it. I had no intention of running full wattage appliances off it. Lesson learned.
This was the second time a Renogy product tried to set my ute on fire, first was their hideously chunky 50a DC-DC unit, it blew up spectacularly. They thankfully refunded that, and I replaced it with a ridiculously tiny 40a Redarc unit that just bloody works.
Just going to say this: Friends don’t let friends buy Renogy products.
Hey George,
Thanks for your comment, and thoughts. When you say hot, how hot are we talking? It’d be interesting to look at it with a thermal image camera, and see where the most heat is.
Ours gets warm, but never seems to be hot.
One of the complaints I’ve heard from others with these inverters is that the fan is on a timer, and not based on heat, so they come on regardless of whether they’re needed or not. In neither of our scenario’s it matters, so we don’t care, but if it was under your bed it’d be annoying.
Our 3000W inverter is going perfectly, and has been used extensively over the last year running up to 200 amps, or around 2500W at times.
Cheers again, and all the best
Aaron
Thanks heaps for sharing your experience. That Renogy inverter smoke situation ain’t no joke.
FWIW —-> I just installed my first 12V off-grid solar system using the same Renogy 2000W inverter. The positive wire running into the inverter from the battery (well technically from the positive bus bar) sure gets hot, even though I’m using a 2/0 B&S cable that’s rated at ~290A. I run a 2-door fridge off this system whose average consumption is ~55W or ~4.5A per hour, which is basically nothing. The inverter system fans also turn on constantly like it’s struggling. I use all copper wires, copper lugs, everything is purposefully over-spec’d (e.g. MPPT controller, LifePo batteries, etc) so the system would run cool and could be scaled up. So its not like my setup is contributing to this inverter running constantly hot.
Interestingly, the negative wire from the battery to the negative bus bar and then into the inverter is fine temp wise – not even warm. My gut feeling is these Renogy inverters are low quality and not what most people think they are – I mean they have to be right given how cheap they are compared to the competitors. I’ll probably swap it out for a Victron and Enerdrive unit very soon.
Anyway, hope my comment adds some value.
Cheers
George
Hey Mike,
Thanks for your comment. Interesting that running the battery down would cook the inverter.
I’d agree; I can’t justify the money on the ‘high end’ inverters when these do the job just fine. Really happy with all of our Renogy gear thus far
All the best
Aaron
I installed my 2000w Renogy inverter in the utility storage tray in the back of my Colorado 7, ran without issue for 3 years until my rubber tent mallet in the tray switched it on accidentally. It ran down the 200ah lithium battery bank. Only realised when I started up and heard the inverter alarming. Had no load connected but likely cooked it in the enclosed space.
It now no longer switches while on DC, pass through works fine and internally looks ok, no blow components…
I will pickup a replacement as until now it’s been fine and when compared in price to Redarc or Endrive I could keep replacing them for years at this price 😉
Hey Wilco,
Our 3000w Renogy inverter has been used for nearly a year, full time for most meals on induction and has been flawless.
I honestly think my 2000w one was defective from the get go, but who knows.
I guess it comes down to your budget and how much you depend on it working but overall I’m still happy.
There are better units but you pay a lot more too. I’d still get one again.
All the best
Aaron
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for your post and review.
We are in the process in updating the electrical system in our Kimberley kamper and so far have installed the Renogy 30A DCDC MPPT charger and Renogy battery monitor.
Last week the Renogy 200Ah battery arrived And we are looking at a 2000W interver to run an induction cooktop.
After your failure, are you still recommendaing the invertor?
Ours will be installed under the bed vertically.
Hey Barry,
It is entirely possible, and I’ve wondered about that myself. Interestingly the new Renogy inverter didn’t seem to want to work; it would try to come on and do nothing, so the pulsing certainly affects something.
Our cooktop pulls a minimum of 88 amps, even at 200W. It’s on for maybe 2 seconds, and then off for about 10 seconds, which could work it hard.
We did have the old inverter apart the other day and there’s possibly a dodgy fuse, but more investigation required.
All the best
Aaron
Is it possible that the inverter doesn’t like the ‘Pulsing’ of the Induction cooktop?
I have so far been unable to find anything definitive on this other than vague suggestions that this is so.
I am off grid and I see that my new cooktop, (at low power), continually pulses between 150 and 1700 watts every 10 secs or so. (I have a 3Kw inverter).
I would be interested in your thoughts.
Cheers Baz
Hey Chris,
The photos are a bit deceptive. The original install had at least 50mm clearance all the way around except for one side (that it sits on). It certainly has ample cooling ability with the top and rear being completely open with good air flow.
It never really got hot externally and I think it was just a faulty unit.
I have the new one temporarily strapped down on the feet and it’s working fine, although initially it wouldn’t power the induction on heat which was weird.
I have limited room and have to decide whether I mount it how it was or get new leads made up and put it elsewhere.
All the best
Aaron
Hi Aaron,
Your review was a great read as you’ve raised some really interesting challenges!
Have you been using the replacement inverter you were sent, and is it lasting the distance?
Your photo of the horizontal install is of particular interest for me; reading the Renogy technical datasheet, the inverter is up to 90% efficient; which literally means if you’re powering a 1.2kW device, it’s drawing 1.33kW from the supply. 2nd law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy) means there is >130 watts of heat being output from your inverter; which you’re pumping into a very small space looking at the photo’s. Does the new location have a bigger heat dissipation opportunity?
I’m in the market for an inverter at the moment and also don’t have a large space for the install so interested to hear how your replacement went.