Geewiz Inverter strangeness

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OnizukaZA

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Hi All,

Hope this is the correct place to post this.

I recently bought the Mecer 1200VA (720W) Inverter Battery Charger (UPS) from Geewiz and have had a very bad experience...

Firstly the inverter seems to be second hand even though they charged me for a new one (R2285), never came in the original packaging, the wires to connect to the batteries were nowhere to be seen even though they advertised that it comes with them on Geewiz site and the inverter itself was scratched, dented and dirty. Looked like they just took a second hand inverter, plastic wrapped it and threw it in a box....

But that's not the worst of it...I plugged the inverter in, everything was running fine, batteries were charging but they were very low so I left them to charge overnight while I slept...well shortly after falling a sleep I was woken up with a constant beeping sound coming form the inverter, all it shows on the inverter screen is "fault", not only that but it had also tripped my plugs on the DB board...

So next day I request a return, today I get this email from them:
1770981004145.png

First I know it is not my batteries as I plugged my old inverter in and it works fine (see image below).

Second, Now I am quite stupid when it comes to electrical things like this but I read up online and this inverter only allow 12v, if I plugged the batteries (2) in like they say in a series it will see it as one 24v battery which would then destroy the inverter (more than it already is...)? This is making me nervous as these people do not seem to know what they are doing/talking about or I am just stupid which is also a possibility.

Here is my current setup with my old inverter plugged in that I sent to them to show it is not the batteries:
1770981479487.png

TL:DR - Bought inverter from Geewiz, seems it was second hand from the packaging and lack of wires even though I paid price of a new one. Inverter faulted and tripped my plugs, request a return but get potentially dumb advise from their "techs".

Just wanted to rant, seen good reviews for Geewiz so not sure if I am just unlucky...
 
OnizukaZA said:
Hi All,

Hope this is the correct place to post this.

I recently bought the Mecer 1200VA (720W) Inverter Battery Charger (UPS) from Geewiz and have had a very bad experience...

Firstly the inverter seems to be second hand even though they charged me for a new one (R2285), never came in the original packaging, the wires to connect to the batteries were nowhere to be seen even though they advertised that it comes with them on Geewiz site and the inverter itself was scratched, dented and dirty. Looked like they just took a second hand inverter, plastic wrapped it and threw it in a box....

But that's not the worst of it...I plugged the inverter in, everything was running fine, batteries were charging but they were very low so I left them to charge overnight while I slept...well shortly after falling a sleep I was woken up with a constant beeping sound coming form the inverter, all it shows on the inverter screen is "fault", not only that but it had also tripped my plugs on the DB board...

So next day I request a return, today I get this email from them:
View attachment 1885870

First I know it is not my batteries as I plugged my old inverter in and it works fine (see image below).

Second, Now I am quite stupid when it comes to electrical things like this but I read up online and this inverter only allow 12v, if I plugged the batteries (2) in like they say in a series it will see it as one 24v battery which would then destroy the inverter (more than it already is...)? This is making me nervous as these people do not seem to know what they are doing/talking about or I am just stupid which is also a possibility.

Here is my current setup with my old inverter plugged in that I sent to them to show it is not the batteries:
View attachment 1885873

TL:DR - Bought inverter from Geewiz, seems it was second hand from the packaging and lack of wires even though I paid price of a new one. Inverter faulted and tripped my plugs, request a return but get potentially dumb advise from their "techs".

Just wanted to rant, seen good reviews for Geewiz so not sure if I am just unlucky...
Click to expand...
It does sound like a fault on the inverter, but also you need to read what they said carefully, they are not telling you to go into series. They are saying that currently in the parallel setup you've got you've got both positive and negative coming off the same battery, what they recommend is have one going from one battery and the other from the other battery, this will still leave the batteries in parallel, you're just separating the leads from battery to inverter.
It can help with stability, but it wouldn't cause the issue you saw. I ran batteries like this for a year without issues.
 
Geewizz inverters are hot garbage.

Had multiple RMA incidents with the unit provided with my hubble trolley. Last one they sneakily swapped the inverter with a cheaper variant. Unsurprisingly it also failed.

Ended up donating the thing and getting a nasty Chinese cheapo from ACDC - Zero issues since then. None.
 
Lupus said:
It does sound like a fault on the inverter, but also you need to read what they said carefully, they are not telling you to go into series. They are saying that currently in the parallel setup you've got you've got both positive and negative coming off the same battery, what they recommend is have one going from one battery and the other from the other battery, this will still leave the batteries in parallel, you're just separating the leads from battery to inverter.
It can help with stability, but it wouldn't cause the issue you saw. I ran batteries like this for a year without issues.
Click to expand...
Thanks, but I assume this is the config they are asking which means this would sum the volts of both batteries and would = 24 volts but this inverter only supports 12 volts?

1770984910446.png

Edit, oh wait I see what you saying, so keep it in parallel but just positive wire from inverter connect to one battery and negative to the other, got it.
 
OnizukaZA said:
Thanks, but I assume this is the config they are asking which means this would sum the volts of both batteries and would = 24 volts but this inverter only supports 12 volts?

View attachment 1885898
Click to expand...
no that isn't what they are asking you to do. Look at your batteries you have the positive and the negative lead coming from the same battery, all they're asking is for you to move one to the other battery, keeping the batteries in parallel as you're not changing the rest, just move the positive up to the other battery.
 
rustypup said:
Geewizz inverters are hot garbage.

Had multiple RMA incidents with the unit provided with my hubble trolley. Last one they sneakily swapped the inverter with a cheaper variant. Unsurprisingly it also failed.

Ended up donating the thing and getting a nasty Chinese cheapo from ACDC - Zero issues since then. None.
Click to expand...
My first time ever using them, not very impressed so far...Problem is it is very difficult to find an inverter charger on its own...
 
Lupus said:
no that isn't what they are asking you to do. Look at your batteries you have the positive and the negative lead coming from the same battery, all they're asking is for you to move one to the other battery, keeping the batteries in parallel as you're not changing the rest, just move the positive up to the other battery.
Click to expand...
Yeah sorry I see what you mean now, did make an edit on the original reply
 
Ama-Zing Rabobi said:
Post the rest of the manual - it should have a section referring to parallel connection? What about anything in the manual about the voltage of the unit?
Click to expand...
the manual shows this which is how I have it...
1770985495115.png

Edit, here is the table for the models, I have the first one (1200VA):
1770985612118.png
 
I've had pretty good experience from them over the years and probably responsible for many buying inverters from them. WHere there have been issues the inverters have been sent back. I always take their input and then run it past the forum or a electrician friend as I think they just jacks of all trades type of thing.
 
Ama-Zing Rabobi said:
Except that's wrong if it's a 12v inverter.
Click to expand...
No it is not wrong, you're not moving the cables joining the two batteries... Those remain in parallel, you're moving the positive cable from the one battery to the other. The config remains the same.
1770985431755.png
See, the batteries are still in parallel, series would be having the positive and negative joining the two batteries together.
This would be series
1770985618601.png
This gives more voltage, parallel gives more aH
 
Lupus said:
no that isn't what they are asking you to do. Look at your batteries you have the positive and the negative lead coming from the same battery, all they're asking is for you to move one to the other battery, keeping the batteries in parallel as you're not changing the rest, just move the positive up to the other battery.
Click to expand...
Battery.png
Like this
 
Ama-Zing Rabobi said:
Sure, but what difference does that change make... It's still one conductor on both sides.
Click to expand...
Easier to just accept their troubleshooting step and give it a try - I can understand why it (might) have an impact, though I'm no electrician
 
bullzeye.za said:
Easier to just accept their troubleshooting step and give it a try - I can understand why it (might) have an impact, though I'm no electrician
Click to expand...
Apparently it absolutely matters, makes a difference, and is the correct way to do it. It's called a diagonal connection, and prevents one battery from doing all the heavy lifting. This can have the same effect when charging, where one battery is always playing catch-up to the other. This can result in different voltages between the two batteries, and give a fault error message.

I'm no electrician either, just passing on feedback I've had from vendors.

They're probably asking you to do this to avoid potentially unnecessarily couriering the unit back and forth. It's better to do all troubleshooting possible upfront than to end up with

"Have you tried restarting it?"
"Yes"

/technician heads out, checks Task Manager, uptime is 117 days. Restarts and the problem is gone
 
Lupus said:
Apparently better stability, that's what they asked him to try out.
Click to expand...
It balances the current equally through both batteries.

With both leads on one battery, that battery has "priority" because there's marginally less resistance to the inverter from its terminals than from the other one's terminals.
 
Just an update on this.

Got a replacement inverter couple days ago and has been working fine ever since, it came in the original Mercer packaging with all the wires so at least I got an actual new one this time.

Still a bit of a sour taste that they tried to sell me a second hand faulty inverter even though I paid for a new one. probably last time I ever use them again.
 
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