Fischer Panda 4800i PMS Generator

Ian_Edwards

Ian_Edwards

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The Inverter on my 5year old Fischer Panda generator has failed.

Fischer Panda say the model is obsolete and can't be repaired and want £2k+ for new unit.

I find this hard to believe, considering that the unit is only 5 years old, they say that some parts are no longer available.

Functionally the inverter takes 3 phase power at about 300 volts, rectifies it and then inverts it to 230volts 50Hz.

The fault shows up as the inverter being online as the diesel engine is starting, this loads the diesel so it can't turn over quickly enough to start. If I disconnect the inverter, the diesel starts without a problem.

Does anyone know of a reputable electronics workshop who could repair the alternator?
 
>Fischer Panda say the model is obsolete and can't be repaired and want £2k+ for new unit.

If you do buy another generator do not buy a 5,000 rpm one the average life is 500 to 1,000 hours, our Lombardini one failed (no repair) at 550 hours. The most reliable generators are 1,500rpm Northern Lights closely followed by Westerbeke. I asked a number of engine/generator shops which generator they least had to repair and that was the unaninous answer. Yanmar was the recommended engine with no other one close.
 
Westerbeke and Onan/Cummins use Kubota engines for the lower power versions.. Quite sure Northern Lights does as well...

No idea which gens are powered by Yanmar...
 
Recently serviced a PF with the owner, who was quite voluble about how much it had cost him to get it reliable. Considerably north of £2K... one of the bits that needed fixing was the corrosion caused by the alternator being raw water cooled, whereas the engine is fresh water cooled, now by a new external exchanger.
 
Mase small genys use Yanmar .
Uniquely they are air cooled. Engine and alternator ,with obvious advantages keeping seawater away from the £££ bits !

There's a water /air exchanger a bit like a car rad bike sized it's got an anode too .Air is cooled by it blown by a fan through this then the fins on the engine ( remember the VW beetle )
Its in a box to direct the cooler air .

2600 rpm .Not the quietist but since seawater touchs niether engine or alternator I can live with the on the button reliability .
It's easy to add extra sound proofing to the box if you want .

Having said that the older FP s had direct seawater running through the alternator and engine via a coolent anode block ,which fails - silly design with an inevitable conclusion .
I understand the recent newer ones even small sub 5 kv are all indirect cooled now ,the smaller ones .
Farryman engines ok ish ,the exhaust valves can corrode if left unused for prolonged periods as the seawater entry to the manifold is v high ,near the valve .

Yanmar -- is a 300 cc in the 3.5 Kv and 400 cc in the Mase 5 Kv ---- bomb proof in the Aircooled variant .
 
Many of the 4 kVA non inverters are all generics of the Paguro unit, including some Westerbeke labelled units.

These use a single cylinder Farymann 4 stroke engine with raw water cooling.

They don't get used much, and are noisy when there are in use due to the 3000 RPM speed required by the 2 pole alternator..

When they are not being used they sit with a layer of seawater permanently in the exhaust manifold just a few inches below the discharge valve, so corrosion is rife.

A 2 cylinder 1500 RPM 4 pole will produce the same 50 hz output with lower crank speed and with two cylinders a power stroke each revolution. This means smoother, quieter operation. A fresh water cooling system will definitely help, but even these will use a seawater cooled exhaust, so keeping the exhaust seawater cooling injection further from the discharge manifold will reduce saltiness around the discharge valves when not in use.
 
We have a Perkins based two cylinder 3000rpm 5kVA generator. Thr engine was 17 years old when it dropped an exhaust valve. I had a spare engine for it that I dropped in so we are now back up and running. These Perkins 102-05 units are used worldwide in truck refrigeration units. The same engine has been badged Volvo and Kubota. Noisier than a 1500 rpm unit but I cant complain about the life or reliability. The Northern Lights small 1500 rpm generators use the three cylinder version of this engine but it obviously one cylinder longer so may not fit some boats as easily.
 
Update,

After a lot of discussion with Fischer Panda UK, I've just bought a reconditioned inverter of the new design. Hopefully it will arrive early next week so I can fit it.

The engine is a Farymann 15-18-32 W, single cylinder diesel, it is essentially oil cooled and the oil is in turn cooled by an external raw water heat exchanger, so salt water doesn't go anywhere near the block, just through the heat exchanger, before it is injected into the exhaust .

The generator is a set of coils built into the flywheel housing, with magnets set into the flywheel, so it's not a conventional diesel engine connected to an external generator. The coils produce 3 phase AC at around 300 volts, with the engine running at between 2700 and 3000 rpm. The rpm varies with load, so the generator runs faster when the load increases. The raw 3 phase variable frequency AC is then rectified to DC and reinverted to provide a stable 230volt 50Hz output. This was somewhat disconcerting at first, I'm use to a genset, chugging and slowing down when the load is switch in, this one speeds up.

This give a mains like supply which is suitable for running laptops and other consumer electronics which need a clean and stable AC power supply.

In principle I think this is an excellent system, but it's quite sophisticated in terms of its control.

It also hasn't been very unreliable, in the 5 years I've had it (less than 500hrs operation), I've replaced the water pump, controller board, stop valve and the main 40amp DC fuse, a flat strip fuse which failed in fatigue. I've also come to the conclusion that the original design of the inverter was "problematic", the design seems have been replaced less than 2 years after the generator was first marketed, and I had the misfortune to buy one of the early models.

I've retained the old inverter, and will have a good look at it over the winter. I didn't want to mess with it before sending it back to Fischer Panda, because I was under the impression that it could be repaired by the factory in Germany, However, I did take the cover off the inverter and had a good look around for obvious signs of damage, scorched PCB's or other signs of overheating, but it all looked pristine, so I guess the fault is more on the control side than the power side.
 
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>No idea which gens are powered by Yanmar...

In my original post I said Yanmar engines but there is one generator using a Yanmar engine I didn't know about in a post below - Mase small genys use Yanmar.
My bet is they will be the most reliable generators as their engines are.
 
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