I had a truck driver come by my classroom last week, said he had a disco in the back of his truck. He has a 35' or so box truck with 8 two tube 40watt flourescent lights, all powered from a 1500 watt inverter. Problem is , when he turns them on they cycle off and on at about 2 hz.
The dealer wired them all back to one plug which stays plugged in, the switch turns on a heavy duty realy (looks like a starter solenoid) on the primary of the inverter. The first thing I did was turn off two fixtures (they each have thier own switch) and turn on the power, the others lit without blinking. If I turn on the last 2 fixtures after the initial surge , they work also.
I 'm wondering if the inverter see's all the ballasts as dead shorts,and goes into a restart mode. Or is there too much inductance for the inverter to handle all at once, if that's the case would I need to add some resistance to the load ?
The driver said he stays on the road and wouldn't be able to come back for a while, so I'm going to have a hard time trying any fixes. Driver also tried 2 other inverters,one was a 3,000 watt and all had the same result...
What'dya think...