Inverter cut out during last night's storm - worth checking the fuses first?

Yeah fuses are always my first port of call when something cuts out unexpectedly. Had mine trip during a bad night last winter — spent ages convinced the Victron MultiPlus had given up the ghost, turned out it was just the ANL fuse on the battery cable had blown. Five minute fix.

Worth checking in this order IMO:

• ANL/MIDI fuse on the main battery cable first
• Inline fuses on any smaller feeds
• The inverter's internal fuse if it has one (check the manual)
• Then look at the battery terminals — storms can cause vibration and loosen connections

Also don't rule out the inverter just doing its job. Most decent units will shut themselves off if there's a voltage spike or if the batteries dip too low. Victron especially is quite aggressive about low voltage cutoff. What were your battery levels like before the storm hit?

If the fuses all check out fine, worth having a look at the event log if your inverter supports it. The MultiPlus keeps a record and it's saved me a lot of head-scratching more than once.

What inverter are you running? That might help narrow it down. Some of the cheaper units don't handle sudden load surges well either, and storms usually mean people are running more kit than normal — kettles, heaters, the lot.

Don't panic-replace anything expensive until you've ruled out the simple stuff. What does everything look like physically — any scorch marks or burning smell anywhere near the unit?

@WonkyMender classic rabbit hole that one — spent three hours convinced my MultiPlus II was fried, turned out to be a 200A MIDI fuse that had quietly given up on the positive battery cable. Dead simple fix, embarrassing amount of time wasted.

Worth mentioning: temperature cycling during storms can cause fuse holders to flex slightly, which can introduce enough resistance to cause nuisance trips even if the fuse itself looks intact. On the boat I actually torque-check my ANL fuse connections every autumn now.

Also worth checking the DC bus bars while you're in there — vibration from high winds (especially relevant on a vessel or van) can loosen terminal screws over time. A quality crimped lug makes a massive difference here. Fogstar cells are solid but their included hardware isn't always tightened to spec from the factory, in my experience.

@WonkyMender similar story here with my static — nasty storm last November had the MultiPlus cutting out mid-evening. Spent a good while suspecting the worst before methodically working backwards through the system.

What caught me off guard was a corroded ANL fuse holder rather than the fuse itself. The vibration from wind buffeting the van had worked a connection loose just enough to cause intermittent resistance under load. Looked completely fine on visual inspection.

Worth checking:

• Fuse holders not just the fuses — corrosion and loose connections are sneaky
• DC cable runs for any chafing if your setup moves at all
• Battery terminal connections — these can work loose over time

Grabbed a multimeter and worked from the battery outward. Found it within twenty minutes once I slowed down and stopped panicking.

Seconding all of this — fuses first, always. One thing worth adding though: after a storm I'd also give your battery terminals and busbar connections a quick once-over before you start replacing anything. I've seen vibration from high winds (especially if your kit's in a outbuilding or van) work connections slightly loose, which can cause all sorts of weird cut-out behaviour that looks for all the world like a component failure. Thermal imaging pen is dead handy for spotting a dodgy connection under load if you've got access to one. Also worth checking whether the MultiPlus logged a fault code — @WonkyMender, @EcoFlow_Master, if yours are connected to a Cerbo or Color Control you can pull the VRM history and it'll often tell you exactly what triggered the shutdown rather than guessing.

Really good shout from @Compo_7207 on the battery terminals — I'd extend that to checking your DC cable connections generally after any rough weather. Vibration from high winds can work loose connections you'd never normally suspect, and a slightly loose cable can cause all sorts of erratic behaviour that looks for all the world like an inverter fault.

Also worth pulling up your Victron Connect history if you've got a GX device or Bluetooth dongle — the event logs will often tell you exactly why it shut down (overvoltage, low battery, overtemp etc.) before you start pulling anything apart. Saved me an embarrassing call to my supplier once when I could see it was simply a low voltage cutoff from the batteries being more depleted than I'd realised going into the storm.

Mine cut out during a storm once and it turned out the vibration from the thunder had loosened a busbar connection on my Fogstar battery stack — not a fuse, not a fault, just physics being an absolute menace.