Hi Bryan,
There's loads of Eastern Brown's and Black snakes here, just the other day there was a large Brown took off (as I walked past) in the same place I'm standing taking the photo of that carpet snake, the brown ended up going underneath the CNC Laser cutter, we just have be careful and be sure that the Doors are closed properly or they get in the house, a few have black snakes and pythons have and are not fun to try and catch them inside, It sounds like a DIY project!  lots of funnel web spiders too.

Well this morning got interesting, doing the usual stuff and then heard a POP, didn't know were from, whet looking then there was a crackle the fizzle and a few more pops, by this time I was around near the inverter and I saw the low output restart inverter on the screen, I though that sounded like mosfets popping.
Quickly shut off all the power to the inverter, Realising the inverter had all ready had shut off and waiting for me to reset, cant be too serious.

Opened the inverter box and smoke come out, had the camera and a short video but not great, then could see the smoke at the top right above the output filters, (stink's horrible) could see the head of a Gecko that should not be there...... F     it.




Should I leave its paw prints there as a reminder?


Burnt all the way through the PCB.


Cleaned it all up, give it a conformal coating, let it dry a little put it all together again and the inverter is up and running   , the loads that were on the inverter were shifted to the other inverter, took less than a minuet to do that.

So I Have some more work sealing up any holes to stop the little (and other) f     getting in.
Seems to be running just great.


Edited 2026-02-24 10:58 by Revlac

Dam!, I have 8 x 60mm air flow exhaust holes in the lower cabinet, already lost an Air-Con to the dam pests a few years back, I'd better get some mesh and block them, sigh!  Lucky it was across the Caps.    

Animals getting into electronics can be a big problem.
I use 5mm square mouse mesh over ventilation holes and fly wire too.
Had a few things that I have repaired over the years where animals got in and destroyed inverters and battery chargers.
Glad your inverter was easier to repair than the Gecko.
Nice easy fix for you Aaron.