PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by coulomb »

Tejota wrote: Wed, 07 Mar 2018, 05:29 MOSFETS in PF1 5kW up to 64V charging are TK100E08N1

Wow! So these are 80V MOSFETs with Vgs=0, but only 60V with Vgs=-20 V. The datasheet doesn't say what voltage is safe with intermediate gate voltages, but suggests (to me) that with any significant negative gate voltage, which I assume is standard, that the limit is 60 V. So there must be a non-standard gate drive for these. Or I'm misunderstanding the datasheet.
I have seen them through the grid of holes.
Well sleuthed! Maybe an optic fibre camera next? 😎

Is there a special firmware revision number? I imagine they would want to distinguish the high voltage versions from others, yet indicate what other features and/or bug fixes it has in common with the nearest non high voltage version.
A question about parallelized pips: If mosfets/igbts in one unit of the cluster fail, what happens in the other units of the cluster?
A great question. Firstly, I'll consider MOSFET failure. I assume that the battery is effectively shorted while the MOSFET leads (the real battery fuse) are melting, which would protect other inverter units in the cluster. But when the last MOSFET lead lets go, the voltage across the battery terminals to the other units would suddenly increase, and I imagine that there would be an inductive overshoot that would severely test the capacitors and MOSFETs in the other units of the cluster. This spike in voltage might or might not be enough to take out some or all of the other units.

Secondly, if the IGBTs fail, then the 400V bus is shorted, which might or might not take out the MOSFETs of the same unit, depending largely on the health of the battery side capacitors (and probably also the health of the bus capacitors as well). This would happen via a surge through the high frequency transformer coupling the bus and battery circuits. This would then propagate or not through to the other units, as above.

Does anyone have first hand experience of this?
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by Tejota »

coulomb wrote: Wed, 07 Mar 2018, 06:23 Well sleuthed! Maybe an optic fibre camera next? 😎

Image
coulomb wrote: Wed, 07 Mar 2018, 06:23 Is there a special firmware revision number? I imagine they would want to distinguish the high voltage versions from others, yet indicate what other features and/or bug fixes it has in common with the nearest non high voltage version.
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coulomb wrote: Wed, 07 Mar 2018, 06:23 Does anyone have first hand experience of this?
Yes. I lost 4 (four) pip4048ms on cluster. Full disaster. I dont know what happened....
Working conditions: 1 pip4048 (master) manufactured August 16 (no heatsink on top) + 3 Axpert 5048 (4kW) (slaves) manufactured Mars 2014 (heatsink on top). Firmware 72.70c on all units. Lead Acid Battery 1500 Ah. At midday global solar production about 9 kW 160A (40+40+40+40 more less) to battery and a little inductives load in AC (2 kW). A little cloud effect.... not important. Suddenly ALL DC breakers of slave units OPEN. Only DC breaker of master closed but all units in fault.
I disconnect everything. Two slaves shorted at battery side. One slave starts at fault 09 and shutdown. Master starts at fault 09 and shutdown.
I only have dissambled one shorted slave: 12 mosfets shorted, 2 mosfets fifty fifty, and 2 mosfets correct. Buck IGBT (2) shorted !!!
No visual destructive effects.
Any explanation of this disaster ?? Mosfets and capacitor were original on failed units.

Pd: Yes I bought an axpert 5048 pf1 64V until I repair failed units if I can.
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by coulomb »

Tejota wrote: Thu, 08 Mar 2018, 04:07 [ Many photos... ]
Thanks for the photos, Tejota.

Some notes:
  • The main (U1) firmware is 72.00. I'm guessing that this is effectively "72.100", hence later than 72.70. I wonder what "parallel compatibility group" it will belong to. [ Edit: we now that 72.00/10/20 is separate and later than 72.60/70/90. ]
  • The SCC firmware is up to 04.12. I wonder what updates are in there, if any.
  • New parameter Ev (34), is presumably the maximum tolerated battery voltage before you get an error. Nice to see that adjustable.
  • There is another new parameter (39), with no name at the left, and the present value is AdS. Do you know what this parameter is for? Did the inverter come with an up to date paper manual? [ Edit: Duh. Not new parameters. They are described in the 5048 manual, as Weber reminds me below. ]
  • It's good to see the fans installed right way around (blowing hot air upwards) (thanks, @PaulVK!)
  • The capacitors have changed from the originals with the gold colour; obviously the original 63 V models would not do.
  • The IGBTs seem to be different part numbers, but that doesn't mean much.
coulomb wrote: Wed, 07 Mar 2018, 06:23 Does anyone have first hand experience of this?
Yes. I lost 4 (four) pip4048ms on cluster. Full disaster. I dont know what happened....
Ouch!
Working conditions: 1 pip4048 (master) manufactured August 16 (no heatsink on top) + 3 Axpert 5048 (4kW) (slaves) manufactured Mars 2014 (heatsink on top).
I assume that the slaves would have been Axpert 4048s, being 4 years old now.
At midday global solar production about 9 kW 160A (40+40+40+40 more less) to battery...
So: battery voltage might have been near its highest.
A little cloud effect.... not important.
Well, it might be. Pips/Axperts tend to overshoot the desired battery voltage by sometimes over a volt for several seconds.
I only have dissambled one shorted slave: 12 mosfets shorted, 2 mosfets fifty fifty, and 2 mosfets correct. Buck IGBT (2) shorted !!!
Interesting about the buck IGBTs being shorted. That seems to indicate that there was a surge that travelled from the inverter circuit back to the battery circuit. So maybe something happened to the inverter of this slave, surge blow up MOSFETs at the DC side; the leads of the failed MOSFETs all fused open circuit (hence it was able to start up and show an error 09), and when the battery terminal voltage suddenly increased, the inductive kick-back sent a spike of voltage to the other three battery terminals, killing all their DC side MOSFETs (and possibly more).
No visual destructive effects.
Does this refer to the buck MOSFETs only, or to all? My theory above relies on open circuited but failed MOSFETs, which usually means the leads are blown, a very visual effect. You did say this was a "shorted slave", so I'm guessing you means none of the MOSFETs or IGBTs had visible failures. In that case, I really can't explain why the buck IGBTs blew. Is it possible that the two failed IGBTs were not the buck devices (Q31, Q32) but instead were two of the high-side DC-DC IGBTs? (See my Power Topology post.)
Any explanation of this disaster ?? Mosfets and capacitor were original on failed units.
Summers in north east Spain are about 2°C higher than Brisbane Australia, and we've had inverters fail after a few years when the capacitors are factory originals. The factory capacitors are rated for only 2000 hours at 105°C, so Spanish summers would take their toll. So that's my guess.
Ps: Yes I bought an axpert 5048 pf1 64V until I repair failed units if I can.
If you don't already have one, consider buying a desoldering station; it will be very useful for repairing 4 failed units. Weber bought one a while ago, and it's been wonderful for removing those endless MOSFETs, and sucking out solder from capacitor holes. Good luck, and don't forget to check out all those gate driver parts as well.

[ Edit: Added ", if any" to "I wonder what updates are in there". ]
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by weber »

coulomb wrote: Thu, 08 Mar 2018, 08:50 [*] The SCC firmware is up to 04.12. I wonder what updates are in there.
Allowing it to charge up to 64 V I presume.
[*] New parameter Ev (34), is presumably the maximum tolerated battery voltage before you get an error. Nice to see that adjustable.
[*] There is another new parameter (39), with no name at the left, and the present value is AdS. Do you know what this parameter is for? Did the inverter come with an up to date paper manual?
RTFM (the second link in our index post) pages 23 and 24. Ev is equalisation voltage and AdS is activation disabled.
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

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coulomb wrote: Thu, 08 Mar 2018, 08:50 I assume that the slaves would have been Axpert 4048s, being 4 years old now.
Yes, the same as pip4048 old version, heatsink on top. Manufactured on Mars 2014 but in service from December 2016 (one year and two months working ). PIP4048 new version without heatsing on top (master) was working with slaves from December 2016 too.
coulomb wrote: Thu, 08 Mar 2018, 08:50 So: battery voltage might have been near its highest.
Not.... batt voltage was:
Image


Take a look to loadwatts disaster day:

Image

CONG = freezer 2HP
REF: fridge 1HP

I think problem was when stopped freezer = Overvoltage in AC back to inverters.
coulomb wrote: Thu, 08 Mar 2018, 08:50 If you don't already have one, consider buying a desoldering station; it will be very useful for repairing 4 failed units. Weber bought one a while ago, and it's been wonderful for removing those endless MOSFETs, and sucking out solder from capacitor holes. Good luck, and don't forget to check out all those gate driver parts as well.
Yes, I have got one DESOLD STATION.
Well, second slave has got too many MOSFET at DC SIDE shorted like the first slave. Not open circuit, only shorted.
Q32 shorted (BUCK MOSFET) Q31 (BUCK MOSFET) not shorted. The same as first slave.
D13 (BUCK DIODE) has got destructive visual effect. Not much but appreciable

Image


Image

IGBT Q27 is shorted in second slave. At first slave IGBTs are supposedly correct.

Next days desoldering these parts on third slave and master. But IMO problem was overvoltage on freezer stop contacts relay travelling to PIPs AC LOAD. If Q31 or Q32 are shorted with D13 and some IGBT, too many MOSFETs at DC 48v will be shorted.

I could be wrong but...

Do you put the same ref parts number failed (D13, Q31, Q32 and IGBTs Q27 etc) ??
Original parts are:
D13 APT30DQ60BC
Q31-Q32 W45NM60
Q27-Q30 GP4063D
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by rezydent »

For me transistors broke down and I exchanged them on CSD19535KCS and IRFB3077PbF
Whether exist possibility of amending of stretching charging the battery to 64 VDC?
Do you know how it would be possible to do it?
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by weber »

rezydent wrote: Mon, 26 Mar 2018, 04:12 For me transistors broke down and I exchanged them on CSD19535KCS and IRFB3077PbF
Whether exist possibility of amending of stretching charging the battery to 64 VDC?
Do you know how it would be possible to do it?
Hi rezydent. No, it is not possible to increase the charging voltage to 64 volts merely by a firmware change, because the capacitors, MOSFETs and IGBTs are already operating close to their rated voltages. This includes the high-voltage DC bus capacitors which have a 500 V rating and would be operating at 512 V if the battery was at 64 V, due to the 8:1 ratio of the DC-DC converter stage.
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

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weber wrote: Mon, 26 Mar 2018, 16:30 Hi rezydent. No, it is not possible to increase the charging voltage to 64 volts merely by a firmware change, because the capacitors, MOSFETs and IGBTs are already operating close to their rated voltages. This includes the high-voltage DC bus capacitors which have a 500 V rating and would be operating at 512 V if the battery was at 64 V, due to the 8:1 ratio of the DC-DC converter stage.
Ok, of it I didn't know that ratio 8:1 was working of DC-DC converter. But to 60 V it is possible so that it is to hurry him up? It would be for me some solving a problem with my batteries.
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Re: PIP-4048MS Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by frnandu »

Hello guys, first of all, thank you for all your effort into making the firmware and sharing your knowledge here.

I want to be able to remotely turn the PIP on/off completely, so I'm thinking about connecting the on/off switch cables into some relay controlled by a raspberry.
Does anyone know what kind of voltages/amperages are being used on those on/off switch cables?
What kind of relay (or other electric mechanism) could be safely used there? I'm kind of ignorant on such matters, so any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Last edited by frnandu on Tue, 03 Apr 2018, 21:36, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by coulomb »

"Coulomb's partial schematic trace of the main power supply circuit" is available from the index.

The AC start switch carries battery voltage, so you need to be careful with fault currents. A ~1 A 60+VDC fuse would be wise, on the pin 1 side. The switching current is quite low, however. Hence, many small relays would be suitable, perhaps even a printed circuit mounting type, but to be safe its contacts should be rated at 60 VDC. Any current rating would be suitable. Many cheap relays' contacts are rated for 240 VAC, which sounds plenty, but their DC rating might be as low as 28 V, making them unsuitable. Merely wire the normally open contacts across the start switch. The start switch needs to be off for the raspberry to control the PIP, obviously.
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by frnandu »

Thanks, any idea where to get a relay with contacts rated for 60VDC?
Would a SSR be ok to use?
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by mohfamous »

coulomb wrote: Tue, 17 Jan 2017, 20:02
Image

thanks coulomb for your hard effort
could you explain the circuit
thanks
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by coulomb »

This circuit, present on only some models (before the fuse protection "feature") merely disconnects the battery negative strap from the rest of the inverter if the processor doesn't cause the opto-coupler (OP2) to be lit, which will turn on the four paralleled MOSFETs (only 1 shown). The circuit makes more sense when the integral reverse diode is shown (I've changed the original to suit now):
Reverse protection sch.png
Reverse protection sch.png (5.81 KiB) Viewed 9770 times
If the battery connection is reversed, the terminal marked BATT- will actually be positive with respect to what I've drawn as earth in the diagram. As a result, the integral diodes will be reversed biased, the power supplies that runs off the battery to power the processor won't operate, and the processor won't turn on the opto-coupler, so the MOSFETs will stay off. This will cause approximately a 0.6 V drop across the integral diode, which is not good for efficiency. But as soon as the processor is running, the opto-coupler will turn on, which will apply some 15 V to the gates, and the MOSFETs will turn on hard. These will reduce the 0.6 V drop to that of a low valued resistor.

So the idea is that if you accidentally connect the battery in reverse, nothing blows up, and there is no great splat. In later models, they must have a large diode connected across the battery after a fuse (which is a piece of plated metal with a narrow neck). In these models, if you connect the battery in reverse, the diode conducts, and nearly the whole battery voltage appears across the fuse. There would be an enormous surge of current, a mighty clap of noise and flash of light as the fuse blows. After your sight and hearing recovers, and you change your underwear, you rewire the battery cables, use the spare fuse provided, and check your work really carefully before turning on again :-O

[ Edit: added "the integral diodes will be reversed biased". ]
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by paulvk »

coulomb wrote: Sun, 08 Apr 2018, 17:21 So the idea is that if you accidentally connect the battery in reverse, nothing blows up, and there is no great splat. In later models, they must have a large diode connected across the battery
Or maybe a fet and diode
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by mohfamous »

I have 5000VA
I want to know what are this SMD code mean
L44 ( 3 pin)
L4 (3 pin )
W1p (3 pin)
WA (3 pin)

thanks all for your help
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by coulomb »

mohfamous wrote: Thu, 12 Apr 2018, 00:01 I want to know what are this SMD code mean
L44 ( 3 pin)
L4 (3 pin )
I usually use S-manuals.com, e.g. these first two can be found on the page starting with L4, leading to datasheets like this one. I have some of these marked on my partial schematics, e.g. D8 near the upper right of the IGBT driver partial schematic trace has "L4" amongst its labels.

There are a few other SMD code sites; Google "marking code". These two are low-power schottky diodes, usually called BAT54S (series pair) and BAT54 (single) for L44 and L4 respectively. You can get these at the usual suspects (element14, Mouser, Digi-Key, and so on).
W1p (3 pin)
Some of them can be tricky. For example, it might be that the marking code is W1, and "p" indicates the manufacturing site. The closest I can find is a 2.4 V zener, but this seems very unlikely. What designator (e.g. ZD7) does it have? "W1p" sounds familiar from one of the battery-side or high-side MOSFET drivers; perhaps a transistor with a Qn designator, where n is a number like 7 or 31. [ Edit 2022/Feb: W1P (note the capital P) is the SMD code (actually only the 1P is the part code, the W indicates the manufacturing plant or similar) for the common PMBT2222A NPN transistor. ]
WA (3 pin)
Per the S-manuals site, this could be a 5.6 V zener diode, like ZD7 in the IGBT schematic linked above (we found a part with marking code BC there; marking codes sometimes vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, and sometimes there is commonality).

[ Edit: swapped BAT54 and BAT54S, added "for L44 and L4 respectively" ]
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by mohfamous »

Hello all thanks for your quick reply
I have on my 5000VA LCD error code 08
in manual shows update firmware what do I do?
and thanks
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by coulomb »

mohfamous wrote: Sun, 22 Apr 2018, 15:25 LCD error code 08
The user manual says that this fault code is "bus voltage too high". Yes, the service manual says to update the firmware, but I don't think this will fix it. I suspect that they don't expect this error to come up, but if it ever does come up consistently, perhaps they can fix it with a firmware update. Another thought is that perhaps if the firmware totally crashed (one of the tasks ended up "in the weeds"), then there is an outside chance that the bus soft start could be commanded to switch on on long after starting, while the inverter is running. Different firmware could overcome that problem. The manufacturer doesn't appear to use the watchdog timer to automatically reset in conditions like this.

One potential hardware problem that occurs to me is that perhaps the bus soft start "power supply" isn't turning off, or is coming on when it should not. Check R251, R250, a short from pins 3-4 of U16, U16 itself, perhaps U17 or any of the passives around U16.

If you don't have a reasonably recent firmware revision (say 72.40 or later), then I guess it's worth trying the suggested firmware update. But I'm not optimistic. See this topic's index in the first post for the latest patched firmware, and there are other links to official firmware if you don't want patched firmware for whatever reason.

Edit: Another thought is that when AC charging, a fault in the buck circuit might cause the bus voltage to become too high. When not AC charging, it is supposed to merely connect the inverter bus with the output of the DC-DC converter. Perhaps if its faulty, this could cause bus voltage problems at any time.

[ Edit: added "fault code" , and "to switch on"]
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by mohfamous »

Hello
in error 09 I have changed the defected parts of Main board Mosfets and IGBTs
But I think there is problem in Control Board
Have you find any problem in your previous projects ?
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by mohfamous »

and ow to test the control board
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by coulomb »

mohfamous wrote: Sun, 22 Apr 2018, 23:07 ... I have changed the defected parts of Main board Mosfets and IGBTs
But I think there is problem in Control Board
Have you find any problem in your previous projects ?
No, I can't recall any problems with a control board, though I faintly remember attempting to trace a few parts of one once. The control board seems to be mainly the digital signals processor itself and lots of interface / buffering circuitry (analogue and digital). I think that there isn't much that would typically fail there.

I haven't seen a schematic diagram (official or traced) for the control/daughter/processor board. It will be very hard to test, because the processor has some 80 input/output pins, and the assignment of general purpose I/O signals to functions isn't documented. I know precious few from reading the firmware, e.g. GPIO5 seems to control the inverter relay, and GPIO7 seems to control the load relay (in both cases, a digital 1 at the processor turns the relay coil on).

We don't seem to have a post on debugging the gate drivers; I thought we did but can't find it. Perhaps you can find some inspiration from this post: Testing inverter gate drivers when the battery-side MOSFETs are removed (added to the index just today).
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by mohfamous »

Hi My friends
My PIP4048
shows on the LCD error 57
?
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by coulomb »

mohfamous wrote: Tue, 19 Jun 2018, 16:25 My PIP4048 shows on the LCD error 57
It seems that there is a test at startup to check for DC offsets in any of these:
* The current transformer measuring load current
* The hall effect sensor measuring inverter output current
* The current sharing sensor, presumably only if your machine is paralleled with others (not a single machine, or 3 machines in 3-phase).
Instantaneous current is averaged over some time period, and if the result for any of the three measurements is greater than 100 (which might represent 10 .0 A or possibly 1.00 A), then fault code 57 (error 57) will be set.

Hall effect devices are notorious for drifting, and being sensitive to stray magnetic fields, even being magnetised themselves. If your warranty has expired, you could possibly try demagnetising it; it's the blue part outlined in red below:

Hall effect sensor.jpg
Hall effect sensor.jpg (106.86 KiB) Viewed 16425 times
Back in the days of magnetic tape recorders, there used to be a thing called a demagnetising wand. I believe that I still have one, and it seems you can still get them from Ebay or similar. You move the tip of the demagnetiser close to the device to be demagnetised, then move it slowly away. The idea is to create smaller and smaller magnetising loops in the magnetisable material, until the residual magnetism is near to zero. You may have to move it all around such a large device, and/or try a few times. Test by powering up the inverter from off. If that doesn't work, replace the part. If you're not prepared to try this, have the inverter repaired. I've never had this error, so I've never tried this remedy.
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by Alex_50174 »

Hi guys!
Sorry for my bad English, it's not my native language.
I'm trying to repair a pair of 5kVa inverters. They worked in parallel and died in one time.
And I want to guess why that happened.
There was an 100A circuit breaker (C100 for 220V AC) between batteries and inverters (1 circuit breaker for 2 inverters) and it tripped.
After that MOSFETs at the battery side shorted, DC-DC IGBTs are also shorted, but INV full bridge IGBTs are not shorted.
Is it possible that when circuit breaker tripped during normal inverters operation there was a power surge that killed transistors in both sides?
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Re: PIP inverter repairs and hardware modifications

Post by coulomb »

Alex_50174 wrote: Fri, 13 Jul 2018, 19:07 Hi guys!
Welcome, Alex.
There was an 100A circuit breaker (C100 for 220V AC) between batteries and inverters (1 circuit breaker for 2 inverters) and it tripped.
100 A is quite light for two inverters in parallel. It also sounds like they were only AC rated; you need DC rated fuses or breakers there. When they opened at something over their rated current, they may well have arced, pitting the contacts, and that may have interrupted the power to the inverters many times in a fraction of a second. The natural inductance of the battery cables may have caused voltage transients.

If you did not replace the original MOSFETs and capacitors, then they were already running very close to their limits. A few rapid inductive spikes could well have sent them into avalanche breakdown.
After that MOSFETs at the battery side shorted, DC-DC IGBTs are also shorted, but INV full bridge IGBTs are not shorted.
Is it possible that when circuit breaker tripped during normal inverters operation there was a power surge that killed transistors in both sides?
Certainly. However, it's also possible that heat caused the capacitors that protect the battery-side MOSFETs to dry and become high impedance, allowing the transients on the 50 V bus to kill those MOSFETs, and the transformer coupled the transients (plus new ones from the short on the 50 V bus) to the DC-DC IGBTs. The new transients on the 50 V bus couple to the other inverter via the battery cables, killing that inverter as well. Of course, the shorted MOSFETs would cause the battery breaker to trip. Arcing and pitted contacts might have been the mechanism to transfer the transients from one inverter to the other.

This is all very speculative; it's hard to know what happens in a breakdown situation unless everything is instrumented and logged in a laboratory situation.

Edit: you have also likely blown several gate driver parts. See the index (first post this topic) for what to look out for, should you attempt to repair the inverters.
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