Replacing the thermal paste in a GS450H and some CAMRY inverter

[Xenith]

After having 6 or 7 inverters apart now this is a must for inverters that are more than 10 years old and i would do this for a inverter 6 or more years old as u can see in the second and third pics the paste has completely broken down

Removal guide from Lwerewolf 

Replacement guide is, roughly:

-Disconnect 12v
-Disconnect battery service plug
-Wait at least 10 min
-Remove the inverter's battery and AC connector cover
-Measure voltage at both terminals there with a voltmeter - should be 0v, can be up to 750v if the smoothing/filtering/DC link/whatever you want to call them capacitors haven't discharged - there are bleeder resistors in place for this to happen, and it should happen way faster than 10 minutes, but don't fool around with this.
-Disconnect everything from the inverter - MG1 & MG2 connectors, battery & AC connectors, wire harness connector, water hoses (make sure you protect all connectors from coolant drops/spillage/spray/etc - especially if you decide not to drain the system beforehand).
-Replace the inverter
-Install water hoses, MG/Battery/AC/Harness connectors
-Install battery service plug
-Connect 12v
-Initialize car (windows & sunroof up & down, all doors open & close, transmission learn, etc) - not really necessary
-Bleed coolant loop (inverter water pump can be run with techstream, alternatively it runs 20sec after car goes in "ready" mode)

That's it, officially
Thanks Lwerewolf u help so many people


What else u will need
At lesst 20g of industral long life thermal paste
500lm of toyota coolant(if u dont drain the coolant just remove and temp plug hoses)
1/4 drive 10mm socket ratchet and extension
4mm and a 6mm allen key(i had a 1/4 drive one)
Pliers for the gose clamps (i use 45 degree long nose long handle)
UTV sealant

Now strip the lower half of the inverter off by
First removing 2x 10mm bolts on the coolant conection side holding the black plate on
Then pry the black plastic plug out ( dont damage this to much u need it)
Undo the 2x 10mm u see in the hole
Now undo the 4mm allen bolts holding the lower half on
And very cearfully pry the base off (note the 2x dowels i start at the end with the coolant connections at the dowel) remove base

Remove the board in 4th pic with 4x screws and 6x plugs

Now undo the 4x 10mm in the side that hold the two motor/gen cables

Now on the inside remove the 6x 10mm bolts (marked with red arrows in pic )holding the motor/gen bus bar connectors onto the IGBTs and pry the connector and housing off the side of the inverter

Now remove the 12x6mm allen screws holding the IGBTs to the inverter body

Now remove the IGTBs and soldered on board (this is the only bit u need to re paste in inverter)

Clean the inverter and the IGBTs and reaplay a very thin layer of thermal paste to the IGBTs only (note i found if i left the paste in hot water for awhile it was much easier to apply)

Reasamble the lower half of the inverter

[PacEmaker]

Sounds very sensible, heat is the enemy of solid state power electronic devices. However, your photo bucket settings say 'the owner has set ... to private' so I can't view your photos. Is it possible for you to simply upload pictures as attachments instead of linking to some third party hosting site?

[zilion]

And on top of that, why are you cloning this topic?

[Xenith]

Its not a clone its a how to on the thermal paste .so if someone searched on google thermal inverter paste this might come up .the other one is a how to repair a gs450h's inverter with camry parts .yes some of it is the same but if u read right through there are differences.

Im just tring to help as a very dislex person the two of these posts took me well over 6 hrs to make i dont post as i find there is always someone who tells me i have made spelling or grammar error and it makes me feel like less of a person . But i know if they had of been available when i first got my GS450H it would of saved me blowing up my inverter and if i missed the thermal paste post (should be a sticky i think as i have done alot of testing even cleaned off all the paste and drove the car risking a blowen inverter and found that even at 40kmph i was getting 120+ inverter temps) a cheap how to.
in my country camry inverters are $150.
gs450h ones on the other hand go from $1500 - 2500 .
But im happy for admin to delete

[Xenith]

Sounds very sensible, heat is the enema of solid state power electronic devices. However, your photo bucket settings say 'the owner has set ... to private' so I can't view your photos. Is it possible for you to simply upload pictures as attachments instead of linking to some third party hosting site?

I did try to upload photos but i could not work out how .
Im not good with that sort of stuff im a hands on type.
Any help would be great also i dont have a computer i do it on my phone s7 Samsung

[Isaac96]

I appreciate the documentation! This will certainly be useful to others, wish I had a GS450h

If you go to the 'full editor' you can see the attachment menu, I'm not sure how it works on a phone but it ought to let you select image files on your phone.

A little OT -- do we know how compatible the GS450h and Camry parts are? I seem to remember someone testing a Camry inverter with Damien's GS code, not sure what happened, but Camry part tend to be cheaper.

-Isaac

[Xenith]

Thanks Isaac that did it

[PacEmaker]

Good man Xenith, thanks for your efforts!