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Not having seen the device, it’s hard to say definitely what the extent of your problems are. I think you are observing the symptoms of damage, but not necessarily the cause. My guess would be that the rectifier diodes are blown by the strike, causing the capacitors to be fed with AC voltage rather than DC, causing them to self destruct. Replacing the capacitors will cause a repeat of the damage. I’d suggest cutting your losses and bite the bullet for a replacement inverter.
I’m surprised though that there was no lightning protection in the inverter itself.
If you are operating in a lightning prone location, I’d suggest ensuring there is
a lightning protector in the replacement unit. In a former life we installed many protection circuits in the front end electronics of all our telecom equipment in the outback.
Easy to engineer and cheap if you need to make. Simply a fuse inline with the mains supply with a MOV (metal oxide varistor) across the power feed behind the fuse. MOV should be rated at say 400 volts for a 240 system. Idea is that if a high voltage induced by lightning carries down the mains line, the MOV will go dead short faster than the lightning transient and blow the fuse, thus protecting equipment further down the supply line. MOVs are only a few cents to buy. Far cheaper than another inverter.
Hope this helps.
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