Battery Charging Problem

[Neil McDonald]

Today I went down to the marina to check the boat over and discovered that the batteries were almost flat and the charging system had obviously somehow failed. :cussing:

The battery charger is a Xantrex Statpower Truecharger 40 fitted with a Heart Interface Link 20 battery monitor - which is all attached to a couple of 6V golf cart house batteries and a 12V engine start battery through a selector switch set to "All". The mains elec. supply inside the boat is good and there was no sign of any tripping breakers. The normally noisy battery charger was deathly silent. I am looking for a fix - DIY prefered (I like a challenge) but not essential

Can I reasonably conclude that it is almost certainly a battery charger problem? Do these units tend to have a finite life or are they inclined to run for ever? I have no idea how old mine is. Are they typically fixable or a throw away item if they stop working or can a competent marine electrician often fix them?

Any bright ideas welcomed.

 

[JoeD]

When you say "Electric supply in the boat is good." Did you check supply at the charger, How did you check it? If you did and charger has supply but no output then charger is bad.

If it is a sealed solid-state type? Would think not repairable.

 

[sailingdog]

Most of the chargers, especially the newer intelligent three-or-four stage chargers are not generally fixable by DIYer's. They have too many solid-state parts that are not easily replaceable by the average DIYer.

As JoeD has said, if you haven't checked the power at the charger itself, you can't be sure it is the charger that is the problem. You could also have a bad breaker in the boat, that appears to be closed but isn't.

 

[Don S/V ILLusion]

I have some ideas although I'm not sure how "bright" they are -
The charger you have is a reputable one not prone to failure but also not a DIY fix if broken. Once you are assured you have power to the charger input, measure it's output.
Also verify the batteries are good with a hydrometer and all connections are clean and tight.
Verify the charger DIN switches are all in the proper position and the Link reads charging voltage.
Lastly among the easy category of steps is to verify the reset button on the bottom of the charger is not tripped.

 

[Richard Bryer]

I have a Truecharger but a 20- it is certainly not noisy- maybe that is a clue? Could your charger have been going south for a while?

 

[larryw]

I have pretty much the same set-up, and sometimes the battery charger side of the inverter doesn't come on when I plug back in at the end of a sail. I've found that a sharp rap on the top of it with the end of the boathook makes it come on. I think it has a sticky relay somewhere.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Some normal forensic investigations are required. Voltages in and out of the charger. Status of the Link. Dockside voltage. A.C. panel voltage. Without any of this information, it's impossible to help. The Truecharge series has a very reliable history. Noise? It's the fan inside keeping it cool...

Also, unusual for the lashup to be connected to a switch with "All" - can you explain that a bit more? Most installations are arranged in such a way that battery switches can be off and the shorepower system will still work.

 

[sailingdog]

BTW, Stu's got a good point... if you have to leave the DC battery switch in the "ALL" position to charge, there's a much higher chance that you will kill your batteries, since you might have left some equipment on. On most boats I've worked on, the charger is connected directly to the batteries and doesn't require the switch to be in any of the "ON" positions for this very reason. Even a small load, like a compass light, would flatten the batteries rather quickly if the AC was shut off or the charger failed.

A much better solution than requiring the battery switch to be in the "ALL" position is to use either a battery combiner or echo charger to charge the starting bank when the house bank is being charged.

 

[Rick]

All good advice but maybe one other thing. I am not familiar with your particular charger, but some (mine) have a light on them and a 30 amp fuse on the front panel. You might want to make sure you didnt get a surge and pop the fuse. It is upstream of the breaker. Could it be so simple? Hope so.

Cheers

 

[sailaway78]

Don't guess

Lots of good suggestions and ideas posted, but I certainly wouldn't start guessing, and thinking about a new charger yet. Get yourself a good digital VOM, if you don't have one. If you have AC voltage to the charger but low or no DC voltage coming out, then the charger is bad. If you don't have voltage to the charger, you have a AC power problem. If you have an output voltage from the charger of 14 volts or close, check the batteries. One bad cell in a one battery can kill the entire system. If the batteries and the charger check out, look for a bad or broken connection in the system. It's pretty simple, just follow the power. Where you loose power is where your problem is. And last but not least, get away from using the both selection when away. IMHO, the absolute best solution is to have the bilge pump wired directly to the house bank, fused of course, and the charger direct to the battery bank or banks, and the selector switch turned off. If you only have one output on the charger, get an echo charger or isolator.

 

[caguy]

Hate to be obvious but did you check the water levels in the batteries? Mine were also dead after charging for a week. Everything appeared ok the charger showed full charge, then I decided to check the water levels. It took a gallon of water to refill cells. I'll let you know tomorrow if the charge sticks.
Frank

 

[sailingdog]

CaGuy-

If your plates were exposed to air...the chances of that battery coming back are pretty low.

 

[Neil McDonald]

Update on Battery Charging Problem

Thanks for all the feedback. This is the update.

Don stunned me with his "try the reset button" solution (why didn't I think of that?) Turns out that the Truecharge 40 (all black case) does not have a reset button - maybe the later model Truecharge 40+ (looks like an identical case but this time with a black and yellow colour scheme) does?

Stu suggested that it would be strange to connect the battery and charger through a multi-position batter selection switch. He is right of course and I now realize that the switch is on the supply side of the batteries and the charger is directly wired to the batteries.

Sailingdog suggested that I install a battery combiner. Which is probably good advice but perhaps I already have one? What do they look like? The boat came with quite a lot of non-stock electrical upgrades and I simply dont know what to look for here.

Back to the boat today to find my temporary auto style battery charger doing a great job in bringing the batteries back up. Over 24 hours the charge rate has dropped from 8A to around 4A - a sign of progress. With any luck, a full recharge followed by an equalization will see them almost back to their previous state. I see that Xantrex suggests equalizing batteries every few months. I wonder how many boat owners actually do this? Not many I bet.

So I confirmed that there was mains power going into the charger and then opened it up to check the internal fuses. There is one AC fuse and four DC fuses and they were all fine. So the charger, which is obviously elderly, has died.

Yesterday I talked to Xantrex Technical Support and they said that they don't repair these units but would give me a discount on a brand new one if it is to replace a faulty Xantrex charger. I assume that they were not talking about a warranty situation. So I will call or even visit them tommorrow - their HQ is just up the road from where I work in Burnaby BC. It will be interesting to see which unit they want to sell me. I would prefer the Truecharge 40+ because I know that it will fit curent mounting holes - but their website says that this has now been superseded by a new smaller unit, which looks quite different in the illustration.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Good hunting and checking things out

Try this related to Xantrex battery chargers: http://c34.org/bbs/index.php?topic=4352.0

Combiners vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, and the size (amp capacity). The older West Marine units are in a gray box with a red light on it, some have remote relays outside the box, Ample's are black, I recall.

To find out if you have one, you have to begin to understand your system by starting to draw wiring diagrams. If you check your battery banks, look for wires from the positive posts to large 100A fuses and then to the combiner itself. It's a relay that closes (connects) the two banks when it sees a charging source (shorepower, alternator, solar, etc.) and connects the banks without having to use the 1-2-B switch on B.

Read the Ample Power Primer at www.amplepower.com and their other associated material, very helpful.

Combiners, at least at WM, have been replaced by Blue Seas ACRs, same concept, different package.

 

[Neil McDonald]

Re: Good hunting and checking things out

So if the combiner automatically combines the batteries during charging, which set of batteries does the regular charger "look at" when it is trying to decide whether to float charge or push more serious amps at these batteries?

 

[sailingdog]

Re: Good hunting and checking things out

Neil-

The charger will be looking the combined voltage of the two banks. The two banks will be equalizing voltage over the combiner—with the more highly charged bank discharging into the one at the lower charge state.

This can cause one of the uncommon problems with using a combiner, where a severely depleted house bank can kill off the starting battery if you run the engine for only a short period of time. This is the reason an echo charger, which wouldn't deplete the more highly charged start bank into the house bank, is a better solution overall. However, an echo charger is generally more costly than the combiner, and if you're aware of the issue, you can take steps to avoid it.