Hi!
A quick bit of context: I'm in a northern climate where the water gets hard, so we haul out each winter/re-float each spring. When laying up for winter I always pull the positive cable on my house battery as a part of the winterizing process.
When we went to remove our cover a few weeks ago I re--connected the battery and plugged the boat into shore power (long extension cord). The house battery was pretty much at 100%, but no harm in having the charger on and we needed AC power for other things a we did work. At the end of the days maintenance I unplugged and coiled my power cable, flipped all the DC breakers off, and flipped the battery selector switch to "Off" just as I have done for previous seasons.
I came back about two weeks later and found my battery dead...as in, when I plugged in the shore power the charger started alerting and my Balmer showed 0 hours available....after a few choice words I plugged things in and let it start recharging. But, I had no idea as to why it would have drained this year when its never been a problem previously. At the end of that work day (I had other projects that needed to get done with the weather window) I pulled the positive cable again and headed home.
I was back yesterday (we launch on Monday) and had some time to dig in a bit further. It turns out that when I kill the AC power (unplug shore power or turn off the AC breaker for the charger) the charger (a Xantrex 1800 HF) is going into "Inverter" mode, which draws .5 amps even when nothing is plugged in, (with a low voltage cut off when the battery gets below 12V). That .5V draw for two weeks is definitely what ran things down.
According to the manual the system defaults to have the inverter turn "on" when AC power is removed. We've had the boat for four years, I'll actually admit, I mostly didn't even remember the unit had an inverter (I'd read it in the manual at some point, but it's not positioned where the plug is accessible and I've never used it). The previous owner (who installed the Xantrex one or two years before we bought the boat) must have changed the default setting on the inverter to "Off" when AC power is removed. Which is my preferred method as well.
I'm assuming there may be a CMOS battery (like on PC's, to remember settings between boots) in the Xatnrex that remembers settings when disconnected form AC and DC power...but I'm not seeing any reference in the manual or online. If so, I'm guessing that battery needs replacing. Ideally I wouldn't have to remember to re-set that option every time I disconnect the house battery (which isn't often, which also means there's a chance I'll forget to reset this next time).
I'm wondering if anyone on this group is familiar with the Xantrex chargers and has any can confirm as to whether there is an internal battery (and maybe even remember the battery size).
I'm going to reach out to Xantrex as well. And I may just pull the charger and disassemble and check -- but it's a bit of a pain to access/remove, so ideally I'd come armed with a plan before disassembling things.
If I hear back from Xantrex I'll update here as well, just for the record.
Thanks!
A quick bit of context: I'm in a northern climate where the water gets hard, so we haul out each winter/re-float each spring. When laying up for winter I always pull the positive cable on my house battery as a part of the winterizing process.
When we went to remove our cover a few weeks ago I re--connected the battery and plugged the boat into shore power (long extension cord). The house battery was pretty much at 100%, but no harm in having the charger on and we needed AC power for other things a we did work. At the end of the days maintenance I unplugged and coiled my power cable, flipped all the DC breakers off, and flipped the battery selector switch to "Off" just as I have done for previous seasons.
I came back about two weeks later and found my battery dead...as in, when I plugged in the shore power the charger started alerting and my Balmer showed 0 hours available....after a few choice words I plugged things in and let it start recharging. But, I had no idea as to why it would have drained this year when its never been a problem previously. At the end of that work day (I had other projects that needed to get done with the weather window) I pulled the positive cable again and headed home.
I was back yesterday (we launch on Monday) and had some time to dig in a bit further. It turns out that when I kill the AC power (unplug shore power or turn off the AC breaker for the charger) the charger (a Xantrex 1800 HF) is going into "Inverter" mode, which draws .5 amps even when nothing is plugged in, (with a low voltage cut off when the battery gets below 12V). That .5V draw for two weeks is definitely what ran things down.
According to the manual the system defaults to have the inverter turn "on" when AC power is removed. We've had the boat for four years, I'll actually admit, I mostly didn't even remember the unit had an inverter (I'd read it in the manual at some point, but it's not positioned where the plug is accessible and I've never used it). The previous owner (who installed the Xantrex one or two years before we bought the boat) must have changed the default setting on the inverter to "Off" when AC power is removed. Which is my preferred method as well.
I'm assuming there may be a CMOS battery (like on PC's, to remember settings between boots) in the Xatnrex that remembers settings when disconnected form AC and DC power...but I'm not seeing any reference in the manual or online. If so, I'm guessing that battery needs replacing. Ideally I wouldn't have to remember to re-set that option every time I disconnect the house battery (which isn't often, which also means there's a chance I'll forget to reset this next time).
I'm wondering if anyone on this group is familiar with the Xantrex chargers and has any can confirm as to whether there is an internal battery (and maybe even remember the battery size).
I'm going to reach out to Xantrex as well. And I may just pull the charger and disassemble and check -- but it's a bit of a pain to access/remove, so ideally I'd come armed with a plan before disassembling things.
If I hear back from Xantrex I'll update here as well, just for the record.
Thanks!
