Battery Charger Fried last weeked

[pablosgirl]

Had a very intresting experience on the boat last weekend.  We were staying on the boat in the slip and in the middle of the night were awakened to the sound and lights of what seemed like arc welding.  I got out of the v-berth very quickly and scrambled to the dock to throw the shore power breaker.  After some investigation and venting the boat of all the smoke, I found the source to be the battery charger which was mounted under the nav table on the hanging locker bulkhead.  After this experience I have a whole lot of questions to answer.
1) why did the main ac breaker in the electrical panel not trip ( it trips each time I run the water heater and the microwave or toaster at the same time)?
2) why did the reverse polarity light come on during the light show?
3) Fried the microwave and the fluorescent light bulb in the main salon ac light fixture but not the coffee pot or alarm clock, strange huh?

The battery charger was a Charles Marine C-Charger 2000Sp 20A model which the PO bought at WM.  Any one else have one of these or experienced a similar event?  After spending most of the week reading up on battery chargers on this site and tentatively deciding on a Xantrex unit I went to WM.  After explaing my situation to my good buddy at WM, my new purchase decision has been further muddled by WM possibly offering me access to their buyer protection service.  They are possibly going to give me a credit toward another Charles Marine battery charger! 

Now I have to decide that do I really want to accept this offer despite the previous unit could have burned to boat to the waterline or even killed my wife and I in our sleep OR do I proceed with buying another brand/model?

Looking for any information on a better way in general to protect the boat from any battery charger doing the same thing and is it worth the possible savings with taking up WM on their gracious offer?

[Ron Hill]

Paul : Don't know all of the answers to your questions, especially why the master single throw double pole breaker didn't trip ???

I have a 20amp Zantrax smart charger (I changed to a Zantrax 40 amp) - if you are interested for $50.  

[Stu Jackson]

We've had some "heated" discussions on this board about Charles chargers.  Do a search and read on.  Before I read your post, I'd guessed you had either a ProMariner (older style) or a Charles.  Bingo!

Sorry to hear about your loss.  You might want to read the sticky about chargers and maybe even get in touch with John Nixon via this site by pm or email.

The brand new ProMariners are NOTHING like the old ones.  From what I've heard from Maine Sail, they're as good as the Sterlings, same guts, different label.  Before buying, check with him.

Have NO idea why your dock or boat breaker didn't work, also don't know how your boat is wired.  Strange that the RP light didn't get zapped by the short.  Electrickerey is what they call it in the UK - strange stuff happens.

Good luck and keep us posted on how you're doing in finding a replacement, and anything you need help on with repairs.  Any pictures yet?

PS - I have a Freedom 15 combined inverter/charger, so I haven't been "personally" involved in the "charger wars," other than warning folks for the past 13 years about bad ones that I hear about and assembling John's excellent charger topic from varied individual threads.

PPS - Unless you need a heavier amp charger, you couldn't go wrong with getting Ron's.  I don't know how you use your boat.

[Ron Volk]

Paul,

FYI - I installed a Xantrex TrueCharge2 40A charger exactly 3 years ago (24 month warranty) under the chart table, also have a X LinkLite and X EchoCharge conn. to the start battery.  The system had worked fine since installation until last month, when, after a sail we were sitting in the cockpit when we heard 3 large pops and had smoke coming out of the salon (we still had not plugged in the AC cord).  Thinking it was something on the electrical panel I opened it up but found nothing wrong. I then plugged in the AC and all the lights on the charger face came on with the proper colors and locations, then I noticed that the charger did not come on when the refrig. cycled so I assume some components on the DC side failed.  After removing it & replacing it with my old charger everything works fine now.  Looking at the Xantrex after removal, I noticed the wire mesh intake for the fan had a lot of dust on it clogging the screen (the intake fan comes on every time the unit operates), this probably caused some components to overheat and fail.  I also looked at the DC fuses it has built into it & they were fine.
On calling Xantrex, they said that since it is out of warranty they do not look at, or repair units, claiming that it cost to much to try to fix problems with circuit boards.  Their only resolution was to offer me to buy a new one for $315 plus shipping (probably can find one on-line cheaper with free shipping), they seemed unconcerned that their product which cost about $350 only lasted 3 years, their answer, just buy another one. They seemed irritated when I said, why would I even think about buying another one. I believe their manual should be more informative regarding the importance of keeping the screen clean.
I didn't think that a boat that stays in the water year round collects a lot of dust but obviously I was wrong. Just some information for Xantrex charger owners, make sure you check the fan screen on a regular schedule to make sure it remains clean.  

[waterdog]

If you had arcing on the main ac portion of the charger circuit, it might have tripped at the panel.  However, you can have arcing elsewhere in the charger without tripping the panel or the fuse (if present) in the charger.  Perfectly possible to set the boat on fire without drawing more than a few Amps ac from the mains.  It all depends on the failure mode and the design of the protection for the charger

Personally, free would be far too expensive to put the new version of a design back aboard that behaved in that manner.  I would pursue a completely different design from another manufacturer.  

[Stu Jackson]

Ron, there was a batch of Xantrex chargers that had the fans put in backwards!

Here's a link to Maine Sail's suggested charger:  http://forums.catalina.sailboatowners.com/showthread.php?t=136765

[Ron Hill]

Ron : Stu is correct, but it's easy to check as the Zantrex 2 chargers (20 &40) both have fan motors.  When the charger & fan motor turns ON -- feel the top of the charger with a wet finger and you can tell if the fan is blowing up (as it should ) or not.

Look at my Mainsheet article coming out in the next edition and you'll see I recommend checking the filter screen if the charger it is not mounted in plain sight!! 

[Fuzzy]

Paul: 
Is your charger protected only by the 30amp main breaker??  A 30amp breaker is too large in my opinion for protection of the
charger and most other ac components on the boat. I replaced my old original ac/dc panel last year and it has breakers for
each circuit. Now I have a 15amp breaker for the charger as well as 15amp breaker for the ac outlets.  I feel much better
with this set up than with the old panel which only protected everything with the main breaker, except the water heater.
This could explain why the breaker didn't trip, the failer with your charger may not have drawn 30 or more amps.  Just
something to consider.
Larry

[Fuzzy]

Failure NOT failer. 

[2ndwish]

Paul- Have you inspected your shore power cord? Look at both ends and inspect for burn marks (you might smell burned material there too). Too much resistance on that line is not healthy. 

[Ken Juul]

All the AC circuits are tied together behind the panel.  I'm wondering if a faulg in the microwave or the plug that the microwave/light use could cause an overload in the charger or visaversa.

[pablosgirl]

Ron, I will take you up on your kind offer.

Stu, The boat stays connected to shore power most of the time and we usually only use the cold machine on weekends either at the dock or on the hook.  I have a group 27 starting battery replace last year and two golf batteries for the house bank that I replaced 5 months ago.  The starting battery was 5 years old when I replaced it and the golf cart batteries were 7 years old.  The Charles seemed to keep the batteries up So for our current usage pattern a 20 amp charger should do.  I plan on buying a 12v power supply for the cold machine to use at the dock.  Eventually we plan to go cruising along the Gulf coast to Florida and then up the east coast to Main and then back through the Bahamas.  But we have to wait until the last three kids are out of collage!  At that time I may need to up the charger amperage for transient charging behavior.  I also did a search on Charles chargers on the site and found that their older units charging programs are not true three stages.  But I did not find any hits on any nearly burning up a boat.

Ken, I think it was the other way around. I think that the charger went and took out the rest. The four outlets on the boat are wired to the CGFI outlet at the nav station and it looks like the charger was tied into that as well.  Also, the microwave and the alarm clock were plugged into the same outlet in the v-berth, and the coffee pot and the salon fluoresent were plugged into the galley outlet.  I will post pics soon.  My panel has three AC breakers. One, being the main 30A and the other two for the water heater and the 4 power outlets on the boat.  I have an unused knockout hole for another AC breaker and I think that I will install one dedicated to the new battery charger.

The charger burned up a large "disk" capacitor and an adjacent resistor on the corner of the circit board.  The internal 30amp DC auto spade fuse was still intact so I am guessing that the problem was on the AC side of things (also given the damage to the microwave).

I inspected the shore power cords ( I have 2, one for the 16K BTU AC unit and the original for the rest of the AC load on the boat) and the 50 AMP to 2 30 AMP "y" adaptor and found no burn marks.  The AC cord did show some signs of oxidation so I will hit that with some contact cleaner over the weekend.

Right now I have the Dock AC breaker off to the boat since the only reason that it was left on was to charge the batteries.  I am also a little gun shy and not trusting that there is further damage to the AC systems, I am leaving the breaker off while away from the boat until I can go through all of my AC systems and test for damage.

[Ken Juul]

Just wanted to bring up another possibility....the coffee pot and alarm clock should be pretty low tech and can tolerate voltage spikes, the microwave, charger and light not so much.  As you said they are all tied into the same circuit, so one may affect all.  Will probably never know for sure.

[Ralph Masters]

Ron,
If he doesn't take that charger I will.  I'll put it with my "spares" collection.  I have a 20A TureChargeII and if it ever goes TangoUniform it would be easy to put in.

Ralph

[Ron Volk]

Paul,

Re. the ac/dc pwr supply while in port for you refrig. In port (we don't live close to the boat & we usually spent 4-5 days at a time when we go), we got tired of the Xantrex Charger coming on at night everytime the refrig. cycled (was very noisy) and I didn't like the idea of the charger constantly topping off the batteries.

We used the diagram from John Nixon located in Tech Wiki under Galley-Refrigerater.  Initially I used a MeanWell S-240-12 pwr sup. but after about 2 hours the power unit would go off and the relay would drop off. I would turn off & then back on the AC switch that I mounted on switch panel and it would work for another 2 hours and the same thing happened. We then switched to the MeanWell HRP-300 pwr sup on 6-10-11 and it has worked perfectly ever since.