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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 : 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!!
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
Failure NOT failer.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Hi Von,
I really appreciate that bit of knowledge. It will save some time and hassel on ordering the wrong power supply for the fridge. Where in the boat did you mount the ac/dc pwr supply?
Paul
Paul,
I contacted MeanWell and they said that the original pwr. sup. was sufficient for the compressor but it looks like some components would heat up and shut down the supply for a while. Since I added the more robust one there has been no problems.
The pwr sup is mounted in the hanging locker under the chart table on the outboard side of the bulkhead. The Tyco 4-45F11 12V DC plug-in relay & socket is mounted in the rats nest behind the ac/dc switch panel. The on/off AC switch is mounted thru the switch panel face in the AC section.
It didn't work at first, but I found that there was no connection on the relay internally between contacts 85 & 87 (as shown in the picture in Tech Wiki) after taking care of this it worked as shown.
I have the output voltage set to 13.2V (supposedly proper for max. effort for my compressor).
I bought the pwr sup thru Jameco Electronics & the relay on Ebay.
Quote from: pablosgirl on April 19, 2012, 12:27:08 PM
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.
Scary stuff and why I generally prefer solar charging at a dock rather than a charger that can fail, ruin a bank or burn up the boat. What if you were not there? Would have been deemed another "electrical fire" to add to the 55% of all boat fires are electrical in nature statistic...
Solar also isolates you from AC/DC issues with other boats because you don't need to plug into shore power.. Charger failures are all to common.
Quote from: pablosgirl on April 19, 2012, 12:27:08 PMAfter 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)?
I will ask another question and that is, why the charger did not have its own branch circuit breaker of about 15A max? Was the wire feeding the 20A charger from the main breaker 10GA? The branch breaker powering the charger should trip first but may not in an internal overheat situation until an actual short occurs.
Quote from: pablosgirl on April 19, 2012, 12:27:08 PM2) why did the reverse polarity light come on during the light show?
Most likely because the charger eventually shorted to ground internally sending AC voltage to the green case ground which would then power the reverse polarity light. Was there a LARGE green earth wire for the case ground installed? All chargers should have a green earth ground wire attached to the case at no less than one size smaller than the DC charging output wires.
Quote from: pablosgirl on April 19, 2012, 12:27:08 PM
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?
Reverse polarity can fry some devices, but not all.
Quote from: pablosgirl on April 19, 2012, 12:27:08 PMThe battery charger was a Charles Marine C-Charger 2000Sp 20A model which the PO bought at WM.
I am not a huge fan of the less expensive Charles chargers but they are by no means the worst. My guess is this was installation related or the bank load was too much for the charger. It also does not sound like it was installed in an area where it could sufficiently cool and dissipate heat.. Chargers can fail on either the AC or DC side but the grounds for DC and AC are one in the same. Once the charger failed to groud the circuit breaker should have tripped. I suspect someone, perhaps the same PO that installed the charger, has disconnected your AC/DC ground tie? Disconnecting this important tie can prevent the breakers from properly tripping if your shore power ground is unreliable as they very often are.
Quote from: pablosgirl on April 19, 2012, 12:27:08 PMAny 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!
Personally I don't think the Xantrex is any better than the Charles but make sure each of them is installed correctly with enough ventilation and proper wiring and over current protection..
Quote from: pablosgirl on April 19, 2012, 12:27:08 PM
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?
Consider solar or one of the Sterling Pro Charge Ultra or Promariner ProNautic P chargers that carry a 5 year warranty...
Mainesail... I always appreciate your well thought out approach to so many issues that confront all boat owners. I often use the Compass Marine site to "learn a little more".
I've been thinking for awhile now of replacing my Xantrex Tru Charge charger and had seriously thought of just getting the new Trucharge II. However, after following this thread and popping my head into WM I had seen the Pro Mariner ProNautic charger at WM and thought it looked surprisingly like the Sterling model. After reading your post and finding out the ProMariner is essentially the same thing I feel confident that I will get the ProNautic charger for a replacement.
And for pablosgirl... I'm very happy that your situation did not turn out any worse than it did. It sounds scary and something none of us want to be faced with. :abd:
More Charger Questions: C43, #1472, mfg 2000 has a "Fly Back" Batt charger installed as OEM. Twice in the past two seasons it blew a 20 amp fuse. (Says on the front it's a 20 amp charger). Yesterday and the day before, as usual in the Spring, I connected the AC power cord and engaged the charger. It read 25 amps then 20 and stayed there for 4-5 hrs before I decided to shut it down. The Link monitor shows the Batts as full (100%). But, the green light (showing float)never appeared. Any thoughts? Thx all.
Quote from: Stu Jackson on April 19, 2012, 03:32:12 PM
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
I recently put in a ProMariner Pronautic 20amp charger, based on Maine Sail's recommendation-it IS identical to the Sterling. With the optional remote monitor panel, I don't think it was much more than $300, if that.
Quote from: Stewartn on April 21, 2012, 11:07:13 AM
More Charger Questions: C43, #1472, mfg 2000 has a "Fly Back" Batt charger installed as OEM. Twice in the past two seasons it blew a 20 amp fuse. (Says on the front it's a 20 amp charger). Yesterday and the day before, as usual in the Spring, I connected the AC power cord and engaged the charger. It read 25 amps then 20 and stayed there for 4-5 hrs before I decided to shut it down. The Link monitor shows the Batts as full (100%). But, the green light (showing float)never appeared. Any thoughts? Thx all.
Please, please, please...
Read the CRITICAL UPGRADES topic.
http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,5078.msg43151.html#msg43151
An Update to my battery charger issue. I have included a photo of the fried charger bellow:
After ordering parts from Defender and other suppliers, I began the install of the charger that Ron was so kind to sell us. The first thing that I found was that all the DC wiring from the old battery charger was way under sized for the 12 foot run between the batteries and the charge (located on the bulkhead under the chart table). The wires were all 12 gauge! So I spent a day fishing 8 gauge wire under the cabin sole to the batteries and the engine. But the real surprise came when I went to install the 15 AMP AC breaker for the battery charger. After tracing the wires I found that both the AC outlets and the battery charger had been rewired to a bus bar that had the hot lead from the shore power cable connected to it. The PO had bypassed all the AC breakers on the boat and was relying on the 50 AMP shore power breaker on the dock!!!! No wonder that the breaker did not trip while the charger was frying itself. note: I have two 30 AMP shore power cords into a "y" adapter that connects to the dock 50 AMP service. One of the 30 AMP cords is just for the air conditioner the other is the original factory cord.
Needless to say I rewired the outlets and the battery charger to their respective breakers. It is nice to be able to turn the battery charger off and still have dock power available for lights and AC.
Next on to the cold machine AC power supply install. I will post pictures when I am finished with that.