[ausev] PFC20 #180 having a problem?

[Brian Lasseter]

So I'm in the market to borrow a charger... does anyone have an extra
charger available for me to borrow for the week or two I'd expect it'd
take for me to mail my charger to Rich?  I've included the story that
I sent to Rich at Manzanita Micro below in case anyone else has any
insight or experience with broken PFCs.


--


I have a converted 2002 Saturn SL, which has given me 3500 miles of
lovely electric driving... however I think something funny is going on
with my charger.  I have 18x8v flooded lead acid batteries for 144VDC
battery pack in my car, and I have my PFC20 set to charge up to 180VDC
and once it reaches the limit, it charges for 120 minutes until
shutting down.

Anyways... the charger has been working flawlessly and without any
switch changes for at least two months now.  However this morning when
I came out to the car the charger was off.  I found this odd, as most
mornings the green light is on, the blue light is solid on, and the
fans are running... however this morning it was completely off (with
no lights and no fan).  I unplugged the charger, and plugged it back
in.  The green and yellow lights came on along with the fan.  The
Xantrex Link10 Emeter also said the pack was at 100% of charge.  So
this all seemed normal enough to me, I shrugged off the charger being
off, and went grocery shopping.

I returned home an hour or two later with a pack at 74% of charge and
a car full of groceries.  I absent mindedly plugged in the car and
wondered inside with my groceries.  4-5 hours later I wondered back
out into the garage to turn off the charger (as there is no need to
leave the charger fan on all night once the car is charged).  However,
I noticed a strange thing.  The green light and the blue lights were
solid on (as I would expect) but the Xantrex Link10 still read 74% of
charge.  So I unplugged and re-plugged in the charger, and when the
charger was plugged in immediately the green and yellow LEDs came on
and the blue LED started flashing.  I would expect that behavior if
the pack was full at 180VDC, but the Xantrex Link10 was reading 152VDC
and -0.1Amps.  I noticed upon further experiments that moving the amp
dial didn't help, and whether the charger was on or off the Xantrex
Link10 was reading 152VDC and -0.1Amps.  I turned off the charger, and
checked the voltage with a voltmeter at the SB50 connector going into
the PFC (in case there was some cable fault) but the voltmeter also
read 152VDC at the SB50 connector.  So I connected the charger again,
and tried charging it from 120VAC instead of the normal 240VAC that I
use in the garage.  Still the same effect... immediately the green and
yellow LEDs came on, the blue LED started flashing, the fan came on,
and the Xantrex Link10 was reading 152VDC and -0.1Amps  (i.e. the
Xantrex was reading no change).

So... at this point I am at a loss as to further troubleshooting
methods.  Any ideas?


-- 
TTFN,
Brian "Lasso" Lasseter

"No Sane man will dance."   -Cicero (106-43 B.C.)