[ausev] PFC20 #180 having a problem?

[Aaron Choate]

Hey Brian,

I have a PFC-20 that you could borrow for a bit.

/Aaron

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 1:05 AM, Brian Lasseter <
blasseter.cmpe01 at gtalumni.org> wrote:

> 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.)
> _______________________________________________
> AusEV mailing list
> AusEV at austinev.org
> http://www.austinev.org/mailman/listinfo/ausev
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.austinev.org/pipermail/ausev/attachments/20090127/36c1b8c2/attachment.html