Something Electrical Messed Up Again...

[cemiii]

I don't know your system but with most other chargers I've used the monitoring system usually works off the AC side, so what I would try is plugging it in to the same extention cord that worked with the short leads.

[journey on]

"So now I mount the 16202 in the same spot vacated by the 2610A more or less. I clipped off the ring terminals, and connected with butt connectors to the wires running back to the batteries. The blue lights should have come on, but nothing. I tested the voltage on the wires coming forward from the batteries, and I had 12 volts.

I tested the charger again by bringing another battery into the cabin and connecting each side to it in turn. The blue light came on for each side. The voltage on that battery was lower than the voltage on the wires coming forward from the batteries in back, but when I connect those wires to the charger, it just does not recognize that they are there.

I did not try plugging the charger in, since the charger was not recognizing that there were even batteries attached. It is like it is limited to the length of the pre-wired cords."

I'm not sure what you mean above, but if you wired the charger output to the batteries, AND did NOT plug the charger into the 110 VAC, it seems nothing would happen, as Chris said above. That's normal operation for a number of reasons.

If you wired everything in, plugged the AC in and nothing happened, check the DC fuses that are next to each battery. C-Dory put fuses in the charge line, per Guest requirements. If you actually charged the batteries in your test, you may have blown those fuses. In any case, replace them with 15 amp fuses, since you now have a higher current charger.

BTW, on Journey On, that charger was the easiest thing to get out. Wait till you try the water pump.

Boris

[Pat Anderson]

You are just going to have to take my word for it folks that the Guest 16202 "intelligent charger" READS the battery and an indicator lights up BEFORE it is plugged into line voltage. It does no charging, but it senses the battery and you can switch select battery type.

The #10 wires coming forward from the batteries to where the charger is located under the aft dinnette seat are hooked up and fused. My multimeter shows voltage on the wires.

When I hook the Guest 16202 short (6") DC cables directly to the starting and house batteries, it reads them (battery type indicators light), and then charges them when I plug it in to the line voltage. If I had AC back near the batteries, I guess I could mount the charger back there somewhere, don't know where, but if I could, it would work. But I would prefer to keep the charger in the original location.

When I hook the Guest 16202 to the #10 wires coming forward from the batteries, it doesn't read them (battery type indicators don't light). I will try plugging it in, but what will no doubt happen is that the status light will give the "no battery present" error (I am deducing this, but since it is not reading that a battery is there, it should take the 'battery not present" action).

This describes the problem anyway. Now to find a solution...

journey on wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean above, but if you wired the charger output to the batteries, AND did NOT plug the charger into the 110 VAC, it seems nothing would happen, as Chris said above. That's normal operation for a number of reasons. If you wired everything in, plugged the AC in and nothing happened, check the DC fuses that are next to each battery. C-Dory put fuses in the charge line, per Guest requirements. If you actually charged the batteries in your test, you may have blown those fuses. In any case, replace them with 15 amp fuses, since you now have a higher current charger. BTW, on Journey On, that charger was the easiest thing to get out. Wait till you try the water pump. Boris

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[Alyssa Jean]

So you are saying that your DC tester shows DC power when you hook the tester to the existing wires coming from the batteries that used to attach to the old charger? But when you hook them to the new charger DC wires and have 110 ac to the charger the charger is not responding electrically an/or acknowledging that there are batteries on-line? But if you move the charger back to where the batteries are and attach the DC wires from the charger directly to the appropriate battery terminals and plug the charger in to 110 ac it works?

Check the ground wire(s). Double check the in line fuses in the existing wiring from the battery (if you have power at the forward ends I would assume the fuses to be ok). Check the DC power at the battery terminal against the same value at the forward end of the wiring and see if you are showing the same DC voltage.

[Sea Angel]

I agree with Dave about rechecking the grounds. You may want to tie the two returns(black) leads together to assure you are have enough capacity for the load distribution in case you have one bad black return cable. I think these chargers may be able to also charge 24 VDC banks, so thus the configuration thoughts.

Remember the old car starter problems when the battery ground cable was corroded at the post and how misleading your meter readings were unless you did it under load?

Art

[cemiii]

After you connect the DC cables of the charger to the batteries, the battery chemistry
selection LED will illuminate (Safe Mode). At this point, you can toggle thru the different
battery chemistry selections by pressing the pushbutton on the membrane panel for each
specific output. Once AC is plugged in, this setting will be set by the micro into RAM and
it will remember this setting until you interrupt both the battery power and AC power to
the charger.
The battery chemistry selection LED will turn OFF 10 minutes after the batteries are first
connected; this is called “sleep mode”. To recover from “sleep mode” press the battery
chemistry selection button, this will turn ON the battery chemistry selection LED as long
as AC power has not yet been applied.
The battery chemistry select LED will turn ON once AC has been applied to the charger
and turn OFF 10 minutes after AC has been disconnected.



The above is from the manual.

Is it possible that:

1). The RAM was not recycled by removing both the AC and DC power, and the types are in memory?

2)Maybe the blue light was on for 10 mins. And went into sleep mode? "Try pressing membrane"?

These don’t seem likely, but I agree, this is a very strange one and I think I’d probably be calling Guest.

Chris

[Pat Anderson]

Guest was acquired by Marinco some time after this unit was manufactured. I have emailed through the Marinco website, and will call them. It will be a while now before I can get back to trying to dope this out, with work and then the SBS/cBGT this weekend...I will be double checking al the ground connections for sure. Thanks.

[thataway]

I would double check the ground. Tie both of the grounds from the batteries together at the battery charger position. Also check continuity of the wires to the battery. Do both batteries read 12.6 volts with your digital volt meter, when you check them at the position where you will put the battery charger?

The 2026A is the 20 amp charger which does both 12 and 24 volt batteries (I have one of these on my Caracal, which has a 24 volt trolling motor).

[Pat Anderson]

From the Marinco site, it appears the model that fits my bill would be the 2022A. but it is about twice what I paid for the 16202. Maybe there is a reason!

thataway wrote:

The 2026A is the 20 amp charger which does both 12 and 24 volt batteries (I have one of these on my Caracal, which has a 24 volt trolling motor).

[journey on]

Listen, Pat, there's 3 pages of discussion on this battery charger. Install it and get it working.

Boris

[thataway]

The 16202 should work fine for you. Do a trial installation with an extension cord near the batteries, direct wiring and see if it works. Do the full charge etc--not just see if the lights work. Charge the batteries for 24 hours from this position. If so, then there is a problem in the wiring to the location where the charger is internally (and could be the problem one of the batteries went South).

[Pat Anderson]

OK, the end of the battery charger story (I HOPE).

The Guest 16202 10/10 was returned to Cabellas. It was a discontinued model, and as it turned out, one circuit in it was defective. No problem returning it with the receipt.

Ordered a Guest 2622A 10/10 thorugh Amazon, it came from some other company. A little short of 2x the price of the first one. This puppy is a drop in replacement for the 5/5, except physically bigger and a lot heavier.

As I already had everything disassembled where the water heater used to be, mounting and wiring was a relatively easy task last night. The same wires just slipped over the same posts on the charger (I actually needed to make a short jumper, because the 10/10 has two negative posts, one for each circuit, while the 5/5 only had one). Hooked up the AC, powered 'er up and we are back in the charging business.

I still have to decide whether I want to replace the FloJet water pump while everything is exposed. I think I probably should, since it was definitely acting up last year (lights would dim when the water pump would activate, something drawing too much current).

Now starts the task of re-assembly. I want to use the space formerly occupied by the water heater for additional storage, but I don't want bins or whatever slamming into the back of 120 volt panel. Have not quite figured the design of that one out yet. Ideas?

[Alyssa Jean]

I'll try and look at it this morning when I am there looking at your kitchen cabinet.