Heart Inverter / Charger Charging Problem

[illywhacker]

I have an unusual fault in my 2000W unit. When the batteries need a solid charge, pressing the charge button on the Link 2000 causes a rapid rise of charge voltage and current to the point where the unit trips on overload (volts are around 16v) and the AC LED goes out. After the 10 sec start-up period, charge voltage is reapplied, rises again and trips, repeating the cycle. Sometimes the unit stabilises and commences to charge normally but often I have to charge the batteries with the trickle charge that occurs without the Link 2000 charge pressed until a higher battery voltage is reached. Does anyone have a similar experience or any clues for a fix? Thanks

[foggysail]

If there is anything wrong with your charger, Xantrex (Heart now) will NOT give any help other than to either return it for repairs or to one of their authorized repair centers. And NO SCHEMATICS are available unless through underground means.

Foggy

[bazzer]

Due to the voltage, unless you are good electronic engineer I would take the unit to a local repair shop I did for mine and Ernie in Benicia replaced the fried components. You problem sounds like and fault in the charging side. Worth fixing though since the cost of a complete unit is expensive

[Captain Bill]

Before you go through all of the trouble to take it out of the boat try a complete cold boot of the system. I had a problem with mine a couple of years ago and talked to Xantrex. They of course told me to send it into a service center, but I was talking to a tech and asked him how much intelligence was built into the system. His response was "what". I rephrased it and asked him if the unit was controlled by a microprocessor, to which he responded "Yes it is". I asked him if a complete power off reboot might solve the problem to which he said maybe. He told me to do that I needed to disconnect the battery, turn on the inverter, and attach it to a resistive load for at least 30 minutes to drain all power from the capacitors. I used my water heater element as the resistive load. I reconnected the 12 volts after 30 minutes, turned it on, and it's worked fine ever since. It's certainly worth a try.

[illywhacker]

Thanks guys. If anyone does have a circuit diagram for the Freedom 20 that would help greatly. I'm in Tasmania, Australia - great cruising grounds but not a lot of Heart experts around so I'm happy to apply any skills I used to have. I have in the past been advised to do a reset - there are a series of help sheets by Xantrex including one to that effect, and I have replaced a triac under direction from a once nearby agent - all to no avail. Agreed, a replacement is out of the question due to cost - besides, I like keeping old things going - including me!