Help Troubleshooting Freedom 20

[RunningFish]

My Freedom 20 has started displaying behavior that I can't find in any troubleshooting doc. When connected to shore power, it isn't charging, although all indications on the remote pane is that it is - charging LED is on, and voltage lights show 13.0 - 13.5 V. When disconnected from shore power, it goes dead - no lights on the unit or the remote display, so of course it won't invert. The breaker on the unit doesn't appear tripped.

Anybody seen this before? Any suggestions what to look at?

Thanks

[RunningFish]

Is everybody out sailing or just dumbfounded by my Freedom's bad behavior?

[Not Sure]

Sounds like dirty connections. I recently had a portable battery charger that would do the same thing. It looked fine and indicated that the battery it was hooked to was fully charged (which I knew wasn't), and wouldn't charge but would switch to 'float' and show a green led. WTF? I took the charger's battery clamp connections apart, cleaned them up, cut back the cable ends to fresh where they looked a little aged, and reattached the battery clamps to the fresh cable ends. Hooked it all back up and plugged it back in and it started working like a champ.

You wouldn't have thought to look at it that it was simply bad connections, as the connections all looked decent.

[Chief Engineer]

What shape are the batteries in?

Connections-connections-connections

[BeenThereAteIt]

Hi RunningFish:

You might want to consider resetting your Freedom 20.
1) On your remote control/panel (if any) turn off the power switch.
2) On your remote control/panel (if any) disconnect any phone
cord at the back of the unit.
3) At the inverter turn off the power switch & leave it off.
4) Any A/C input power to the inverter (shore power) needs to
be removed/disconnected.
5) Disconect the negative cable from the converter to the batteries/
or d.c. ground for 1/2 hour.
6) After the 30 minute wait its time to put it all back together.
Reconnect negative cable & a spark is very likely. So be
sure nothing a spark might cause problems with is in the area.
Maybe vent the area first ?
7) Reconnect any remote panel phone cord.
8) Turn on the inverter & see if it will supply power to a light bulb.
9) If so, then connect back to shore power.

*****Check fuses & as noted above, connections****

If the unit still dosen't work & you feel the inverter isn't worth
having repaired do the following:

******Hit the inverter with a hammer numerous times*****
This will release stress so you will feel much better.

Respectfully,
Paul

[Morganministry]

******Hit the inverter with a hammer numerous times*****
This will release stress so you will feel much better.

When in doubt get a bigger hammer.

Seriously though. Does the charger have an Amp meter to show how many amps it is putting in to the batteries?

I agree with the above posts. First check/clean connections. Then check batteries.
Scott

[RunningFish]

It was main fuse between the battery switch and the inverter.

Thanks for eveyone's help. It's crappy that the remote display doesn't indicate that in any way, but instead looks like it's connected to fully charged batteries.