True Charge 20+ no charge

[WildRoving]

Problem solved: poor connection on positive charging bar.

So I reconnected the unit, turning off all other chargers and it still didn't work even though voltage was being read at the unit. Assuming the unit was bad I picked up a pronautic 1220p and wired it up. This unit was able to see the starting battery but still not the house bank.

The cable from the charger to the housing bank first goes through a bar that collects the solar and wind gen chargers so to troubleshoot I took the charging cable and went straight to the house bank bypassing the bar. When I was removing the connection at the positive charging bar I noticed that it was poorly installed with some shrink tube material partially blocking the connection...cleaned things up and reattached the connecter to the bar and the charger was then able to see the house bank and charge it.

What threw me off initially was that while the voltage of the house bank was reaching the charger terminals and the link 10 battery monitor was reading the voltage apparently the voltage wasn't strong enough to initiate the charging sequence in either the old or new chargers.

What I learned: Check all connections first and just because there is a connection don't assume it's a solid connection. Pretty sure my multi meter has a resistance setting which might have picked up the excess resistance so I need to become familiar with that.

Anyways frustrating problem but invaluable learning experience. Thanks all.

[japawil]

I had the same True Charge; it died on me.
Replaced with the PronauticP, and it has been working great ever since.
It did have issues with the temp sensor. I’m installing a Victron Smart Battery Sense as I intend to be using more solar charging than shore power charging in the near future.🤞

[Bycrick]

An ohmmeter will tell you nothing useful concerning battery cable connections unless they were almostcompletely open circuit.

AWG 2/0 wire has .049 ohms/1000 feet. AWG 10 is .99ohms /1000 feet. So almost all of the 2/0 cable could have corroded away internally and the difference is less than one ohm.

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

An ohmmeter will tell you nothing useful concerning battery cable connections unless they were almostcompletely open circuit.

AWG 2/0 wire has .049 ohms/1000 feet. AWG 10 is .99ohms /1000 feet. So almost all of the 2/0 cable could have corroded away internally and the difference is less than one ohm.

Agree.

A better solution is to use a multimeter to measure voltage drop. To do this set the meter in volts DC. The source (charger) must be on. Place one probe on the positive output cable of the charger at the charger. Place the other probe at the first connection. If there is no voltage drop at all you will not get a reading. If there is a voltage drop the meter will show it. There is likely to be a very small voltage drop at a good connection, but the worse the connection is the larger the drop. Progressively move to each connection towards the load.
Do the same with the negative cable from source to load.

This will pinpoint the problem connection.

[smac999]

what you needed to do was measure the voltage at both ends. with and without the charger on.

with charger off, you would have measured say 12.5v at the battery and and the charger terminals. meaning you have a connection of some sort.

when you turned the charger on. you probably had 12.5v at the battery and 14v at the charger terminals. meaning the charger was working but the connection was bad.