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rob-l avatar image
rob-l asked

Could my charger be faulty...?

Hi all. Just trying to understand what has gone wrong in my van power setup. I am using a Smart Blue ip67 12/13 charger with a 12v leisure battery to charge and act as a power supply which has been fine up until now. Charged the battery and ran my fridge on it fine a few days ago, but now that I am on a campsite with a 240v hookup connected, the battery has discharged to 11.9v before I noticed, meaning the charger is not supplying anything. The charger was also saying it was in storage mode for a day which I now know meant it was 24 hours discharging before that kicked in... Assuming my conncections are all good, why would the charger not be charging the battery or even supplying any power? The app is telling me now that it is on absorption charge at 14.47v but with 0.0 current and my battery monitor shows the battery is discharging, not charging. The charger clearly thinks it's doing something but obviously isn't. Is it faulty or am I missing something?

battery charging
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rob-l avatar image rob-l commented ·

So now an hour or so later the app shows it is has switched to float whilst all the time the battery monitor has shown it as discharging. Surely something is not right with the charger to be behaving like this. I expect it will move to storage in 24 hours again...


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havscritiria avatar image havscritiria commented ·

My charger behaves similarly. It seems to do it once it has sat overnight. Unplugging it completely and then plugging it back it gets it working again, but that's not okay.

It'll bounce between claiming bulk to absorption to float but no current will flow and the battery voltage remains unchanged.

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rob-l avatar image rob-l havscritiria commented ·

Yep, no current moving...


I am swapping mine out for a different charger and sending it for testing under the warranty, so I will update this thread when I hear back from them. Hopefully they can establish what is causing this behaviour as it is useless as a charger right now.

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havscritiria avatar image havscritiria rob-l commented ·

Unfortunately for me, the weak Bluetooth connector broke so I don't think they'd honor my warranty.

I hope they fix yours! Good luck.

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2 Answers
wkirby avatar image
wkirby answered ·

Have you checked that any fuses are OK? An open circuit between the charger and battery may be the cause.

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rob-l avatar image rob-l commented ·

Thanks for the reply mate. I have checked the inline fuse for the charger and that is ok, and the charger is wired direct to the battery after that. It's still the same, so I am not sure what to try next. I've posted a screenshot of the Victron app page now it's connected to the 240 again - says it's charging but shows 0 current. LED blinking slow for absorbtion charge but the battery monitor says it's discharging (lights are on at the mo). Any other suggestions to look at?! I managed to put some charge back in via the relay for a couple of hours today so the battery is all good, but obviously this is not an ideal way to handle it longer term. Think I'll need to call the distributor tomorrow as it's still just in warranty... One other thing though. I also updated the app a day or so ago. Can't quite remember the sequence of events but surely the update couldn't have done this? It was only released 18th of July though, so stranger things have happened...

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tdcgoofy avatar image
tdcgoofy answered ·

I have the same problem. My charger is a Blue Smart Charger IP22 24V. It says that it's charging but no current is flowing.

Does anyone know why this is so?

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