[Rusty Nail]

Hi,
I have an ex THL 2011 Merc 515 River 6 berth.
I have a problem with the charger which has no brand name but has stickers attached saying SOLATECH and w.w.w.aquatech.net.nz . Also states model number CS-500. A Google on any of these fails to come up with any relevant results. Solartech/aquatech seem no longer to be in business.
I was hoping someone might be familiar with the chargers fitted to these rentals and steer me in the right direction for some info.
Thanks,
Russ

[mattn]

Might help to post a picture of the charger/label. When you say 'problems', what is the problem. In my experience many problems attributed to chargers are actually faulty batteries. Chargers tend to work or not.

[Rusty Nail]

Thanks Matt, I'm pretty sure the batteries are OK. 2 X 390 Ah 6V AGMs connected to one about 100Ah start battery by dual VSR. All only a couple of years old and charge up OK with a basic portable 15A charger that I have. The installed charger is 40A. Photos could be a few days away.

The problem is it wasn't working, but it is hidden down in the bottom of a seat box and is near impossible to see the indicator lights etc. So I unscrewed it and got it out, the leads were long enough to do that, and lo and behold when I switched it back on it worked, showing about 14V on the voltmeter installed in the motorhome. Left it on overnight and by morning it had switched back to around 13V so presumably had reached full charge and dropped back to float voltage. I removed it to give it a cleanup before putting it back, and on rechecking it before reinstalling it was playing up again.

There are three indicator light on the front panel. Green, orange and red. The green appears to indicate the power is on and the batteries are connected. The orange on constantly as well appears to indicate charging, flashes intermittently on float. The red only on seems to indicate a fault.

What appears to be happening is when it is switched on it begins to charge as normal. When the voltage builds up to about 14V, takes maybe five seconds, the red light comes up, the charger stops charging and the orange and green light switch off. I think this is what it has been doing for a while now. A dry connection, loose wire, faulty component maybe?

Apart from taking the front panel off to clean the fan vents I haven't opened it up, as what's in there may be basically beyond my skillsets anyway. I was mainly wanting to get all the info I could before dropping it onto some lucky tech guy.

[mattn]

Certainly Sounds fault. First thing I would do if you have or can beg/steal/borrow another battery is connect it to another battery and see how it behaves. I expect the same. In that case, being 40AMP its not cheap to replace, it might be worth getting it looked at, but without date sheets and repair diagrams diagnostics is hard - as you said, could be a dry solder joint, most likely a faulty component. Repair techs will probably ping you $100 to look at it with no guarantee its repairable.

Or the easy way is replace it... Tough call....

If cost is a concern, presuming you have decent solar you might want to replace it with a simple but much cheaper 13.8V 40AMP power supply (Jaycar and others have them) . The 'smart' stuff only makes a difference in the last 10% for charging, and the smarts in the solar does the bits needed to get the battery to full charge.