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Doug Dotson
 
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Default Non-stop battery charging

Dick,

We have the exact same Heart unit in our marine canvas
bus. It has never acted as you describe. A call to
Xantrex is cheap. They can give you the correct answer
with no doubt rather than the specuations you will get
otherwise.

Doug

"Dick Locke" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 9 Oct 2003 16:43:20 -0400, "Jeff Morris"
jeffmo@NoSpam-sv-lokiDOTcom wrote:

You haven't mentioned how you know the charger is running - are you

seeing a Voltage or a
current flow? Its possible that you're getting a faulty reading from the

Link indicating
a small current flow. You might try putting an Ammeter in series with

the battery
connection to verify the flow.

Voltage...on the boat's master voltmeter.

If I turn off the charger when the batteries are fully charged, first
a relay clicks off and amps drop to zero or go slightly negative.
Within 5 minutes, the relay clicks on again and the voltage climbs to
the gel's accept voltage of 14.4. Amps go up to 5-10 also. After a
while, amps drop off to a mild trickle (.1-.4) and the voltage drops
to 13.6. The relay never clicks off. The indicator lights never go on.

I'm going to do a hard reset next time I'm on the boat, since nobody
said "Hey mine does that too."


FTIW, my Heart charger is "on" 24/7 most of the time - I don't recall

every turning it
off. Since my fridge is DC I rely on the charger to keep it running, and

as longs as it
doesn't over/under charge the batteries I don't see the problem.


My refrig is AC, and there should be no DC running except for an
occasional bilge pump.



"Dick Locke" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 09 Oct 2003 12:17:42 GMT, (Larry W4CSC) wrote:

If it's not using much water, the battery isn't "hot" (warm is
normal), and there's not a lot of gassing going on.....stop worrying
about it and let it get on with its job.....

They are gels, so probably won't outgas. I'll check temp. Somehow,
though, I think a charger that is on without any indicator lights
saying so is going to bite me on the butt sometime.