Kampervankeeny Posted October 25, 2018 Share Posted October 25, 2018 Hi All, I have a 99 La Strada Regent L on a Sprinter MWB van. In Nov 17 I piugged in a solar panel into the cig lighter to keep the engine battery trickle charged through the winter.The 240 EHU lead was not connected. The leisure battery was stil connected to the habitation. In Feb 18 when I came to get the van ready for the new season, I noticed that on the control panel was showing the light that the leisure battery was connected to 240v and the light showing the leisure battery was being charged. Concerned the solar panel had done something to the cicuitry I disconnected it. Then I connecetd the 240v EHU and it chrged the leisure battery fine. Even the van engine started no problem. But all trhought the summer, whether hooked up or not and whether driving or not, both these info lights on the panel are lit. I contacted Roadpro at Daventry but they werent interetsed, and I contacted a local mobile medic but he never responded. At the time I was working at a canal boat marina and I asked soime of the mobile medics who fix the boats but only one guy came up with a suggestion that maybe I had blown a diode but no one showed interets in tryig to fix it. In regular use its not really a problem but it niggles me because something is not right. as it should be So can anyone offer advice or explanation? The charger unit is a CBE A915/6 and the display panel is a CBE 860/2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alanb Posted October 25, 2018 Share Posted October 25, 2018 Hi, Welcome to the forum. I am not familiar with your particular CBE units, and they do not seem to be in common use in the UK. I take it that in the first instance you are referring to the indicator light at the top left of the display panel, which carries an icon of a mains plug. In CBE systems this indicator is displayed when the charger is connected to mains and switched ON. It is controlled by a third wire, the "S" signal taken from the mains charger. The "S" signal is rated at only 50mA (0.050A) and connected to the inboard side of the charge main output diodes via a low current diode, hence the low current rating. May I suggest that you try unplugging the charger output when NOT connected to EHU. If your icon light goes out when the charger output is unplugged, I would suspect that your original fears may have been correct, and that you have a faulty charger. I hope I am wrong, but I can only speculate that one of the charger output diodes has failed, perhaps by being exposed to excessive voltage from your solar charger. (See below) If this is the case, power could flow back from the habitation battery, into the charger, and then out via the "S" signal connection. Further if the charger is faulty in the way that I have speculated, it could be damaging your battery. Chargers are not cheap to purchase but repair should be possible. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alanb Posted October 25, 2018 Share Posted October 25, 2018 Alanb - 2018-10-25 9:10 PM Hi, Welcome to the forum. I am not familiar with your particular CBE units, and they do not seem to be in common use in the UK. I take it that in the first instance you are referring to the indicator light at the top left of the display panel, which carries an icon of a mains plug. In CBE systems this indicator is displayed when the charger is connected to mains and switched ON. It is controlled by a third wire, the "S" signal taken from the mains charger. The "S" signal is rated at only 50mA (0.050A) and connected to the inboard side of the charge main output diodes via a low current diode, hence the low current rating. May I suggest that you try unplugging the charger output when NOT connected to EHU. If your icon light goes out when the charger output is unplugged, I would suspect that your original fears may have been correct, and that you have a faulty charger. I hope I am wrong, but I can only speculate that one of the charger output diodes has failed, perhaps by being exposed to excessive voltage from your solar charger. If this is the case, power could flow back from the habitation battery, into the charger, and then out via the "S" signal connection. Further if the charger is faulty in the way that I have speculated, it could be damaging your battery. Chargers are not cheap to purchase but repair should be possible. Alan Please ignore the clause above, "perhaps by being exposed to excessive voltage from your solar charger", as it is not logical. With usual CBE connections, the solar charger would only charge the starter battery when plugged into a cigarette lighter socket on the vehicle, and with some base vehicles it would not do that. Alan Edit: Text struck through in original post. Keithl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alanb Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 Thanks Keith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted October 28, 2018 Share Posted October 28, 2018 Instruction Manual for CBE A915 battery-charger here http://www.cbe.it/sites/default/files/A915.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alanb Posted October 28, 2018 Share Posted October 28, 2018 I have followed the link provided by Derek, and have some further observations to make. 1. The main output and "S" signal connections are via 0.25" blade connectors. 2. It appears that it is possible to disconnect connector "3" (S signal) on its own. If removing this connector extinguishes the mains connected light, the fault is probably with the charger as previously suggested. 3. If the removal of the connector does extinguish the light, I would recommend that the OP has the reverse leakage current into the charger checked by an electically competent person. The CBE manual specifies this as "Consumption (no connected mains)" 0.3mA. If this was 10 times higher it would not be significant in terms of habitation battery discharge, but could be the cause of the problem. 4. If I have correctly understood the Italian English in the charger manual, the charger uses thyristors to control its output,.another name for these devices is Silicon Controlled Rectifier, or SCR. I have known these to fail when used in a 2 x SCR, 2 x diode "bridge" configuration, industrial chargers. So it may be an SCR or Thyristor that has failed in the charger. (By way of explanation for less electrically minded readers, for a bridge rectifier draw a square diamond. Put upward pointing arrows on each side to represent the diodes. The top corner is the positive terminal, the bottom corner is the negative terminal, and the two side corners are the AC input connections. Diodes are one way devices, with conventional current flow in the direction of the arrow.) While the specific CBE units in the OP's Strada do not seem to be incommon use in the UK, the above remarks could apply to other CBE systems. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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