Charger bad?

[mythprod]

Plugged my charger in today and the little fan on it was very noisy. It's been doing this since I received the charger now and then and usually I would unplug it and plug it back in and it would straighten up. Today I unplugged it and plugged it back in and it continued being noisy. I jiggled it a bit and tapped it on its side and then it just shut off and can't get it to charge anymore. There are two lights on it, one to indicate power (from the battery or the wall) and the other light is red or green indicating charged or not. That second light won't come on and the charger's fan isn't coming on (an indicator it's not charging) so I'm guessing some component within the charger went bad? I'll contact the vendor for a new charger if possible (only had it a little over a month) but if that fails I'll have to see about fixing it or buy a new one.

Anyone have any ideas on what might've gone bad on the charger that I could check? I think I can get home on this same charge okay but unless I can fix this I'm probably going to be stuck burning gas until it's fixed. :-(

I have a 3a charger that came with my 48v 20ah battery (purchased at goasisenergy.com - http://www.goasisenergy.com/products-page/48v-lifepo4-battery-packs/48v-20ah-lifepo4-battery-with-4a-charger-and-battery-management-system).

 

[skeetab5780]

well if you haven't bought a new charger yet there are a few simple things you can check. Im going by the picture in the website you linked so im guessing your charger has an aluminum casing with a fuse and a fan built into the side of it.

1. Make sure the fuse holder has a good fuse in it(check the glass window for black residue or test the fuse for continuity)
2. make sure if theres a on/off switch it is in the ON position and the switch actually works(open the chargers casing and test the switch for continuity)
3. a noisy fan is typically a super easy fix (open the charger and either replace the tiny 12v fan for $1 or get a can on compressed air and blow the dust out of it)
4. if the charger has a PC style 3-prong cord that powers it from the wall make sure it is seated properly and making a tight connection into the female port.
5.while the controller is opened up visually inspect the circuit board for obvious black marks(shorts) or broken wires or blown capacitors or resistors
6. get a voltage meter and carefully plug in the charger and test the input cord and the output cord for voltage

i'm sure there is more you can do but thats all i got at the moment.

 

[mythprod]

1) Fuse is fine.
2) No off/on switch available.
3) The fan doesn't even come on now and the LED light to indicate charged (and charging) isn't coming on at all.
4) It does have a PC-style 3-prong power cord, fits nice and snug.
5) Haven't opened the controller yet, trying to figure out if it's included in a warranty. I did smell a bit of hot / burnt electronics, I'm assuming some part within the charger may've popped / burned out. Any common parts that do this in chargers I should look for?
6) I do get power into the charger but no power from the charger to the battery. I haven't confirmed this with a voltage meter yet, will do that next.

 

[skeetab5780]

odds are if the company is going to replace your charger..they are not going to make you send the old one back as proof..that will just cost extra shipping money. Find out if its under warranty if you want but it sounds like it possibly shorted out or got hooked up wrong if your saying it smells funny..it could also be from you smacking it over and over to stop the fan from making noise

And definitely invest in a voltage meter even if its a $4 dollar analog meter from walmart.. you really need to measure the output leads but at this point it may not matter

 

[dnmun]

pictures of the insides of the battery charger? do you have a voltmeter?

 

[amberwolf]

I jiggled it a bit and tapped it on its side and then it just shut off and can't get it to charge anymore.

Then something is loose inside and needs to be opened up to repair. It could be anything from a ball of loose solder to a bad solder joint to a cracked PCB trace to a component that's actually fallen off inside. If the loose item shorted somethign else out, then it could be more complex than simply refastening down the loose item and resoldering it to the PCB.

 

[mythprod]

Here's a pic and video of the inside of the charger. Unfortunately I don't see anything with any sort of burn marks so with my newb eyes it's not obvious which part is bad. I've tried removing the fuse and the main LED that indicates power from the wall will go out, I put the fuse back in and the LED comes back on. The 2nd LED (one closest to the edge) is supposed to light red or green depending on if the battery is charged or not. It actually doesn't light up at all, which if I knew something about chargers would probably give me a clue as to where to start looking and how to find out which part went bad on me. Seeing the below and knowing this information I'm hoping someone on here may have an idea or clue as to where to start looking / checking?

 

[dnmun]

is this a kingpan charger? did you use a two wire extension cord on this charger?

was that thyrister daughterboard loose inside or was it bolted to the lid?

 

[mythprod]

I'm not sure what brand it is as it doesn't say anything on the shell or the board. I used a 3-wire cable on this always to plug into a 3-wire extension cable or a 3-prong plug on a surge protector - it was plugged into the surge protector / power strip when it shut itself off. I've since tried to plug it into several different kinds of plugs since then with no joy.

The daughter board was screwed into the side of the case, it had a bit of that white sealant / adhesive junk on it between the board and the case. I'd unscrewed it all to get a better look at the components, after of course it went bad. Thinking it might've been a bad connection I plugged into the bike battery and plugged in the power and poked around a bit with a plastic pen, seeing if maybe one of the parts came loose of its solder or if I could jiggle it and have it come back on temporarily with no joy. I'm concluding that maybe one of the parts just blew but no idea which one, there are no black marks to visually indicate which it could've been.

I guess I was looking to check some of the most common parts that go bad in these things and see if I could tell with a multimeter which part it was.

 

[DAND214]

Where does the yellow wire go? It looks like it's to the case? The fuse s on the output side, I think. So it doesn't controll the input voltage.

Dan

 

[dnmun]

the yellow wire is the case ground and usually it is on the switching transistor clamp, and they put a little nut on it. was the clamp and nut there when you opened it?

you can try to measure the 200 or so V on the front end capacitors but you can start by taking better close up pictures so we can see inside to give you directions if you wanna know where to measure.

 

[biohazardman]

Oh, the yellow wire. If you put it back together without connecting it to the case and it ends up where mine did there is a plasma show and it toasts your bridge rectifier. I found the nut that holds mine on a glob of glue near the hole on the backside of rectifier after the fact. Lets not forget that on many chargers with the relay like yours will not activate if your battery voltage is not high enough. Been there done that. Just charge it up part way with another charger then try again. If that does not werq dnman does know a bit bout them. We fixed mine after I ordered 2 more.

 

[dnmun]

that's why i asked him if the ground was already loose. and the clamp missing. he mentioned a rattle of something loose.

put your DC voltmeter probes on the place on the pcb where the red and blue wires come off next to the fan. they should say + and -.

he doesn't have a relay, just a fuse and diode to protect the output. different from the kingpan a little in the placement of the diode and other parts there.

don't let duane fool you. he was the one who fixed his diode bridge after he shorted it by accident. (while upgrading his output wire from 14G to 12G because it was getting hot!!) i just showed him where the fuse is hidden since i had seen them blow up several times already on other chargers i worked on. now i have a 100ct box of fuses to keep up with the chargers.

 

[biohazardman]

Swore I saw a relay last time I looked. Were did it go. :?

 

[mythprod]

you can try to measure the 200 or so V on the front end capacitors but you can start by taking better close up pictures so we can see inside to give you directions if you wanna know where to measure.

Yes that would be great! I went ahead and reassembled everything like it was except for the sides that held the top part of the case on. I took some hopefully better pics with a camera in macro mode, let me know if you want a different angle.

View attachment ChargerMacro.zip

 

[dnmun]

i could not see anything missing. when you said rattle, is it possible you were hearing the spare fuse rattling in the little fuse holder compartment under the fuse?

have you examined the output fuse also?

measure the continuity between the red wire at the output plug of the charger, the plus side, back to the output of the schottky diode next to the transformer. you can see the big wide trace coming off the center pin of the schottky diode, running past the transformer over to that toroid of wire.

measure continuity while the charger is off, put the voltmeter on ohmeter scale, put the black probe on the schottky output trace, and the red probe on the plus of the charger output. should be zero ohms.

after that plug it in and see if you can measure voltage on the red and black pins in the plug that goes to the fan. should be 12V or so.

 

[mythprod]

Hrmm, I've been focusing on the top part of the charger. I took a peek on the bottom where there's a 1/4 inch opening between the board and case. I attached a picture of it. It looks like a long piece of solder may be making (or almost making) a connection between the case and the underside of the board. It doesn't appear to be touching but I guess it's possible while jiggling the charger it made a connection?

I can't slide the board out without taking out that white junk so I guess my question regarding that is ... is there some solution I can rub on the white junk to more easily remove it or am I just taking a knife / screwdriver to it and muscling it away? I'd like to remove the board to see where it might be touching, marking where it is before I do to track down which part is likely shorted out.

 

[dnmun]

the silicone is there to hold the board in place. i could not make out what you said is shorting it underneath but there should be a plastic coated cardboard sheet under the pcb to prevent it from shorting to the case. it could be shorted to something else though. is there 12V on the fan? continuity from the diode to the plus lead on the plug?

ps: just VGA is adequate, some people use dialup too. seems like it should work, nothing visibly wrong.

 

[dnmun]

if you decide to remove the pcb. first unscrew the screws that clamp the transistors and diode and voltage regulator to the sides. you want them to be free later when you slide the pcb out.

i use a long blade on my pocket knife, pushed flush against the bottom so it doesn't slip and hit the underside of the board by poking through the cardboard. cut the top and bottom of that silicone plug and grab it with some needle nosed pliers and pull it out, then you have to cut some more where it still hangs up on the sides until you get it free and then the pcb will slide out.

if you want you can remove that thryrister daughterboard too. that is there for universal 110-220V operation. i just put a jumper on mine to make it work on 120V only. i can show you where to put a jumper to allow it to work on 120V.

i recommended to li ping and jimmyD that they not use those chargers with the thyrister daughterboard because they have been shown to fail when used with a two wire extension cord on 120 or 240V. that's why i asked because if the thyrister doesn't have a good ground, it doesn't know how to switch the voltage to the rectifier diodes on the input and then it ends up with 400V on the NPN transistors in the front end. ping said he has had a lot of returns of these chargers because of it. i don't know if that is your problem here yet.

 

[SnowDog2112]

I was just going to make a new thread. Glad I searched. My charger is doing the Exact same thing as this one. Seems to be the same model as well. Seems as if I seat and re-seat the computer style power cord into the socket on the charger it operates as normal.

 

[amberwolf]

And what happens with a different power cord?

 

[SnowDog2112]

Actually... I noticed a correlation... when I connect the charger cables without unplugging and turning off the battery I get a healthy spark at that connection. It seems that it's the times that I get this spark, that the charger seems to go into some sort of different mode that doesn't sound right, as described above. What I thought had to do with 'resetting the plug' was probably just me resetting the charger.

I'm going to guess that something get's overloaded because of the spark. If I take care and do it right. Disconnect the andersons, click the battery button off, Plug in the 1st charger cable, then the final one, then finally plug into the wall... It seems to work as usual.

 

[dnmun]

Actually... I noticed a correlation... when I connect the charger cables without unplugging and turning off the battery I get a healthy spark at that connection. It seems that it's the times that I get this spark, that the charger seems to go into some sort of different mode that doesn't sound right, as described above. What I thought had to do with 'resetting the plug' was probably just me resetting the charger.

I'm going to guess that something get's overloaded because of the spark. If I take care and do it right. Disconnect the andersons, click the battery button off, Plug in the 1st charger cable, then the final one, then finally plug into the wall... It seems to work as usual.

what charger do you have? post up a picture of your charger.

 

[SnowDog2112]

Here is the charger. Pretty typical ?

 

[dnmun]

both leds are lit so what is wrong? could you measure the output voltage? open the charger and take a picture of the inside so we can see if there is a relay or pchannel mosfet on the output.