An up date to our charging problem.

[Tom_Barb]

as most know we had a out of phase 50 amp plug blow our Freedom 458 inverter charger last summer. we replaced the 458 with another rebuilt 458, finished our trip.
move 6 months ahead to christmas time we found the rebuilt 458 was not charging the batteries above 13.2 VDC. we limped it along with a remote battery charger, until last week, I determined that there was 120 VAC to the inverter and nothing out on the AC or DC side of the inverter.

So we decided that we had enough of trying to fix the old inverter, and ordered a new Magnum 2012 pure syne wave 2000 w inverter and remote control from Al's RV in Bellingham Wa. plus a new 50 amp Progressive EMS surge guard to protect it.

The past few evenings we got the new surge guard and the new inverter installed, all the batteries cleaned, and all cables cleaned and reinstalled, just to find the big 300 amp fuse between the battery bank and the DC output on the new inverter was also blown. (this is the third time) so we ordered a 300 amp C/B to replace it.

Tonight every thing is acting better than new, lights in the coach are brighter, the microwave acts better, and the battery bank is charging.

and the most important, "Grand ma's electric blanket works".

Please God, let it be over.

[GordonThree]

Something else to think about regarding a circuit breaker is the arc interrupt capacity of the breaker, versus something like a class T fuse.

a dead short across a large battery bank wired with heavy duty cables could produce thousands of amps. My bank has four batteries in parallel rated at 1600 amps short current each, so that's 6,400 amps if I screw up. My Blue Sea class-T fuse is rated to interrupt an arc of up to 20,000 amps.

By comparison, a Blue Sea dc breaker is rated to interrupt only 6500 amps. If I had more batteries in my bank, a breaker would not stop a short, the DC arc would just burn right through the breaker until something else failed.

[pianotuna]

Hi,

Be aware breakers take longer to trip. I would have stayed with 300 amps in a breaker.

[Tom_Barb]

GordonThree wrote:
I'd have an electrician look into why that 300 amp fuse is blowing... That's a catastrophe fuse and generally when it blows, something went VERY WRONG.

Understand, but when you change every major component in the system hopefully the problem got removed.

We bought a circuit breaker, if it continues to trip we investigate farther. We may have a shorted cable between the battery bank and the inverter. (they meter good)

[GordonThree]

I'd have an electrician look into why that 300 amp fuse is blowing... That's a catastrophe fuse and generally when it blows, something went VERY WRONG.

[pianotuna]

Hi Tom,

If you still have it, send it off to:

KJINTF

Tom/Barb wrote:

move 6 months ahead to christmas time we found the rebuilt 458 was not charging the batteries above 13.2 VDC. we limped it along with a remote battery charger, until last week, I determined that there was 120 VAC to the inverter and nothing out on the AC or DC side of the inverter.

So we decided that we had enough of trying to fix the old inverter, and ordered a new Magnum 2012 pure syne wave 2000 w inverter and remote control from Al's RV in Bellingham Wa. plus a new 50 amp Progressive EMS surge guard to protect it.

[amandasgramma]

gads....this good have been my husband posting this....especially the "grand ma's electric blanket works". 🙂 🙂