2005 Itasca Sunnova Parallax Charger... Failure?

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Just got the PD in the mail ;D! Went back for the original batts, however, and they both failed their own load test :eek:! The kid @ the batt specialty store seemed more than willing to swap them out...too willing ???(I didn’t even bring the original purchase receipt last night!) No diagnostic report was left on the old batt pair’s tag to explain their condition/progress: They’ve been there for about two weeks. Nothing to apprise status, like, “Yeah, we charged/prepped them, gave it a load test last ‘Tuesday’, and they both failed” was offered, the kid there knew no more than me (as if everything that was done was only done @ the last moment, when I went to pick them up last night ???) The terminals of the new pair looked okay, not much filing clean down ;D (you know what I’m suspecting... customer recycling... too bad that I can’t simply look on the bottom of the batts, for ‘scuff marks’ as the disqualifier ::)) Checked the new??? pair out on their load test (like the originals, right in front of me), and they seemed to pass. :-\ Somehow I get a feeling that I may be back there. :mad:
 
Date 1/18... but we?re talking a inch round sticker stuck on the top of the batt, not anything engraved ;D! I hooked it all in, air conditioner/fridge thermostats functioning 8), inside incandescent lights good 8). The wizard has been in a ?slow blink? (turns on/off for abt 1 second, in three second cycles [in other words, if you count from the first time that the LED turns on to the next time that it turns on, that?s about 3 seconds]), which the PD manual doesn?t really recognize. The manual: ?Normal Mode- When the battery is between 50 and 90% charged, the green LED will flash once per second [this is my best guess of present status]. When the battery has reached 90% of full charge the green LED will flash 2-3 times per second [probably not the case here, yet]...Storage mode- indicated by green LED flashing every 6-8 seconds [definately not the case, yet].?
 
Well, four or so days and the wizard is briefly blinking once about every 6-8 sec... "Storage mode"! 8) ;D :)) I'll keep my eye on it, but things are overall looking muuuch better (I can tell just by looking at the lights)! Thanks so much for all of your help, John H, John C, kdbgoat, Gary, et al.  :)
 
No more rfi than before ;D, which seems to be caused by the crt television (and that's "band selective", when/if the crt is turned on) 8). I'm building an interface circuit in an Altoids Tin box, to do real FSK RTTY (not AFSK) with my Icom '703... Tired of trying to feed soundcard-based digital audio into the radio with a Nomic, and having the radio's ALC 'splatter' meter 'dance the Watusi'::). The radio has real FSK, I thought that I'd try to utilize it  :)
 
All of the digital action is now FT8 and uses USB drivers for sound in and out of the PC. It's quite easy to adjust receive/xmit sound using the user interface to check levels.
 
Once that I discovered that my 15-20 year old, 16 bit XP tower was incompatible w/ the wifi where I live :eek:(there goes all the advanced modes, some requiring ?Cesium atomic? synchronisity), along w/ my aforementioned problems w/ Icom ALC (audio splatter uncertainty), I?ve pretty much given up on the possibility of many of the ?exotic? modes. I don?t intend on getting a new computer in the near future, just to be bombarded w/ more proprietary hardware/software issues :mad:. Besides, ?keeping up with the Jones? will only become my M.O. when/if HF spectrum comes at a premium. I just sit back, watch the kids slurping on their cell phones while I?m at work ::) (no, really, I once saw a baby bottle nipple decoration on the top of a middle school kid?s cell phone... a symbol of dependency?::)), and most of my worries of losing my fun hobby subside. :)
 
WSJT should run on old hardware, for time synchronization you need a little NTP applet to run as a service, most of us use Meinberg NTP. Or better yet, install Linux on your old hardware - it will be quite happy and there's a version of WSJT for Linux.
 
I just finished the W3YY interface (in an Altoids Tin ;)) late Sunday ;D, and have begun testing. RX worked on first shot! 8) It's keying TX, I just have to familiarize myself w/ aligning the radio and program's orientation (sidebands, mark/space conventions, etc).
 
Update... yesterday the Wizard on the PD has gone from slow blink ?storage? mode to a faster blink ?normal? mode, after the AC shore power went off (half-hour or so) :eek:. I noticed the faster blinks after the AC restored, and at first I thought that it may have been that routine 15-20 minute ?top-off? charge that the PD performs every 23 hours, but the faster blink has now obviously lasted too long for that to be the case (continuously for over a day now) ???

The PDs fan also seems taxed quite a bit more often than before the power went out briefly... running in ?high mode? more frequently. :( This, while we still use a AC LED light for the bulk of our night sight needs. Wife recently felt need to relevel hydraulic jacks, that was last weekend/5 days ago (did nothing unusual to Wizard indicator back then, it remained in storage mode)  :-\

$400ea. batteries would have prevented any of this?  ::) I dunno  :mad:
 
Brand-new  Duracell SL124MDC (qty 2)... installed a new batt pair @ the same time as receiving the brand-new PD charger/converter,  abt. 1-2 months ago.

From a previous message of mine: 

"... the original Interstate batteries running with the Parallax 45 amp, 2 stage charger/converter for the last five years were SRM-24s, 550 CCAs ea., 690 MCAs ea., marine deep cycle group 24s.

New batteries are (were?) Duracell SL124MDC (group 24s), 500 CCAs ea., 615 MCAs ea., 150 minutes @ 23 amps ea., marine deep cycle group 24s (so, yes, they do sound like comparable battery types?)...

As maintenence-free as the other battery types seem, we live here, full-time, on the ‘cheap’. No dry camping/boondocking ever, only my wife that nags me to check the batt water levels every month! But, hey, the old Interstate pair lasted FIVE YEARS!"
 
Whew!  8) (I think ;D)
  Two days after the short, 20 minute short AC shore power outage, and the Wizard has gone back to slow-blink ?storage? mode (so things are appearently still working as they should be  :) ). Just seems strange that it would feel the need for a seemingly extended charge associated with a seemingly brief power demand (the fridge flicking from electric to propane during that brief interim of time was the only possible batt. demand). ???
 
(the fridge flicking from electric to propane during that brief interim of time was the only possible batt. demand).
Click to expand...

Perhaps that was the only additional 12v load, but all the normal, ongoing 12v consumption continues but now draws from the battery rather than the converter.  Once the battery voltage drops even a tiny bit, the charger is going to kick out of storage mode and begin normal charging for awhile.
 
That I would expect, sure... but the charger seemingly treating the batts like something completely drained down to baseline zero and in need of a full charge, for twenty minutes of demand, that I don’t expect.

When my cell phone, electric razor, etc. requires a partial charge, that’s exactly what would be given to them, at a portion of the time, as required. I gotta response from a tech guy at PD, things seem fairly normal to him. After looking at the response from PD, a 2-day +/- charge is generally normal (in ‘normal’ mode, no pun intended), but when? Every time that the power flickers?

If the outdoor storage compartment nearby the stairs wouldn’t require too long a length of 00 ga wire to integrate, then maybe I need to consider A) 2-4 more parallel batts, (buy one a month or so :eek:) or,  B) start all over w/ six volt golf cart batts :eek:!?!?

 
Your batteries should be float charged at around 13.2 or 13.3V, like Gary mentioned if you are drawing current from lights, etc the charger should increase current supplied.
 
Perhaps so, but since the install +2 day very first charge, the Wizard has never shown anything below (above? Never demanded more than)  ?storage? mode... until the power incident a couple days ago.

Perhaps these are typically discrete functions that all power charger/converters employ (even the old Parallax 2 stage did as well, w/o any indication), but now I have a wizard displaying to me every time that such occurrences/stages/changes take place, easily making OCDs like myself worry ;D Now I only need to know when to really worry  ::)
 
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