MagneTek 950-2
Don & Mary Dale Sanford
sheet (all I have) says if it fails it will go to 6v or to 0v and use will
discharge the battery completely. I measured the voltage out into a
discharged batt, at about 13v, and into a 3/4 charged batt. about 13.3 and a
current of about 1A in both cases. This is totally removed from the MH
system (no connections to MH). I have checked the diodes - they appear to be
good. Is this low charging current normal? I still had 12V lights when
plugged in to shore power.
Does anyone have any suggestions.
Tia
Don
Chris Bryant
That charge current sounds low- the chart I have for that
model shows a current of around 10-15 amps at 13-13.5 volts, but... it
*is* charging, so while it isn't working up to snuff, it is working,
and shouldn't be discharging the batteries. Note that if the battery
is bad, it will not work very well, as the nature of the circuit makes
the battery a component (it acts as a big capacitor in the circuit).
Sometimes the capacitors can get weak in these- but...
****warning*****- if you decide to check or replace the capacitors,
there is very high voltage present on them..
The troubleshooting for this model is-
1) Check for 120 vac at transformer input
- if good- skip to 2
If bad- check fuse and thermal fuse.
2) Disconnect diodes- check for 24-27 volts ac at Xformer output
-if good- skip to 3
If bad- disconnect capacitors- check voltage on "resonant
winding" (the wires going to capacitors)- there should be 500-600
volts- if not, replace Xformer, if so, replace capacitors. (Note these
are high voltage caps).
3) Replace diodes.
All of that said, I would check the other wiring- particularly
the ground from the converter- I have had this bite me on more than
one occasion- the manual basically says hook the converter up to a
battery, measure the voltage, plug in the converter, if the voltage
rises about 1/2 volt, then it is fine.
Of course, the new electronic converters do a *much* better
job of dealing with the battery- particularly the Progressive Dynamics
PD91XX series, and the Iota DLS series.
--
Chris Bryant
Bryant RV Services- http://www.bryantrv.com
W1QE
I tried to send you an e-mail but the address that you used in your post is not valid.
I have a Magnetek 50A series 900. If you find that you can't get yours repaired at a reasonable cost send me an e-mail and we can discuss. We are headed back to FL in a couple of days and I can take it with us.
Al
W1QE