Did I Destroy My Battery Charger ?

[Meck]

Hello,

I'm wondering if I destroyed my battery charger today. I turned on the genny and noticed It was not charging, so I went down to the charger an noticed that the breaker going the charger was flipped. I flipped it on and the charger popped and sparked hard! I have not put any current to it since that happened, but I suspect that it's toast.

The unit is a Tecsup Hi Tech 500w switch mode, 12v 60 amp with 110 or 220 input. My genny is 220v ac unit.

Also, any comments on a good replacement for this unit? The fact that it needs be 110 or 220 ac input reduces my choices.

And.. I'm wondering why this would happen? Could my genny have problems too? I did not do anything different...

Thank for any advice
Best Regards to all,
Meck

[David M]

I would remove it from the boat circuitry and bench test it using 120VAC from a land source. Put a test load on the charger using a 12 volt battery that is known to be good.

If the charger is dead then there are plenty of quality marine grade chargers available.

Check the voltage of your generator from startup to shut down. Check the waveform with an oscilloscope if you have one.

[SailFastTri]

Have you considered maybe the reason your breaker popped (again) is that the charger was already shorted before you got there?

[senormechanico]

Meck,

What you are describing might just be a shorted "full wave bridge rectifier" very near the AC input.
It might be worth having a local electronics tech look at it.
That's all that was wrong with a Xantrex charger I got on Ebay for cheap.

Steve B.