Is my old Statpower charger finally dead?

[Mickeyrouse]

Does anybody know anything about the old Statpower Truecharge 40 chargers?
Yeah I know, they’re “yesterday’s technology,” but as long as they still work....
IF they work. I bought mine (my second) at the end of the product cycle- I guess that’s why Xantrex sold it for $200- in 2007. It has given very reliable service, until now. (I can already hear “that’s 17 years- whattaya expect?” I expect it to work as long as my Sears charger I bought in ‘82- which still works fine.)
Anyway a couple weeks ago my batteries were flat- all the electrolyte cooked off. Topped them up, only to find they weren’t charging. So that means the charger had been trying to charge batteries that weren’t accepting a charge. What does that do to a charger? The Sears charger comes into service, reliably. After charging for a few hours, the batteries come up, and I check what old Truecharge will do.
In the charge circuit, it says it’s doing 12.5 volts. Out of the charge circuit, measured voltage across the output is around 8 volts.
Surely I’m measuring battery voltage with the 12.5 v. reading. Does it have to have a load before it puts anything out? The pilot lights on the charger- all of them- are dark. The other two green and yellow lights that indicate “ working” and “done” are both, which is supposed to indicate equalize mode. The charger cooling fan is not running. I have a remote charge indicator panel but it stopped indicating about the time all this started. Hmmmm. Watching the panel meter, there is no change in DC voltage - not even a gentle rise- when I switch the charger circuit breaker in. And there usually is.
Naturally this is an item way past Xantrex’ willingness to offer technical support- a kid born when they announced the end of support would be entering middle school this fall. No service centers deal with this. Their manual offers no guidance. Though they say there are no user-serviceable components inside, they do say that in the event of malfunction, it could be a fuse. Ha. This is my second Truecharge. (They’re not kidding about fusing the output.) I took the dead first one apart just to see and there are a BUNCH of fuses in this thing.
There are also a lot of circuits. In the marine environment it is easy to see one of these crapping out.
But all in all, I’d like some certainty it’s dead before I chunk it.
How do one know?

[john61ct]

Deplete a known good battery to 11.5V, then test, monitoring the cycle with ammeter and DMM.

[sdowney717]

it really sounds dead from what you wrote.
Dont risk dropping a battery so far down as a test, that deep discharging is bad for them.
It should if a multistage start with a bulk charge in the 14's, and a final charge ought to be mid 13's regardless.

SOME of these chargers refuse to charge dead batteries below a certain voltage, but if the battery is not dead, it should attempt to charge it.

[GordMay]

The Statpower Truecharge 40 Owner’s Guide is pretty comprehensive.
➥ http://www.xantrex.com/documents/Dis...-01_Rev-A).pdf