Xantrex inverter charger freedom 20

[the dude abides]

Hi there. I have a Xantrex Freedom 20 charger inverter on my boat. Never had a problem with it till a so called battery expert came on board last week to check the health of my batteries. He confirmed that my AGMs were fine and then he left. Since then, my AC shore power is not charging the batteries. This has not happened before and he is not returning my calls (and I was very polite by the way). I just sailed into a small town in North Queensland Australia so there is not a lot of techs who expertise is charger inverters, or batteries obviously. I think it may have had something to do with the testing of my batteries and a reset of sorts may be required.
The invert light on full green and the charge light flashing every second which tells me that the Freedom 20 is ready to receive charge but there is no AC available. There is AC available though and I have done the obvious with the shore power and the leads and I am receiving AC into the boat. I have tried turning it off by hitting the freedom inverter button and pulling out the power and trying all sorts of sequences and variables to get shore power recognized and reset the unit. I am about to disengage the DC power to drain the unit completely in case there is residual left in there and see if I can do a hard reset. I have pressed the 25 button on the front but this is a soft reset which may be impacted by residual – I think. Has anyone had this issue and resolved it?
Cheers - Sean

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by the dude abides

The invert light on full green and the charge light flashing every second which tells me that the Freedom 20 is ready to receive charge but there is no AC available. There is AC available though and I have done the obvious with the shore power and the leads and I am receiving AC into the boat.

You're 100% sure that AC of the proper voltage and polarity is connected?

Any other LEDs lit: the low battery LED? the Overtemp/Overload LED?

[the dude abides]

Hi Alan,
AC is of proper voltage and polarity is connected. I was at the marina a week before this happened and it was all working fine. I only wanted someone with the expertise to check the health of the batteries as they are getting on a little but never actually had an issue – but I do now.
The heart interface states that the battery is charged. Normally the small red led is on informing me that AC is in. This is not on now. There are no leds on at present telling me of overtemp or overload.
I am not using any power on the boat and have a good wind generator. The solar regulator needs to be reset now as well but this is another issue which occurred on the same day which has never happened before either, but this is a separate issue now. I have looked online and there is info on disconnecting and connecting it in the right sequence. I hope that will resolve the solar issue.
I turned the fridge off as I was concerned about depleting the batteries and I don’t want that to happen, but am aware that it needs to be run or I could have a gas issue.
I did try to get hold of their support team as Xantrex seem to have positive reviews about response’s but I am getting blocked for some reason. I did ring a Xantrex dealer who told me to disconnect the DC to completely drain the unit of power, so that is my next move.
Cheers,
Sean

[40 South]

Sean

There is a 0.5amp 3AG glass fuse inside on circuit board #2. Open up the unit (disconnect all power first) and locate the fuse, replace and it should start charging again. I had the same problem. I modified mine and put a chassis mounted holder on the case and wired it back to the internal fuse holder incase it happened again. Of course it hasn't!!

[the dude abides]

Craig,
That is the first thing I will do tomorrow. I thought that it could be something along those lines but never had this or any issue with this unit before and hence have been blissfully ignorant of its workings. Thanks very much. I will get back to you with the results tomorrow night.
Cheers,
Sean

[40 South]

Sean

Maybe your battery "expert" put a load tester on the batteries and it has back-fed to the inverter and blown the fuse?

I have a .pdf document on my boat (won't be able to get it until Sunday) if you require more detailed info.

My memory may be a bit vague on the circuit board number but the fuse is in there somewhere! There may even be two.

Where in QLD are you?

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by 40 South

There is a 0.5amp 3AG glass fuse inside on circuit board #2.

Nicely caught, Craig.

Do all Freedom inverter/chargers have that fuse? As well as circuit breakers?

Mine has two circuit breakers, with reset switches. One is in the shore power AC input (a 30 amp breaker). The other is a 12 amp breaker in the inverter output circuit.

So my next suggestion to Sean was to have been to check the circuit breakers reset switches. The switches pop up if the breaker has done its job and need to be pushed back down.

[40 South]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

Do all Freedom inverter/chargers have that fuse? As well as circuit breakers?

Not sure Alan.

Mine is an Xantrex Freedom 25, it has breakers and the internal fuse(s).

I think there are two internal fuses, one for the 12V charge circuit and the other for the 240V pass through. It was awhile ago when I fixed mine & have not had to revisit.

[the dude abides]

Craig,

I suspect something like that has happened as the solar regulator is reading error 7 which is low voltage. The solar is not working now as it was only reading 0.5 of an amp today. I think that needs to be reset. I was reading about it being disconnected and connected in the right sequence if there was a power interruption. This happened at the same time as the inverter/charger so something has happened where both these items have malfunctioned at the same time. The wind generator is keeping it going (D400).

For all I know it could just be unfortunate timing and I don’t want to cast dispersions on anyone, although I am getting blanked by him and I have been polite about the whole thing. I am up around Bundaberg way now for the next 2 months before making my way to Darwin and then South East Asia; hence me getting a health check on the batteries as this is the last place before hitting the Barrier islands.

I did see a video where a double fuse was being replaced but this was an echo charger issue.

I will gratefully read all knowledge I can get about this. It’s the area where I am weakest on my boat.

Much appreciated.
Cheers,

Sean

[the dude abides]

Hi Alan,

So there is a button on the front of the unit with 25 on it. This is out. When I push it in it springs back out. When I talked on the phone to the Xantrex dealer he told me this was a soft reset and that I should disconnect the DC and wait for half hour and then reconnect it.

I appreciate the advice. It has to be something reasonably elementary I think (hope). I am hoping it is just a fuse.

Cheers,
Sean

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by the dude abides

So there is a button on the front of the unit with 25 on it. This is out. When I push it in it springs back out. When I talked on the phone to the Xantrex dealer he told me this was a soft reset and that I should disconnect the DC and wait for half hour and then reconnect it.

Sean: Hi!

Could that be a 25 Amp circuit breaker?

And if so, it's still breaking. Suggesting a fault somewhere.

Just guessing. I've not had the fault.

[the dude abides]

That’s what I thought Alan. Now there is a breaker for the 110 power that was being activated (240 in, 110 out, American wired, ) but I found out what was doing that and that is resolved. Another issue that had never happened before.

I am hoping just a fuse. It is in the lazarette, in a on your knees and half lying down position. I would like to fix it in situ; or it may turn into a spaghetti bowl.

Cheers,
Sean

[Symphony]

Is it possible that your battery expert disconnected the bank from everything while testing it, and then did not succeed in reconnecting everything once the load test was done? Maybe one of the big safety fuses was blown during the load test.

Test for continuity from the charger to the batteries to ground, etc.

[Scrimshaw4]

The relays in older Freedom's have are susceptible to surface corrosion over time. I've been able to keep mine operational for 19 years by removing the cover and liberally spraying the interior with CRC's electrical contact cleaner when ever it starts to act up.

[Davidhoy]

I had a similar problem with my Xantrex inverter/charger, and I thought that the unit was dead. I then remembered that when I installed a battery watering system on my FLA batteries a week before I had turned off the battery-disconnect switch. The inverter/charger was reporting all sorts of errors, but none of them indicated that it might simply be that the battery bank was not connected. Could your problem be as simple as mine?

-David