[Archived]

It is funny that you mention the cooling fans.

I had noticed that as well with my situation and at one point, I thought the relay that triggers the internal fan might be a cause of the issues.

As a suggestion, in the back of the Trace owners manual is a worksheet that lists the default settings for the standard SW 40XX series inverters with a column for user settings. There are several worksheets, one each for the 12 volt, 24 volt and 48 volt units.

I printed several copies of the worksheet out and have filled in the user settings as read off my inverters. This will give me a baseline so as I change settings, I can go back to the original and have a reference. My inverters are the Motor Coach versions designated by the MC2 after the model number. The MC2 software has slightly different defaults than the worksheet.

If someone needs a copy of the worksheet, let me know and I can email a PDF.

One last thing and the battery experts can correct me if I am wrong but my understanding of AGM batteries is they don’t like to be equalized. I have my equalize time set to 0:00 where the default is 10 minutes for the MC2 version and 2 hours for the standard version.

Hope this info is useful,

Paul

[Archived]

Paul,

My last coach was set up as you describe with the inverters in parallel charging a battery bank.

Set up that way one would always be dominant in terms of charging a nearly fully charged set of batteries. But I could verify each was working OK by turning the charger off on the dominant one and seeing the secondary pick up the charging load. What you describe was normal and in the 8 1/2 years I owned that coach I learned to just make sure the inverters were handling their respective loads and they were maintaining the proper voltage in the batteries.

Because we almost never dry camped I set the charge current values on both inverters low so I did not overload the shore power.

[Archived]

Paul,

One bank and two chargers is the typical configuration. I thought this strange on mine until I discovered it to be common. Most chargers will work. The regulator circuits can never be exactly the same so one charger tends to win out on thr task of charging once they are at or near float voltage. Until then they tend to both charge.

Before considering going to 2 banks, which wouldn’t be hard, consider why most coaches only have one bank. The primary reason is that you will more effectively depleat your batteries while on inverter power. All loads pulling from one bank gets rid of the complex if not impossible task of load balancing two banks. I say impossible because even though the loads on each inverter may appear equal tyat can only occur in reality if the loads have the same duty cycle which isn’t the case.

I always turn off one of my chargers, which on the Freedom inverter/chargers doesn’t affect inverter use. I would suggest that you have already discovered a better solution than two banks through manipulating the charge current. As for the sync cable, I’m not an expert on your units. I have wondered why the sync cable isn’t used. Because most, maybe all, don’t use the sync’ed or ganged operation I wonder if there is a down side.

BTW, I thought in your original post that your inverter was taking on some of the AC loads. That wouldn’t seem related to whether your charger needs to put charge current to the batteries.

[Archived]

Paul, I don’t think any battery likes equalization and AGMs hate being cooked more than wet cells. Although AGMs can be equalized, I don’t do it. On my coaches and boats I’ve only equalized a battery bank once and that was a bank of Chinese 8D wet cells that came with my boat that weren’t holding a charge after just 3 years. I got rid of them. I tend to get 5+ years out of my batteries, so I really don’t see a benefit to equalizing, i’m also not a fan of sending more voltage to the batteries than most DC systems are designed to accept.

[Archived]

Gil,

You are correct, one inverter was taking on loads.

A situation might be sitting in the coach at an RV park with 2 roof airs running (no other AC loads on at this time) and both chargers are showing float. A check of the amp meters on each unit will show charger amps = zero, input amperage from the pedestal = 13 amps, load (roof air) = 13 amps.

Utility power goes out for 5 minutes. Inverter #1 supplies the 13 amps to one roof air and Inverter #2 also supplies 13 amps the the second roof air.

Utility power comes back on which triggers both chargers to try and charge the battery bank. A check of the amp meters on each inverter shows almost identical readings; charger amps = 15, input amperage from the pedestal 28 amps and load amps 13.

After a minute or two, the charger in Inverter #1starts to reduce it’s amperage into the battery. At this point, Inverter #2 is still putting 15 amps into the battery. As I continue to watch the charger amp meter on Inverter #1, it continues to decrease, reaches zero, and continues into negative amperage which means Inverter #1 is pulling amperage out of the battery bank to support the roof air load.

After 4 to 5 minutes, the meter readings on Inverter #1 show charger amps = (-)10 amps, input amperage from the pedestal = 3 amps, and load is 13 amps. Inverter #2 will show charger amps = 15, input amperage from the pedestal = 28 amps and load is 13 amps.

At this point in time Inverter #2 is putting 15 amps into the battery bank while Inverter #1 is using 10 amps to support the roof air load leaving 5 amps to charge the battery.

As soon as the chargers go from bulk to float, everything corrects itself and both units function normally. Also, as long as one charger is set to a different charge amps than the second, both units function normally. If the charge amps are set the same on both units, it seems to confuse one unit or the other.

While I now understand many of you have a similar setup as mine, it is not a supported configuration by Xantrex for my specific units and they state that in the owner’s manual. Xantrex may have altered their software in later years to support multiple inverters on one battery bank but that is just a guess. For my units, there are only two configurations for multiple inverters running off one battery and that is the use of either a parallel stacking cable or a serial stacking cable. I suspect the reason the converters didn’t use either cable is when two or more units are connected, if one fails, it shuts down all connected inverters.

The way my inverters interact may have something to do with their date of manufacture. One unit was produced in the fall of 1999 and the other was produced in spring of 2000. Xantrex may have done some slight software changes due to the Y2K scare???? Wouldn’t that be something.

Sorry for the length of this post. Got a little carried away.

Paul

[Archived]

Paul,

I don’t think Xantrex supports one bank feeding 2 independently controlled inverter/chargers of any model. I still don’t get what is making the inverter supplement incoming commercial power. The good news is you have an effective work around.

If I get some time I’ll look at what the interlinking configurations actually do. I doubt they were installed this way simply because the failure of one unit disabled the other.

BTW, we are almost neighbors. I’m in Beverly Hills.

[Archived]

“The behavior I was
seeing is Inverter 1 was bulk charging the battery bank and inverter 2
was seeing the charge voltage from inverter 1 as an overcharged battery
bank, thus reducing it’s charge to zero and then “inverting” to supply
the loads.”

Why do you think that this is wrong? When I took delivery of my Vantare’, I asked about the operation of the charging. I was told in no uncertain terms that one inverter would take over the charging process.

“Those of you with
Vantare conversions may want to verify the operation of your inverters
if you have a single battery bank as I do. In my case, I only found this
“problem” because we were tripping pedestal breakers once and a while.”

Does this happen when you first get to a location and right after you switch to shore power? I know I have to actively manage my power consumption after connecting to shore power. I need to be somewhat conservative until charging switchs to FLOAT otherwise I will trip the shore pedestal breaker. This is an oddity of Vantare’ as everything goes through the inverters.

“The tempory solution
is to reduce the charge output of one inverter while a more permanent
solution would be to link the two units via a stacking interface cable.”

You may need to rethink that. These inverters in Vantare’s are not stacked because when they are stacked, a fault in one inverter shuts them both down. Stacking is only adventageous when 240VAC requirements are abundant.

Hope that helps some.

[Bob]

Sawdust,

“Why do you think this is wrong” I suggest it is wrong in that one unit is charging the battery while at the same time the second unit is taking some amount of charge out of the battery. The way my units were working, I could pull 20+ amps out of the battery to run 2 A/C units while the other unit is only putting back 15 amps.

“Does this happen when you first get to a location and right after you swicth to shore power” Yes. I understand that many people need to manage loads, a lesson I learned on this last trip. In my case, I can reduce the charge amps of inverter #1 to a very low level and shift the charging duties to Inverter #2. By forcing Inverter #2 to be the active charger, I can better balance the loads on each leg and reduce tripping the breakers.

After more research, I totally agree that stacking the inverters is more trouble than it is worth. I retract that idea as an option. It is a lot easier to change the settings on the inverter.

This has been a great learning exercise for me and I think it will lead to more enjoyment of this new to us coach.

I did have a little laugh at your “oddity” comment. As I learn more about the systems on my coach, I keep coming across “odd” things that make you stand back and ask, why did they do it like that?. Nothing wrong or bad, just odd.

Paul

[Archived]

I just spent 4 full very frustrating days the week before last at Marathon in TX for this exact same issue. My 2001 Marathon seems to have a similar electrical setup to the Vantare. The two guys that worked on my coach at Marathon had very little experience on the coach electrical system. After several calls to the electrical engineer at Marathon in OR and to Xantrex, they all seemed to agree that they had never seen this condition and that it was not normal but had no idea how to fix it. I have trouble understanding the design benefit of a system that would let one inverter charge the batteries at 75 amps DC while the other used 75 amps to run the loads all while on shore or gen power.

Paul, would it be possible for you to call me to further discuss what you have learned about this? I have been losing sleep over this issue for weeks now and would like to know all I can about it. Thanks

[Fred]

I agree, “odd” is not right or wrong. It is just Vantare’ took a different approach/philosophy to the electrical system design. When I first took my coach, I was a member of POG. I started asking questions and received a great deal of advice. Unfortunately, that was when there weren’t many Vantare’s in the group. Much of what I received was with the greatest of intention, but fell way off the mark because of a lack of knowledge about Vantare’ on the part of the advisers.

Over time, I was able to mentally pound most of the manuals in their various versions to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the inverters. However, what made things mush clearer was studying the Vantare’ wiring diagrams.

Do you know if you have the “bicolor board”? I suspect you do. Do you have the wiring diagrams? They help!

Good Luck!

[Roger]

Happy to share what I have learned.

I sent you an email with my contact info.

Paul

[Jerry]

Got it.

[Peter]

You are welcome to give me a call and I will help you out if you still need it.

I am very familiar with Marathon’s approach to the inverters, as well as the others.

Ben Cummings

Parliament Motor Coach

888-571-5755, ext 230

813-830-8619 (Cell)

[Archived]

Wow! This is just to coincidental!!! I just had exactly the same situation. I have the same setup in that I have 2 4024s attached to 6 of the 8D AGM Lifelines and all power to the coach goes through the inverters before going to the breakers. I had not seen this until I lost power from one inverter last week losing power to half of my breakers. I will post another thread on that! When I got that fixed I verified that the settings matched the working inverter and changed some. I don’t know if the battery charging was one of those but I bet it was. When I set the battery charged on the failed unit back to 1 amp. All started working correctly.

I hate you had the problem but I am sure glad you solved and posted before it happened to me!!!

Thanks!!!!!

[Bryan]

That makes three of us that have the same symptoms and I will bet there are more.

I set up a little load/charge test over the last 4 days to verify my findings and here are the results. The test conditions were to run 2 A/C units (one A/C unit drawing from each inverter). In the AM, shut I off the shore power for 15 minutes with the A/C units running to draw down some power from the battery bank. I then turned the shore power on with both chargers set at 15 AMPS.

Each and every time the chargers came on to bulk charge the battery, I had the symtoms described in my posts. The only variable was that the symptoms flip flopped one inverter to the other one time.

When the batteries got back to float, I repeated the test but with Inverter # 1 set to 1 amp charge and the other set to 15 amps. I repeated this test 4 times with 100% correct results.

At this point in time, I am convinced that the only issue is one charger gets confused when it is fighting a second unit. I suspect it goes into a default mode which is to invert and supply 120 volts from DC, Having one charger shut down ends the conflict and all is well.

Paul