JDNSW
1st August 2014, 02:41 PM
A couple of weeks ago, one of two battery chargers I have for backup of my solar system stopped working. Last time it did that, it was a fault with the control circuit board - $190, thank you.
Assuming it was a similar problem, I took it back to the people who repaired it a year ago. After about a week, they rang me and told me it was not repairable, as parts are not available.
A phone call to the manufacturer confirmed that there are two parts for this charger not available, the transformer and rectifier. And they were able to tell me that my repairer had enquired about a rectifier. They offered a discount price on their current model equivalent (actually only 35A not 40A) of just over $1000.
So I went back and got the charger; as a concession, they only charged me $50 instead of their normal $110 to look at it.
Today I pulled the cover off to see if I could find whether I could do anything with it.
Yes, the rectifier has clearly overheated, and a check with a meter shows at least one diode is U/S. The rectifier is a bridge rectifier, custom made with four discrete diodes individually soldered to two copper pipes as heat sinks. It seemed to me that I should be able to replace this, and a look at the Jaycar catalogue shows I can get a suitable bridge rectifier and heatsink for probably under $30 including postage. We will see how this works, but I can't see any reason why it will not be perfectly satisfactory!
It seems nobody is prepared to attempt this sort of modification today - took me all of five minutes with the catalogue to decide which parts are needed. Modifying it with the new rectifier should take no more than an hour. Even at commercial hourly rates this charger could have been repaired for well under half the cost of a new one. What is up with people?
John
Assuming it was a similar problem, I took it back to the people who repaired it a year ago. After about a week, they rang me and told me it was not repairable, as parts are not available.
A phone call to the manufacturer confirmed that there are two parts for this charger not available, the transformer and rectifier. And they were able to tell me that my repairer had enquired about a rectifier. They offered a discount price on their current model equivalent (actually only 35A not 40A) of just over $1000.
So I went back and got the charger; as a concession, they only charged me $50 instead of their normal $110 to look at it.
Today I pulled the cover off to see if I could find whether I could do anything with it.
Yes, the rectifier has clearly overheated, and a check with a meter shows at least one diode is U/S. The rectifier is a bridge rectifier, custom made with four discrete diodes individually soldered to two copper pipes as heat sinks. It seemed to me that I should be able to replace this, and a look at the Jaycar catalogue shows I can get a suitable bridge rectifier and heatsink for probably under $30 including postage. We will see how this works, but I can't see any reason why it will not be perfectly satisfactory!
It seems nobody is prepared to attempt this sort of modification today - took me all of five minutes with the catalogue to decide which parts are needed. Modifying it with the new rectifier should take no more than an hour. Even at commercial hourly rates this charger could have been repaired for well under half the cost of a new one. What is up with people?
John