Thread: Traxide Issue? or DC/DC charger Issue or D4 problem

Thanks Tim

especially for allowing me to ring you on a Sunday. As you suspected it seems like it is the SC80 circuit breaker. I bypassed the circuit breaker as you directed. Ran engine for a while. UHF now working, fridge too and ESC on van now shows green, so all good there. I’ll give the yellow top a good charge on drive tomorrow before I reconnect the Orion dc/dc charger back up in the van. The circuit breaker may have been the issue all along making me suspect the Orion unit. Anyway will test. Thanks so much for your help.

trevor

Good result, in my old D1 i had a piranha isolator with i thought was faulty so i replaced it No change with the new one so like you i bypassed the CB and it started working, luckily Tim uses the common CB variety so will be easy to replace. I wouldn't have been surprised if the optima was dead though, they don't seem to last anymore.

Hi again Trevor, connect everything up before you start your drive tomorrow.

Your SC80, combined with your huge Alternator, gives you the worlds fastest charging system so let your alternator and the SC80 do what they are designed to do.

If you drive for a few hours tomorrow, get as much charge back into all your batteries during that drive time.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi again Trevor, connect everything up before you start your drive tomorrow.

Your SC80, combined with your huge Alternator, gives you the worlds fastest charging system so let your alternator and the SC80 do what they are designed to do.

If you drive for a few hours tomorrow, get as much charge back into all your batteries during that drive time.

Well, a final post (probably) from me on this thread. Have just arrived home in Bathurst. I bypassed the (broken) circuit breaker on sunday afternoon at Yunta in SA. Three days of driving later, the problems all appeared to be solved with the DC/DC charger. It has performed perfectly on trip home charging up vans Lithium batteries fine (in conjunction with a bit of solar).

My guess is that the CB was dodgy and intermittently tripping causing the Traxide Yellow Top battery to have variable voltage and slowly loose capacity. When on Sunday the CB finally carked it and I lost the UHF, ESC, car fridge and caravan reversing camera, it all started to show a linkage. Again a big thanks to Tim for realising that it was the CB. (I'll put this in the memory banks).

Anyway, everything has worked perfectly for the last 3 days. I had thought that I was suffering faults with different devices, but it all came back to the D34 Yellow top losing voltage. (Again, reminder to self, always take multimeter with me on trips).

Tim, I will get a circuit breaker off you if I can so I can replace the broken one before next trip in a couple of months. I'll text you my address and I'll fix you up for the item however you like. Grateful for your expertise in ascertaining the issue. I was thinking that I'd be sending away DC/DC chargers to suppliers and Caravan rear cameras to be sent away for testing. This would have cost me lots in terms of time and wasted effort and would have showed no issues with any of the devices. So paying for a CB is a small price to pay.

Thanks again all for suggestions.

Trevor

Funny you mention the CB. I have an SC80 and run the trailer circuit off it. I have a Kings Thumper compressor that draws 45amp claimed continuous. Before the SC80 was installed, it was off the main battery off the same 6B&S. when the compressor was turned on the car would sense the load and the alternator voltage would bump up, clearly heard by the compressor speed increasing.

Once the SC80 was between the main and aux battery, with the 6B&S off the aux battery, now when the compressor is turned on, there is a quick rise in compressor speed (denoting voltage increase), but then it drops back as the circuit breaker cuts out the link between the two batteries. The cycle goes on with the CB reconnecting, the voltage increasing and the CB blocking. Sound of the compressor “brrrrr, weeee, brrrr, weeee, brrrr, weeee, brrrr” lol

I assume that as the current draw is high the voltage drops increasing amperage pull and I tip the CB over its limit. Anyhow, completely unrelated to your problem other than a CB experience. Sorry for the tangent.

Originally Posted by DiscoJeffster

Funny you mention the CB. I have an SC80 and run the trailer circuit off it. I have a Kings Thumper compressor that draws 45amp claimed continuous. Before the SC80 was installed, it was off the main battery off the same 6B&S. when the compressor was turned on the car would sense the load and the alternator voltage would bump up, clearly heard by the compressor speed increasing.

Once the SC80 was between the main and aux battery, with the 6B&S off the aux battery, now when the compressor is turned on, there is a quick rise in compressor speed (denoting voltage increase), but then it drops back as the circuit breaker cuts out the link between the two batteries. The cycle goes on with the CB reconnecting, the voltage increasing and the CB blocking. Sound of the compressor “brrrrr, weeee, brrrr, weeee, brrrr, weeee, brrrr” lol

I assume that as the current draw is high the voltage drops increasing amperage pull and I tip the CB over its limit. Anyhow, completely unrelated to your problem other than a CB experience. Sorry for the tangent.

Thanks DiscoJeffster

What you have said actually strikes a chord. Last week on Tuesday I did the 70km (or so) Skytrek track at Willow Springs in the Flinders. I had let the D4 rear tyres down from 42lbsfor van towing, down to 32lbs for the trip. Before I reconnected the van I pumped up the rears with my compressor. (Just a mid size mountain devilbut works ok). I usually run it from the anderson plug on back of car (which is connected to the Yellow top), but the speed was variable. I then tried it directly on the D34 terminals but no better. I then ran it off cranking battery and it powered on well.

I had not thought about the CB tripping on and off when running the compressor. Thanks

I’ve been using automatic resetting circuit breakers for more than 30 years and up until about 4 years back, they did their job well.

The problems with the sudden failures relates directly to the much large alternators in modern vehicles. The 50 amp auto resetting circuit breakers just can’t handle the continuous higher currents available from these large capacity alternators.

So around 12 months back, I changed to 80 amp fuses.

80 amp fuses are the largest fuse size that can be safely used with 6B&S cable.

I have had no problems since upgrading to the fuses.

But with D4s, as the cable run between the batteries is short and completely in the engine bay, you can safely bypass the 50 amp auto resetting circuit breaker and all will be safe and will work fine.

NOTE, with the 80 amp fuse setup, you can still have the auxiliary battery ( or batteries ) safely draw well in excess of 100 amps for a short time and the 80 amp fuse will not blow.

This is the correct operation of any fuse.

Because of the new setup, my isolators are now the worlds fastest battery charging dual battery setups.

This all means your batteries will now charge quicker than ever.

Cheers Tim. I will look into that update for mine.

Do you have a photo of the new fuse setup?