To all you wonderful tech guys out there, i have a problem which I hope someone can answer for me, our van has been sitting idle for about 4 months now and we are almost ready to move into it, so we plugged the power lead in to a power point at the house to get the fridge up and running, left it for about an hour and went back to the van. The charger thingy (don't know what is is called) monitor maybe? anyway it was making a noise and was extremely hot to the touch, so immediatly turned it off, we have a manual for it, but it doesn't explain how to use it, so was wondering if anyone out there might be able to explain if it is supposed to get hot or is there something wrong?
Thanks in advance for any answers, hubby is just as much in the dark as me!
If it is the CTEK charger that is overheating this is not normal nor is making an unusual noise. Some temperature rise is normal but not to the extent you describe. CTEK products are generally very reliable but that is not to say they can't fail.
I'd suggest you do not use it until you get the system checked by a sparkie or someone knowledgeable in these matters before assuming it's the CTEK that's faulty.
To all you wonderful tech guys out there, i have a problem which I hope someone can answer for me, our van has been sitting idle for about 4 months now and we are almost ready to move into it, so we plugged the power lead in to a power point at the house to get the fridge up and running, left it for about an hour and went back to the van. The charger thingy (don't know what is is called) monitor maybe? anyway it was making a noise and was extremely hot to the touch, so immediatly turned it off, we have a manual for it, but it doesn't explain how to use it, so was wondering if anyone out there might be able to explain if it is supposed to get hot or is there something wrong?
Thanks in advance for any answers, hubby is just as much in the dark as me!
Eils
Hi Eils, first up I have no idea myself, but at this very moment I am reading of a similar problem in Caravan & motorhome mag with a CTEK battery charger (described as top of range) getting very hot. They had it checked by auto sparky and he found that was set to "supply"when it should have been set to "normal"and a solar wire was loose at terminal.
I must emphasis that I am parroting what is written in the magazine, so if any of the above appears on your charger you could see if it can be set to normal and see if that changes things. Otherwise....have it checked.
The article appeared in issue number 149 of Caravan & Motorhome page 17, topic, Letters.
Thanks for that Guru, turned it back on yesterday and kept an eye on it and yes it did say 'normal' and got quite warm, but not as hot as the day before, seems to have charged the battery ok, so will keep an eye on it.
Any 25 amp charger will generate some heat so it will need to installed in such a way that there will be some airflow around it. I'm not familiar with your installation so it may well be that this is not an issue in your case.
That's an interesting comment of yours Ozi2. For those unfamiliar with the CTEK product the "supply" setting is to enable the unit to used as a stand-alone 12 volt (actually 13.6 volts) power supply in the absence of a battery.
Thanks everyone for your help, "problem solvered". I think I panicked too early. The van was terribly hot on the day that we fired her up, and by the time it was showing fully charged, it was all fine. This is a huge learning curve for us, but being parked in our daughters garden for two months before we take the leap gives us plenty of time to iron out any future problems we may encounter (we hope). Thanks again everyone.
If you are concerned about the temperature of the unit one solution may be to mount it on a piece of (say) 3mm aluminium and mount the panel such that there is some natural air flow around it. As I'm not familiar with your installation I don't know how practical or necessary this would be.
If you are concerned about the temperature of the unit one solution may be to mount it on a piece of (say) 3mm aluminium and mount the panel such that there is some natural air flow around it. As I'm not familiar with your installation I don't know how practical or necessary this would be.
Jim
Thanks Jim, you gave me a great tip! The charger is actually sitting on the side of one of our overhead cupboards, it does have some space around it, but what I just did was to open the cupboard up and as I have the air con going, it has enabled it to get some cool air into the back of it, so should keep it a bit cooler in our 30+ degree weather we are having.
