Carthago owners around Portsmouth/Chichester (1 Viewer)

[PJGWiltshire]

Looking for some help from Carthago Chic c line owners, on the South coast

You may have seen some posts around electric issues I am having with the van. It appears that the the two leisure batteries have failed. So today i have dropped in two new batteries.
My problem is now the control panel in the van is playing up. On Sunday when the batteries gave up the control panel just started blinking on and off, so I assumed the problem maybe around the relay that throws in to shut down if the supply of the volt level gets down to 9 or 10 v and normally will not restart until the batteries are back up to safe level.
Speaking to Carthago dealer in Bawtry, they state thet would expect the control panel just to stay off if there was an issue with the relay in the Fuse panel but as there's some power getting to the control panel its just not starting up.

The engineer stated that if the van was with them they would try out the board on another Carthago to see if it starts up on the other van.

Have been trying to get through to Southdowns to no avail. So putting it out there to see if any Carthago owners who would not mind if I could pop over to see if my control panel works on their van.

I appreciate that it is a control panel fitted on many makes of van, so not too sure if it works on other makes. If it is said that it will work on any van which has one installed happy to try.
I am in Arundel West Sussex.

You can see in the pic where the flashing just lights up the symbols but will not turn on.

If all else fails I have contacted Applejacks in Somerset to have both the Fuse distribution board and the controller next week but if I can discount the controller it will save me a few pence in testing fees.

 

[Dorset Diver]

PJGWiltshire A couple of suggestions. Try Reliance near Chichester and / or give me a little time tomorrow and I will try to work out which fuse to pull to isolate and reset the panel.

 

[PJGWiltshire]

PJGWiltshire A couple of suggestions. Try Reliance near Chichester and / or give me a little time tomorrow and I will try to work out which fuse to pull to isolate and reset the panel.

Booked in with Relience on Monday for water ingress test. Asked already if they had other Carthago's in that day to test the unit but non booked. I have an appointment in Somerset on Wednesday to take the van down for Applejack to have a look at the Controller and fused DC, just wanted eliminate the controller. I have pulled the feed cable from behind the controller and also swapped the 3A fuse from the DC. Just can't work out what's gone wrong.

Here is the history:

Any thoughts
Having a few issues with the van around electrics.
Since coming out of lock down have given the van a couple of run outs to check on everything. 1st run out back on 30th March found the the motherboard on the Dometic fridge failed and new one ordered and due to be replaced. At the same time the 1 year Sterling B2B sent out an overheat alarm. The B2B was removed and sent back to Sterling who fixed the charger (It was a faulty fan).
The B2B was returned to me and on Thursday 15th, last week it was reinstalled and found to be working correctly.
Now here things start acting strange.

On that Thursday having installed the B2B took the van for drive for an hour also the van was left in a sunny location with solar panel doing its bit. I noticed by late in the afternoon the battery level on the control panel was showing 13v. (I do not have a Victron battery monitor)
So the van was left unattended around 6pm now in shade, we were due to be in the road the following day so around 10pm I had reason to go in the van and after opening up and turning on the lights a bleep alarm was activated from the control pane. I noticed that is was the alarm for low voltage in the leisure batteries.. It was showing 10.6v and very soon after the control panel shut down and light failed. Clearly the safety power cut off had kicked in.

Took the van for a drive and the B2B kicked in. An hour later battery level above 11v. Following morning reading down to 10.6 or something but no shut down.
Then Friday 16th, on the road for two hours and then sat around in full sunshine for 4 hours, again battery level 13+ v. Followed by another 2 hour drive. Parking up at 7.30pm with a good 13+v on the indicator. Following morning battery level 10.6v frost all around van needing heating on so start engine, B2B giving charge and showing 14v charge. Sun soon up and without B2B again volt level slowly climbs during the day up to over 13v on solar.
Again overnight volt level drops down to 10+volts. The van had not been used whilst left unattended until we returned to it to sleep at 11.00pm when the low volt level seen. This morning from10 v with a drive and solar by 12pm volt showing over 13 v.
So decided to check if the battery is simply failing to hold any charge. I decided to remove the main mega fuse from the B2B so any possible draw from that could not occur and then turned the leisure battery isolator switch off thus no draw from the habitation side also removed solar fuse.

Five hours later wanting to check if the batteries were holding a charge. I turned on the isolating switch, now 12v power has got to the control panel but all that is happing is the screen is flashing on and off thus seeing all the symbols that could be illuminated in the screen but the screen is not lite up by the back light. Pressing the on/off button is not activating the control panel thus no supply is getting through to the ,light and pump. 12v is supplied to the heating controller but again it will not start heating or hot water boiler. The fridge has 12v supply and will work on gas(even with the faulty fridge control panel as it would do this but will both switch off and switch automatically thus a new panel to be fitted)

I have disconnected the positive feed to the isolation switch and then plugged in EHU and the control panel does exactly the same as on 12v.

Brand new batteries fitted today, turn isolator switch on and screen flashing on controller

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[jako999]

Sorry no where near you but have you checked there is actually 12v at the control panel?

 

[jako999]

I think the control board is just a idiot and is controlled by a main distribution controller somewhere in the van so yo may well be looking at the wrong bit of equipment? Have a look in the garage behind silver mesh.

 

[PJGWiltshire]

I think the control board is just a idiot and is controlled by a main distribution controller somewhere in the van so yo may well be looking at the wrong bit of equipmen?

Yes I think `i have worked that out, the DC has the relay that shuts down the link to the controller when the batteries get to a low voltage. I suspect something has gone wrong around this component. Applejack in Somerset will check this out along with the controller. Being the skin flint I am, I do not want to pay for test on two bits of kit when I can point to the one. So by checking the controller on another van and it starts up its clearly the DC,

So I want get it checked out hope they do the DC first then the controller. Thats why I am taking the van down to them on Wednesday so that I can start on the DC if they find a fault in that and I can then plug all the terminals back in and see if it then talks to the controller. Thats my plan they probabily will just want both parts.

I followed Abacists 2019 post around the same problem on his N & B he unfortunately had both parts go after a power surge. Cant see that being the problem on mine as i was only on 12v supply

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[PJGWiltshire]

Sorry no where near you but have you checked there is actually 12v at the control panel?

I can only assume there is power to the control panel as it flicks on and off and goes dead when isolate switch turned and when I pulled the fuse.

 

[Dorset Diver]

PJGWiltshire You are clearly into the technicalities far more that me. I'm definitely not an expert. I hope that Applejacks can sort it out for you. Good luck.