RE Quote " friend has a Motorhome "assembled" in Victoria - or somehow put together - with the imported transformer/charger made in Germany. It sits right beside the house battery and both - the charger and battery - sit beside a 240V power point!! OK,there's been no problems we know of,but there is a potential risk in my opinion. Friend wanted to change a fuse and noted sticker on top of charger with words in German. Translation? I'm concerned about something "explosive" eh![end quote]
Certainly the battery should not be in the same compartment as the battery charger
. the extent /potential for problems will depend on battery type & are least with a sealed AGM battery & highest with flooded wet cell batteries
Good ventilation of the battery compartment is required
But this may not overcome the pontential for acidic fume damage to electrical equipment such as the charger
AND there is always a risk of an explosion, no matter what type of battery due to hydrogen build up & possible ignition by a spark
Yes just another indication of the Knowledge, qualifications, care taken by many in the industry
Peter
-- Edited by oldtrack123 on Saturday 4th of August 2012 01:22:19 PM
-- Edited by oldtrack123 on Saturday 4th of August 2012 01:24:24 PM
A friend has a Motorhome "assembled" in Victoria - or somehow put together - with the imported transformer/charger made in Germany. It sits right beside the house battery and both - the charger and battery - sit beside a 240V power point!! OK,there's been no problems we know of,but there is a potential risk in my opinion. Friend wanted to change a fuse and noted sticker on top of charger with words in German. Translation? I'm concerned about something "explosive" eh!
Wording on charger: "Achtung. Explosive Gase. Flammen und Funken vermeiden! Wahrend des Ladens ist fur Ausreichende Beluftung zu sorgen!
labels on fuses(trranslation?): Internes Lademo..Zusatz Ladegera..Heizung Trittstufe Kreis 1,2,3 & 4
Types of batteries charger can handle:Blei Gel Blei - Saure Saure must mean "flooded"? Is a calcium battery in the "flooded" group. Beware - the charger manual states once you move the vertical switch up to "Gel" you can't move it back down again. You are stuck with "Gel".
Maybe these three units - transformer/charger + house battery + 240V pp should not be grouped together for absolute safety??
Spoke to a young freshman12V auto-elec. Going through college he spoke about the Australian Standards for 12V stand-alone battery power systems. Apparently you must be able to isolate the leads from the charger to the house battery AND also able to isolate the leads from the engine battery to the transformer/charger. This would certainly be a bit safer. At the moment you can't take the house battery out to check it over and charge it etc. because the leads taken off are still "live"!! OK,then you have to disconnect the earth on the engine battery to do anything. The charger must be on zero current to change a fuse. I'll have to get a 12V sparko to isolate the engine battery with a lead & switch up on the dash and also isolate the leads from the charger to the house battery. gosh I wish there was some inspection/enforcement of these matters for those people like me as well who lack the knowledge and put our faith and trust in the dealer/seller.
The standards with DC power is mainly for Inverter use and moreso with Combi Inverter Chargers and that is that the DC power supplying those units need to be both capable of isolation and fused. The normal use of dc appliances such as chargers etc is no where near as deadly as an inverter and fusing the cables as close to the batteries as possible is the means of shutting off the batteries in case of cable failure because the battery bank discharging though a shorted cable can burn the vehicle to the ground and if you can weld with around 60A DC imagine what a 200AH or laregr battery bank can do. The use of good quality manual resettable circuit breakers can give you the double protection needed if the capacity of the amp draw is not too high and these can cover up to 150A and for amps above this there are special fuses and fuse holders that can cater for many hundreds of amps. Access to batters is another problem and if you have no fusing and hidden batteries how do you stop it from destroying your asset in the event of a cable short. Ian
