- #Does the red alarm kight supposed to keep manual
- #Does the red alarm kight supposed to keep series
- #Does the red alarm kight supposed to keep crack
I called Glentronics and asked if it was normal for the system to drain the battery while checking it. Without the charger connected to the battery, (I disconnected it right after a charging cycle) the battery voltage drops from 15V to 12.78V in somewhere between 3 and 11 hours, then has stayed at 12.78V for a few days, so far. The charger then turns off and the battery drains to 12.66V in 90 minutes, at which time the charger turns on again. When charging, the voltage across the battery rises from 12.66V to 15.25V in about 20 minutes, then stays at 15.25V for another 40 minutes. I didn’t question the system until I recently discovered that the system charges for 60 minutes, and then “drains” for about 90 minutes. I bought the Basement Watchdog battery and pumps (BW4000) and installed them in Feb 2013. Edit: There is now a discussion thread over on eevblog It seems that once again beancounters screwed up a reasonably good system, to save a few bucks on the wallpack. My battery is now happily sitting at the proper float voltage of about 13.7V and actually requires adding water every once in a while. I used Cincon TR10R150-12A03 that cost me maybe 10$ at the time for a 15V 0.7A switcher. So the fix is very simple- replace a wallpack transformer with a suitable switching power supply. At a steady 15V we get a nice charge and at the end of it, the output is never above 13.7V- a perfect value for float charge system like this. There is our problem! Next step is to use a bench supply and see if that makes things better. A closer look at the power supply that came with a system reveals an unregulated wallpack. That means while the battery is very low it’ll get a tiny bit of charge in, but as it gets fuller, the voltage left after the whole chain of parts is just too low to push any current into it.
As soon as the BJT turns on and tries to charge the battery, input supply sags quite a bit. Looking at the voltages, around the circuit, one thing becomes pretty obvious early on. The system has an oscillator that pulses the big BJT to turn it on, while also driving the green “Charger” LED at the same time.
#Does the red alarm kight supposed to keep series
We basically have a diode, a TIP32 BJT and a series resistor between input wallpack and the battery.
#Does the red alarm kight supposed to keep crack
Well, clearly it’s time to crack it open. After a pretty long charge, the battery took a good 20AH+ in and was sitting at a much happier voltage, it also ran a much larger number of pump cycles before hitting low voltage warning. I disconnected the battery and charged it with a lab power supply, while measuring things with a WattsUP meter. No matter how I tried to explain that I see no meaningful charging ever happening, the tech just kept insisting on his line.
The answer that came back was – “you need a new battery”. All this sounded like a system that is not charging correctly.
#Does the red alarm kight supposed to keep manual
And finally I remembered that in the two or three years of owing the system I’ve never had to add water to the battery, even though the manual warned that it should be done pretty regularly, based on low water indicator. Too low for any kind of charging to actually occur. A nice discharger so to speak!īattery voltage was suspicious as well- at most it was sitting at 12V while always charging. It was actually taking more energy out of the battery than putting into it. The charge current was very small, and about on the order of discharge current. Looking at the current, it would go into the battery for a bit, then out of it! Upon a bit more thinking, I realized that this is how the unit tests for battery’s presence and relative health. First thing I noticed was that the battery is charged in a pulse fashion- the charger turns on for a bit, then turns off. That sounded weird after the system just sitting there charging all the time, so I started digging in. During one of such tests I noticed that with the pump turning on, I’d also get a low battery alarm.
I’d test it occasionally by pressing the test button or moving the floats and the pump would kick in. For the first year or two the system sat there blinking happily.
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