Battery charger and generator don't play together

[hatchetjoe]

I know this is an old problem but I'd like suggestions on the best "current" solution. I have an 2002 Albin 28 TE with a ProMariner ProTech 1230iPlus battery charger (30 amps, 3 banks) and a Next Gen UMC-1 3.5 KW generator. I assume these are either original equipment or were added soon after the boat was purchased. The charger works fine when I am plugged into shore power and the generator works fine to power the air conditioner, microwave, power tools etc. But after installing a Balmar SG200 battery monitor I found that the battery charger does not put out any voltage/current to the batteries when the generator is running. I assumed that this was probably because the charger wouldn't accept the frequency or wave form of the generator.

I called Professional Mariner about the charger and the young gentleman I spoke to didn't seem to know anything that wasn't on his computer screen. He sent me a trouble shooting guide that assumed you hadn't installed the charger correctly or set the parameters for the batteries correctly. Not very helpful.

I then called the Next Gen company. (They have by far the best customer service I have had in years! You immediately get a knowledgeable person on the line who will listen to the problem and offer suggestions to try to fix the issue.) He suggested I check the frequency of the output and adjust it to 62.5 Hz no load. A second suggestion was to put a 100 W light bulb in to draw current which he said sometimes smoothed the wave form enough to get things to work. Neither of these worked but I did find that starting the air conditioner would work while its compressor was running. That is, when the compressor started the charger would immediately start putting out voltage to the batteries just like it does with shore power! After letting things run for about 5 minutes I was able to stop the AC and the charger would continue to charge the batteries (at least for 15 minutes, I didn't run it longer).

OK, so now I know that I can get the battery charger to work by running the AC but this seems like a poor work around. My question is what is the most reasonable solution to getting the batteries charged from the existing generator? (The genny only has about 50 hours on it BTW.) People have talked about all sorts of "filters" to try to smooth the wave form of small generators. This seems overly complicated. The other option I tried was using a small portable charger I have plugged into one of the AC sockets on the boat. This worked to charge the battery to which it was connected. The other option maybe to buy a new battery charger assuming that new chargers are more forgiving of square waves instead of sine waves in the AC current.

So what would you recommend that I do to get things working like they should? Thanks for your help!

 

[twistedtree]

Is the next gen an inverter-based generator, or a regular old generator?

 

[OldDan1943]

Get a qualified marine electrician to go over the system before you purchase a new charger.

 

[twistedtree]

Answered my own questions. It's not an inverter generator. So I think the issue is with your charger. Unfortunately there are a lot of electrical devices that are designed around the expectation of perfect grid power. I have encountered countless products that won't work correctly, sometimes off a generator, and sometimes off an inverter. It's frustrating to say the least, and vendors seldom can offer a solution, usually blaming the other side of the equation.


I would suggest a different charger, but with a caveat or two.


Whatever you get, be sure there is a usable return policy This can be problematic with electric devices which often have more restrictive return allowances.


Do a temporary install and test it. Run cables through your salon, or whatever works, and test the whole thing out in the open to confirm it works. If it doesn't work, send it back.


Once you have demonstrated that it works, then do a proper marine install.


I'd go for Victron or MasterVolt for the charger. I wouldn't even try Xantrex, and I think you have demonstrated that ProMariner isn't a good pick either.


That said, you could let ProMariner know that you are replacing their product because it doesn't work, and ask if they would like to offer up an alternate model that will work. Maybe they will step up.

 

[Comodave]

And let them know you got this advice from the forum. It might give them some more incentive to help you out if they know you are posting about their product.

 

[Bacchus]

At the risk of making some dumb comments I'll admit I'm a mechanical type and not very astute with much depth on the electrical side.

With the above in mind... I was wondering if one / both of the following are at play here...

I have read that unloaded generators produce a noisy output unless / until loaded.
Is it possible the AC is simply applying enough load for the gen to smoth the output enough to be acceptable to the charger?

The AC motor likely has both start & run capacitors - could it be the capacitors are acting as a filter of sorts and helping to smooth the gen output?

You might try a test to see if #1 applies by adding some other significant load other than the AC to the gen to see if that also produces the desired result.

If #2 is the is the answer I would think some even half decent EE could design a smoothing filter that would be a lot less $$ than a new charger.

If I'm waaaay off base please be kind with corrections but I don't mind being educated.

 

[twistedtree]

At the risk of making some dumb comments I'll admit I'm a mechanical type and not very astute with much depth on the electrical side.

With the above in mind... I was wondering if one / both of the following are at play here...

I have read that unloaded generators produce a noisy output unless / until loaded.
Is it possible the AC is simply applying enough load for the gen to smoth the output enough to be acceptable to the charger?

The AC motor likely has both start & run capacitors - could it be the capacitors are acting as a filter of sorts and helping to smooth the gen output?

You might try a test to see if #1 applies by adding some other significant load other than the AC to the gen to see if that also produces the desired result.

If #2 is the is the answer I would think some even half decent EE could design a smoothing filter that would be a lot less $$ than a new charger.

If I'm waaaay off base please be kind with corrections but I don't mind being educated.

You are probably right to some degree or another on all points. The NextGen guy even suggested one of the same things you have.


What I find personally frustrating are products that work most of the time, but not all of the time. Whatever the reason, I think it's incumbent on the product design to deal with the intended operating environment. A boat charger that doesn't work with a boat generator is a problem. I had this same issue with a Splendide washer that wouldn't work off an inverter, so it was a washer targeted toward the RV and marine market that doesn't work off an inverter. But I'm venting...


And in fairness, the bigger problem here might well be the NextGen. I don't know. The trouble is that to really figure it out takes some serious digging, and some serious equipment. I couldn't figure out the Splendide problem, and I'm a (rusty) EE. I just didn't have the equipment, or frankly the right expertise. After a while I realized it shouldn't be my problem anyway, it should be the product vendor's problem. And I have just not bought any more Splendide products since.


So now I try stuff, and will go through no more than two rounds of tech support. If it doesn't work after that, back it goes to become the vendor's problem.

 

[hatchetjoe]

Thank you!

Thanks for the suggestions!

I will call the Pro Mariner people again tomorrow (Monday) to see if they will tell me anything about their new chargers and if they will work with a modified sine (square) wave. I don't make any pretension at understanding electrical work, hence my reason for trying to find as simple a solution as possible. I know my relatively new portable charger worked.

I agree that there may be something about the size of the electrical load with the air conditioner. I used the AC because it is the largest single load I have on the boat. The person I talked to at Next Gen thought a load needed to be a pure resistive load to smooth things, like a tungsten light bulb, so maybe I should give the water heater a try.

Thanks again!

 

[twistedtree]

If I’m following your configuration correctly, I don’t think you have any square wave anything. The generator doesn’t put out a square, or even modified square wave.

Maybe I’m missing something?

 

[Ski in NC]

Start gennie and connect to charger. Use a test meter to measure volts and Hz. Post what you find. I run a Promariner on my personal boat and it does nothing weird on gennie. I have not found that charger to be picky about gennie running and that is on many boats. Maybe your Hz is way off.

 

[Comodave]

I have 3 Promariner chargers on my boat and they work fine on my genset. I have always had excellent support from Promariner.

 

[High Wire]

My guess. Check the specs for the charger for input power. 62.5 sounds too high. Putting a load on the genny brings the frequency down into a tolerable range. Removing the load brings the frequency high again but takes awhile for the charger brain to kick it out.
Find in the generator manual how to adjust gen frequency to 61.5 hx.
Btw,a Kill-A-Watt monitor costs about $30 and monitors frequency and voltage.

 

[OldDan1943]

If I’m following your configuration correctly, I don’t think you have any square wave anything. The generator doesn’t put out a square, or even modified square wave.

Maybe I’m missing something?

Maybe he is talking about the output inverter?
If that be true, then I would recommend a 'pure sine wave' inverter.
The generator puts out AC current for the house usage ie. A/C, the battery charger, HW heater, stove etc. IF one has the inverter turned on and there is no charging input to the inverter and no generator, then the quality of the AC current is important.

 

[Comodave]

This is what my Promariner manual says.


Designed to work with an automatic wide range AC input voltage of 100 to 250 VAC and 50-60 Hz allowing all models to operate off of a standard household power connection.

 

[Duvie]

HatchetJoe, you didn't mention how you determined that the charger was not putting current into the battery when on the generator. Did you determine this from the new battery monitor system or from the ProMariner charger, or both?

If just from the new battery monitoring system, it could be that system having issues with generator noise. If you have not you should verify the readings from both the charger and the battery monitoring system agree at a given time. You may also want to verify with a clamp meter if you have access to one that will measure DC current.

I have a hard time believing the Promariner charger is having an issue with the generator output. Most devices these days run off 50/60 Hz so it is doubtful that frequency is the issue.

I could see if there were some weird wiring problem when on the generator. Something like the charger being tied to the DC negative buss instead of the actual neutral. Current could find its way back to the neutral but would run along DC negative busses which I would image could cause some weird things to happen. Just thinking out of the box on that one.

 

[OldDan1943]

Okay, as I understand it, the generator produces 120vt AC. That output can go to things such as the house needs and the battery charger. The battery charger goes to the batteries. The inverter changes the battery 12vt into 120vt AC.
Assuming everything wired correctly, everything should work perfectly.
Alas, as someone pointed out, this is not a perfect world. LOL

 

[rgano]

My Nextgen 3.5 KW generator is new as of 2018, and my Promariner 1250P charger was new in 2015. I have not tried running generator with only the charger primarily because the Nextgen manual say to run in at 50% load. Something else is always energized too. The water heater and one of my two air conditioners, usually the rooftop when the boat is in the lift are running in addition to the charger. Next scheduled generator run, I will start with only the charger running to see if I can replicate the PO's issue, but I kinda doubt it will happen.

 

[BruceK]

I have 3 Promariner chargers on my boat and they work fine on my genset. I have always had excellent support from Promariner.

I only have one (sigh) charger but it seems to do equally well on shorepower and genset(Onan 7kw). In previous TF threads the charger brand got a good rap.

 

[Comodave]

I only have one (sigh) charger but it seems to do equally well on shorepower and genset(Onan 7kw). In previous TF threads the charger brand got a good rap.

I doubt that it is a charger issue unless it isn’t installed correctly. I am bery satisfied with the Promariner, otherwise I wouldn’t have 3 of them. Also had one in a previous boat.

 

[FF]

"Assuming everything wired correctly, everything should work perfectly."


It had better be wired correctly, 120V can kill.

 

[STB]

I also doubt it is the charger. Without a scope to look at the waveform and otherwise poke around, I can just guess. But, my wild guess would be a failing excitation capacitor on the generator. It can mess with the voltage waveform in a way that might possibly go away under heavy load and then stay gone until the load drops much lower.

You may want to call Next Gen and chat about that possibility. These caps aren't normally too expensive and relatively easy to swap (just be careful -- caps store charge, so can zap.)

If you are familiar and brave, you can also pull it and use the RC time constant to give you a way to check it using a 12V source and high ohm resistor, or some meters have a test built in.

 

[Arc]

Without going into too much detail the next gen output is let’s say a little dirty. That is not necessarily a bad thing. It has to do with the generating head and it’s simplicity. That’s a good thing. I sell many 3.5 units and sometimes this situation comes up. I sold one to a marina . The buyer loved it but could not get his microwave to work. It worked off dock side but not gen side. It was the input to the power supply that would not trigger the key pad to work. He had to buy a different microwave. He has over 2000 hours trouble free on it now.
Your situation is similar. Just try a different make charger.
Other make generators over come this with 4 pole heads, circuit charge, voltage regulator. Now you have complexity. The only thing that could fail on a Next-gen is a Capacitor. That’s it.

 

[Duetto]

hi,

we had a similar problem when our boat went to survey. charger would run on shore but not nextgen 3.5. turned out to be genset output voltage was set to 135v. you adjust the voltage by adjusting (shorten or lengthen...don't remember) the fuel linkage rod which connects the fuel run solenoid to injection pump. it is horizontal in the center of engine. fuel solenoid is on left. i set unloaded voltage to 125 and loaded it drops to about 120.

 

[twistedtree]

Without going into too much detail the next gen output is let’s say a little dirty. That is not necessarily a bad thing. It has to do with the generating head and it’s simplicity. That’s a good thing. I sell many 3.5 units and sometimes this situation comes up. I sold one to a marina . The buyer loved it but could not get his microwave to work. It worked off dock side but not gen side. It was the input to the power supply that would not trigger the key pad to work. He had to buy a different microwave. He has over 2000 hours trouble free on it now.
Your situation is similar. Just try a different make charger.
Other make generators over come this with 4 pole heads, circuit charge, voltage regulator. Now you have complexity. The only thing that could fail on a Next-gen is a Capacitor. That’s it.

Humm, I think I'd be pretty upset if I had installed one of those generators. Perhaps that's what the OP should be looking to return to the manufacturer, and not the charger.

 

[EngNate]

Disconnect the output from the charger to the gen battery (I'm betting it is so). The charger is sensing the genset's alternator voltage on that battery.

 

[Comodave]

I would get a scope and look at the output waveform and voltage carefully. Without doing that you are just guessing.

 

[thataway]

The ProMariner ProTech 1230iPlus battery charger is an older design, and it is possible that it was original equipment. The current ProMariner completable unit would be in the Pro Mariner, Pronautic series. This is a considerable upgrade from your current charger. In the same class are the Blue Seas, the Victron and the Mastervolt. All are going to be more expensive. A slightly less expensive, but still a good charger you can leave on all of the time is the NOCO Genius3 series 3 bank 30 amp. This has high frequency desulfation. The other advantage of the latest generation of battery chargers is that they will help the batteries last longer. You should not have any problem running any of these off the Next Gen generator. I have owned similar belt driven generators. They run at a lower RPM for the amount of power and cost. They are simple and generally rugged, easy to repair, but the power often was not as "clean" as others. You adjust the frequency by changing the speed on the Diesel engine. As long as every other 110 V system is running well, I would adjust the frequency so it is very close to 60 hz (the Kilo-Watt meter suggested earlier is an item which should be in very boater's kit.)

 

[EngNate]

OP should check my suggestion and report back before chasing any power quality issues and before buying anything.

My thumbs up to the Pro Nautic series chargers, I have recommended them for recreational and commercial customers for about 8 years and not seen one fail to perform excellently. I understand this charger was designed by Sterling Power in the UK. It is constructed differently than other Pro Mariner chargers that I've had a look inside of. I've never been a fan of PM but these are a different product from the rest of their line, at least so far.

 

[hatchetjoe]

Thanks again for all the suggestions. I didn't get a chance to get to the boat and do some of the testing that you have suggested until today. As someone guessed the generator and battery charger both seem to be original equipment from 2002 or near that time, not something installed yesterday.

Today I took my Kill a Watt and my new clamp meter to the boat and tried some things. With no AC power from shore or generator I tried the clamp meter compared to the Balmar battery monitor and they were pretty close. For example with two radios, radar and refrigerator running the clamp on a battery cable said 8.16 amps and the Balmar said -8.3 amps. I tried several other load combinations and the two were pretty close all the time.

On shore power the Kill a Watt and multimeter read exactly as you would expect: 120VAC and 60.0 Hz. With the Next Gen I got 136VAC and 63.3 HZ from both. As the generator warmed up this dropped to 62.3 Hz but the voltage stayed at 136VAC. Turning on the water heater dropped the frequency to 61.8 Hz still at 136VAC. The battery charger would not send current to the batteries either measured at the battery with the clamp or voltage meter with the water heater on. When I turned off the water heater and started the air conditioner the battery charger starting putting out current at about +12 amps, again seen on both the clamp meter at the battery and Balmar meter. With the air conditioner on I was seeing 129VAC and 61.5Hz. The charger manual says that it works from 95 to 250VAC, so I the 129-136VAC should not be a problem.

I haven't found someone to loan me a scope to see what the waveform looks like but my inexpensive multimeter has trouble reading the frequency, flipping through many higher frequencies and only occasionally stabilizing on 62.xhz. The Kill a Watt is very stable with it's readings. Having the air conditioner on doesn't change the problems reading the frequency.

So I will talk with Next Gen on Monday about changing the capacitor. When I bought the boat the generator was not working and the replacing the capacitor solved that problem of output so maybe a newer or different capacitor will help. Failing that I will talk with Pro Mariner about the charger and see if they have any suggestions.

Thanks again!

 

[hatchetjoe]

EngNate I will try your suggestion of disconnecting the charger output to the generator starting battery to see if this solves the problem. I didn't get time today since that battery is very hard to get to.

Thanks!