Xantrex Link 1000 problem

[mgdavis]

I noticed this morning, after going out for a cruise yesterday afternoon, that our Link 1000 battery monitor is behaving oddly. It is monitoring our 12 volt house bank and controlling a Freedom 20 inverter/charger. I also have an external voltage monitor in the system where I can independently monitor battery voltage.

The odd behavior is thus:
I noticed that the Charger Status light was indicating "Accept" when I expected "Float". Battery voltage on the external monitor was 14.something volts, indicating that the battery back was in fact being charged. I kept an eye on things for awhile and watched the system cycle to "Float" and the battery voltage indication drop to 13.5 or so. After several minutes of "Float", which is the normal condition, the "AC In" and charger status lights turned themselves off. The "Battery Status", "Charge", and "Invert" lights remained on, and the external voltage indication remained at 13-something. After about 30 seconds the "AC In" light come back on along with the "Chg" light. The "Chg" light cycled to the "Accept" indicator light after a few seconds. This cycle then repeated itself in about 5 minutes.

The Link 1000 appears to be loosing the signal that tells it shore power is applied, and then cycles itself through the normal stages of charge. It finds that the battery is fully charged and applies a float charge as normal until the cycle is repeated after it once again looses that AC In signal.
Has anybody experienced a similar issue with the Link 1000?

 

[Britannia]

I noticed this morning, after going out for a cruise yesterday afternoon, that our Link 1000 battery monitor is behaving oddly. It is monitoring our 12 volt house bank and controlling a Freedom 20 inverter/charger. I also have an external voltage monitor in the system where I can independently monitor battery voltage.

The odd behavior is thus:
I noticed that the Charger Status light was indicating "Accept" when I expected "Float". Battery voltage on the external monitor was 14.something volts, indicating that the battery back was in fact being charged. I kept an eye on things for awhile and watched the system cycle to "Float" and the battery voltage indication drop to 13.5 or so. After several minutes of "Float", which is the normal condition, the "AC In" and charger status lights turned themselves off. The "Battery Status", "Charge", and "Invert" lights remained on, and the external voltage indication remained at 13-something. After about 30 seconds the "AC In" light come back on along with the "Chg" light. The "Chg" light cycled to the "Accept" indicator light after a few seconds. This cycle then repeated itself in about 5 minutes.

The Link 1000 appears to be loosing the signal that tells it shore power is applied, and then cycles itself through the normal stages of charge. It finds that the battery is fully charged and applies a float charge as normal until the cycle is repeated after it once again looses that AC In signal.
Has anybody experienced a similar issue with the Link 1000?

I haven't had that specific problem. However, my Link 1000 started cycling through random garbage on the display. Nothing I did seemed to reset it. I ended up buying a new (used) one. However, when I powered up the old one it worked fine. I concluded that removing all power from the unit seemed to have reset it back to normal behavior. You may want to see if that helps your unit.

Best

Richard

 

[JDCAVE]

I had that unit and upgraded it to the Magnum 2800. That technology is getting on in years. It might be time to upgrade.

 

[Bob Cofer]

I have had to do the reboot like Richard did more that once. Seems to solve the problem.

 

[Islanddreamer]

I rebooted mine as well and the wonky readings went away. Take all of the power off of it, remove fuses, etc. to ensure that it truly is unpowered. Leave it that way for 30 minutes.

 

[mgdavis]

"Have you tried turning it off, and then on again?"

I went down and shut everything down for about 15 minutes, and then brought power back up. The Link 1000 seemed to run normally for a bit and I got my hopes up, but they were dashed when it went back into the failure cycle. I shut off the charging function to give myself a few days to research without frying the battery bank.

I'm hoping to keep this system going. It has worked well for us, and I don't feel like shelling out a couple-three boat bucks to replace it at the moment.

 

[Britannia]

"Have you tried turning it off, and then on again?"

I went down and shut everything down for about 15 minutes, and then brought power back up. The Link 1000 seemed to run normally for a bit and I got my hopes up, but they were dashed when it went back into the failure cycle. I shut off the charging function to give myself a few days to research without frying the battery bank.

I'm hoping to keep this system going. It has worked well for us, and I don't feel like shelling out a couple-three boat bucks to replace it at the moment.

When you say "shut everything down" do you mean you disconnected the wire that provide voltage to the Link 1000? Mine is powered directly from the house bank via a fused wire.

Another question - does the voltage fluctuate between accept (14?) and float (13.5) as the Link 1000 goes through its odd cycles? If it does, then try disconnecting the Link 1000 and use a meter to monitor the voltage on the batteries. If you still see the problem it is your charger and not the Link 1000.

I was able to find a used Link 1000 on ebay. If you're patient you can find them. I have a spare now just in case.

Richard

 

[mgdavis]

When you say "shut everything down" do you mean you disconnected the wire that provide voltage to the Link 1000? Mine is powered directly from the house bank via a fused wire.

I secured shore power at the AC master breaker on my power distribution panel. I manually secured DC power by turning the on-service battery switch to "OFF". There was no power available to the inverter.

Another question - does the voltage fluctuate between accept (14?) and float (13.5) as the Link 1000 goes through its odd cycles? If it does, then try disconnecting the Link 1000 and use a meter to monitor the voltage on the batteries. If you still see the problem it is your charger and not the Link 1000.

Battery voltage does fluctuate along with the phase of charging indicated by the Link 1000. I will do as you recommend and disconnect the Link 1000 from the inverter/charger to see what the Freedom 20 does by itself.

 

[Britannia]

I secured shore power at the AC master breaker on my power distribution panel. I manually secured DC power by turning the on-service battery switch to "OFF". There was no power available to the inverter.



Battery voltage does fluctuate along with the phase of charging indicated by the Link 1000. I will do as you recommend and disconnect the Link 1000 from the inverter/charger to see what the Freedom 20 does by itself.

On my boat turning off the DC supply would not power down the Link 1000. It is directly wired to the house bank - it does not go via the dc distribution panel and would not be affected by my master DC switch.

I'm interested to hear the results of your experiment. Good luck!

Richard

 

[mgdavis]

I have disconnected the Link 1000 and am currently monitoring voltage via dmm. After the initial 14.6 volt charge, which lasted about 10 minutes, the output has been holding steady at 14.2 V dc. It is about 50 degrees F in my engine room today so the temperature compensation should have float voltage at 13.9 V dc. I can hear mild boiling in the batteries, so they are getting more than a float voltage. I hope the Freedom 20 does decide to kick down soon.

 

[kev_rm]

I have disconnected the Link 1000 and am currently monitoring voltage via dmm. After the initial 14.6 volt charge, which lasted about 10 minutes, the output has been holding steady at 14.2 V dc. It is about 50 degrees F in my engine room today so the temperature compensation should have float voltage at 13.9 V dc. I can hear mild boiling in the batteries, so they are getting more than a float voltage. I hope the Freedom 20 does decide to kick down soon.

+1 on making sure you've actually disconnected all power to reset it.

I have an inverter that behaves this way if it momentarily loses shore/gen power - its just simply not aware when it starts the charge cycle that it was just on float and should just go back to float. Actually the same things happens after a day of charging via alternator and then applying 110V. Its just a poor design in this case. Not sure if per spec for your Link.

 

[mgdavis]

The Link 1000, which I disconnected at the Freedom 20, shows that 4.7 amps is still flowing into the battery after about 30 minutes. The threshold to transition to float is 10 amps or 1 hour according to the manual. I guess I'll have to wait patiently for anoth 30 minutes to see if voltage drops to where I think it should be.

 

[TG]

Make sure you disconnect the AC and also the DC coming from the battery. Wait 10 minutes then reconnect and give it a try.

 

[mgdavis]

Voltage did not drop below 14.2 V dc after 75 minutes so I shut things down and headed home. I want to try a longer power off period, or possibly a reset to factory defaults.

 

[mgdavis]

I finally made it back to the marina this morning to continue my troubleshooting. I started off by securing all power, and then pulled the Link 1000 unit off its bracket to take a peek at what was behind. Low and behold I found that the voltage sense lead had separated from the terminal and was likely making only intermittent contact. I stripped back and reconnected. Everything appears to be working correctly now, although I am going to monitor the charge cycle to make sure that the loose wire was the only problem.

 

[Britannia]

I finally made it back to the marina this morning to continue my troubleshooting. I started off by securing all power, and then pulled the Link 1000 unit off its bracket to take a peek at what was behind. Low and behold I found that the voltage sense lead had separated from the terminal and was likely making only intermittent contact. I stripped back and reconnected. Everything appears to be working correctly now, although I am going to monitor the charge cycle to make sure that the loose wire was the only problem.

Excellent - thanks for the update. Let's hope that was the root cause.

Richard