20' Series How to turn off 240v Battery Charger

Falco

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Jul 4, 2016
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I have a 2016 20.64-1 OB and am trying to find where to turn off the 240 volt battery charger, so the battery is just charged from the solar.
On my 2017 18.58-2 the charger was just a ordinary three pin plug that went into the wall socket, but I cant seem to find it on the 20 footer.
 

Drover

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Nov 7, 2013
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If I recall the solar should be hooked directly to the battery with a seperate controller, the Setek has nothing to do with it, so the simple way would be to just turn the battery switch off so the battery and setek are discoonnected but the solar will still be chugging away to the battery and with 240v plugged in the Setek wil be supplying the 12v power thats required to run your 12v gadgets.


Just found my manual on the thing, looks like you would loose the battery memory info that the drifter compiles and turning it off on the drifter panel just means the load is cut off the battery but the Setek will still trickle charge it which if you have solar plugged in wouldn't really bother it in the big scheme of things.
 
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mikerezny

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Sep 11, 2016
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You need to find out exactly what power / supply charger you have. In 2016 it would probably be a Setec ST 20 MK III or ST35 MK III. Check inside the fuse door. If it is a MK III, the battery switch does NOT isolate the battery from the Setec. It disconnects the loads and will stop the charger from bulk charging but it will still trickle charge the battery at 0.8A. This may or may not be what you want.

There is no magic with how the Setec get 240V. It will be a noemal appliance lead coming out the back of the unit and going to a power point. You will need to ferret around the nearby cupboards until you find out where it is plugged into a power point..

cheers
Mike
 

Falco

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Yes it looks like I found it. Thanks for the help.
Battery Charger.jpg
 
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mikerezny

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Glad that the elusive plug has now been found!


Note that what appears to be a double adapter is a surge protector. Well, at least it is on my 2016 Penguin.

cheers
Mike
 

Drover

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The great Jayco wiring birds nest, shunt just floating around in the breeze, always a shambles......................... So what sort of situation are you in that you just want solar to charge the battery but don't need 12v for your lights etc ???? Be easier just to not connect the 240 lead in the first place, then your Setek isn't loosing its data, monitors your battery and the solar will charge away ............... anyway just putting an on/off switch between Setek and battery will disconnect the 2 .....
 

Falco

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Jul 4, 2016
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Because I have replaced the solar controller with a Victron Smartsolar 100/20 mppt controller and it does such a good job, it has made the 240v charger irrelevant.
 
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Drover

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Camping off grid it wouldn't matter and when plugged into 240v it wouldn't matter enough to really worry about anyway but I see why you asked ......... an interesting question really, all my stuff is individual units so I'm lucky in being able to turn on or off and that includes the solar controller which does come in handy at times also..... my 240v charger just sits there turned off, in fact when the old Redarc died I really shouldn't have bothered replacing it as my solar does the job but about 12mths ago or more I had 4 days of heavy cloud cover and needed the genny to juice things up but it hasn't been used since....like a spare tyre hardly used but when its needed its a godsend.
 

Boots in Action

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Mar 13, 2017
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Camping off grid it wouldn't matter and when plugged into 240v it wouldn't matter enough to really worry about anyway but I see why you asked ......... an interesting question really, all my stuff is individual units so I'm lucky in being able to turn on or off and that includes the solar controller which does come in handy at times also..... my 240v charger just sits there turned off, in fact when the old Redarc died I really shouldn't have bothered replacing it as my solar does the job but about 12mths ago or more I had 4 days of heavy cloud cover and needed the genny to juice things up but it hasn't been used since....like a spare tyre hardly used but when its needed its a godsend.

@Falco , the matter of the 240 volt inlet being connected has nothing to do with your Victron controller. The solar input from the solar controller (Victron) is or should be connected directly across the battery terminals. The 240 volt charger (Setec) is also connected to the battery whilst the Drifter control just monitors battery voltage, power usage and anticipated time of battery capacity at current nett usage. The fact that you have a good charge solar system is irrelevant. If the sun God is not with you and you are off grid, you will run out of power unless you have access to 240 volt power - grid or generator. As @Drover said, you may not think you need it, but in fact you should use the 240 volt system when able to do so as it saves having to rely on sunlight. In fact when at a powered site with 240 volt available, the SETEC will put more charge into battery/ies day and night than your solar will. During the day when connected to 240 volt power AND your solar panel is capable of providing charge as well, what happens is that the 240 volt system will do the quick "heavy lifting" until it senses battery voltage of FULL charge (approx 14.0 volts) and changes to Float charge (approx 13.8 volts). Up to this point the solar controller may also be feeding in current with the SETEC. When the Setec reaches and stabilises the Float voltage, the solar controller will continue to charge the battery to the solar controller charge voltage settings (what ever you have set on your Victron ) - ( suggest max charge voltage for Gel battery at 14.3 volts and Float voltage at 13.8 volts, or whatever is recommended on side of your battery/ies. If AGM type, suggest 14.7 volts max charge and 13.7 volts for Float or whatever is recommended for cycle use. The solar controller will then keep topping up the voltage above the SETEC limit during periods of sunlight. After dark, it has no input and the system defaults to the SETEC voltage setings. So IMHO do not disconnect your alternative source of power. Details of batteries and charging voltages are shown in pictures below. I hope this helps you understand the advantages of having BOTH facilities.
 

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