Not Enough power to charge

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vsteve01

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Hi,

I seem to have a few problems with electrical devices in my D22. Navman, PDA, laptop. Nothing seems to get enough charge to keep the unit running. Well most of the time. Some times it works fine and the unit charges without an issue. It generally just gets enough power to light up the led to say it's connected. The battery monitor in the gps software will show 99% battery all the time when it's working proper, but when it's not, it goes between 99% charging, to 100% charged, switching back and forth continually.

I've tested the charges in another car and they work without issue.

My Cig plug also has a habit of getting so hot it melts the end.

I get about 12.5v when car off/ around 13.5/14v (i can't recall exactly) when running. I thought my cig plug might be a bit dodge, so spliced the cable and connected the navman charger straight in.

I have the uhf running off the same cable and it's fine. It makes no difference if it's turned off or not.

I'm not noticing any voltage differences when it's not working properly.

Any idea's?

I'm going to see about either using a different power source (maybe the radio) or run a separate cable.

Otherwise might be a visit to the auto elec.

Cheers
 
My Cig plug also has a habit of getting so hot it melts the end.

there's your problem, CIG sockets are only designed to carry a small current (5amps or so). You could use the audio power (10 amps) but with all those devices you would be best to put a distribution box in, and run a suitable sized cable (depends on amps required) back to the battery.

Also CIG sockets are the worst of the lot for connections. Simple spades work quite well and are nice and small. http://rocky.digikey.com/weblib/Molex/Web Photos/19099-0050.jpg
 
If your cig plug is getting hot, the two likely causes are:

1) Overloading the cable

2) Faulty plug (most common, because the devices are "twist" assemblies, the wires cross, warm up, melt insulators and become miniature heaters).

I'd replace the plug. They sometimes mess up, replace it with a good one that has a fuse in the tip. Put a 5A fuse in it. Dick Smith and Jaycar both sell appropriate units.

As for your chargers - they generally use a voltage limiter, like a LM305, or a zener diode based circuit. These circuits will supply 5V (the typical voltage required for any USB-powered device like iPods, PDAs, phones, Walkman etc) without any problems even if the vehicle voltage is 9V (indicating a dead and not resurrectible battery).

The problem is in the cig lighter, there's probably a short in it which will drastically reduce the available voltage.

As for your vehicle battery and charge voltages - they're a bit low and some attention needs to be paid to it.

You should check the charging rate with a known good battery attached FIRST. It's possible that your regulator is in need of attention, if it's only charging at 13.5-14V then your battery is likely to never rise much above 40-50% charge. That voltage may be because the regulator is stuffed, or because the battery is stuffed - by putting a known good battery in and testing the charge voltage, you'll know if it's your regulator or your battery.

If it's your battery, it probably needs a CTek charger run across it in rejuvenation mode several times to remove sulphation from the bottom of the plates - but chances are that won't help, because if your battery has reached the point where it can't charge much any more, the sulphation has spread across too many plates and the battery is on its last legs. You can try Inox, and a few runs with the CTek charger, but I'd be budgeting for a new battery rather than trying to throw money at what may be a lost cause.

You should see a engine-off voltage of at least 12.8V and a charging voltage of around 14.4-14.5V.

Good luck with it - please let us know how you get on!
 
Thanks for the ideas.

I only have 1 device at a time, it's just I have the same experience with them all.

I wouldn't have thought it would be overloading as the charger should only be pulling the 5V1A

I double checked my voltages. 12.4-12.5 when not running, goes up to 14.2 when it is.

The battery is only a month or 2 old. Are those voltages still a tad low? It could be a regulator issue.

I'm going to try a different wire and see if that helps. The cig plug looks like it has black burn marks in it, so looks like it is shorting out, so needs replacing as well.
 
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Finally got around to taking this apart.

My plan is to test with the radio power.

Just wanna double check I'm reading the attached wiring diagram correctly.

The plug in the back of the radio kinda looks like the (m512) <cp>

If I am reading this correctly, Acc Power is on pin 10 (red) and battery backup is 6 (bluish)

The red makes sense.

Also how does it earth. I read somewhere that the radio earths off the chassis. Does this mean it's the radio chassis just connected to the metal bracket or the car. If the car, then I'm not sure how it's earthing.
 

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I've rewired it to radio power and all good so far. Fingers crossed it keeps running.

Off to the Pyrenees out of ararat this week. Should be good fun, looks like it's been raining a bit lately.

:big_smile:
 

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