question

ejrossouw avatar image
ejrossouw asked

What will blow an internal fuse on a Blue Smart 12V 20A IP22 charger

Hi all, looking for some opinions.

  • The IP22 12V 20A charger was installed on a single garage circuit hooked up to a vehicle charging a 110 AGM battery.
  • It was in storage mode and had worked fine for about a month.
  • It replace a Noco 3500 which is now back in service.
  • I discovered the problem after the circuit breaker for the garage (relative new build property) was tripped, the fuse in the charger's plug was blown as well as well as the internal fuse shown was blown.

The capacitor had a very slight bulge shown below and when I inspected it with my finger, the covering lifted.

Any thoughts on what would have caused the internal fuse to pop. I will remove the capacitors to test, but don't want to invest unnecessary time and effort fault finding, other than my thinking the capacitor may have failed and resulted in this?

The device has been replaced, but curiosity always get the better of me.

Question: Could a faulty capacitor have caused this? Everything else visually appear intact.

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fusesbluesmart ip22
20210404-140238.jpg (118.9 KiB)
20210404-135920.jpg (116.5 KiB)
20210410-103551.jpg (124.5 KiB)
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klim8skeptic avatar image klim8skeptic ♦ commented ·

I am worried about the same date photos of the filter caps, giving different lacquer levels on top of the lower cap.

The shot the fuse is taken 6 days later?

Victron hardware has a 5 year warranty? How has your retailer responded?

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2 Answers
wkirby avatar image
wkirby answered ·

That's disappointing.
Another possibility is that the rectifier could have failed. If a diode (or more than one) in the rectifier failed, that would present AC to the filter capacitors which would cause them to fail quickly - among other things.

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ejrossouw avatar image ejrossouw commented ·

Thank you. I'll test those and then it is destined for the recycling. Unfortunate indeed, but the very first of many I have sold.

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Matthias Lange - DE avatar image
Matthias Lange - DE answered ·

Victron gives 5 years warranty so instead opening the charger and void the warranty you should have just contact the dealer from whom you bought the charger to get a replacement.

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