Does anyone offer a repair service for my Victron Atlas Combi 12/800/30 inverter-charger?

KompetentKrew

KompetentKrew

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Hello,

It looks like the charger for my house bank has fried - it appears to be causing the electricity to go out.

I'm used to the RCD on my boat blowing if I put the kettle on at the same time as the calorifier but, with relatively little load, this is causing the trip switch at the boatyard's cabinet to go instead.

Unfortunately the owner of the boatyard does not have much patience for testing (I have to go and ask him to reset the switch each time) but I now think it's Victron that's causing it, when the charger goes into bulk phase. All the yellow lamps indicating "current amps" came on when I tried today - the unit hummed vigorously for a few seconds, and then the trip blew.

I'm guessing that this unit may now be nearly 30 years old - if I'm lucky there will be a component on the mainboard that will be obviously burned out, and it shouldn't be too hard to replace.

If not, I assume that Victron will no longer service it - is there anyone else that does?

Not my pic but exact same model (as far as i can see)

SFIr28G.jpg
 
not enough info, but my old Victron Centaur would overload the circuit and drop it's fuse when the batteries were v.empty / slightly dead.
Is the fuse for the device the right rating? could it be dropping the boatyard shore power due to that?
did you successfully run the charger previously on that socket on that boatyard?

having said all the above, 30A @12V is not an awful lot of Amps at 230V, so could very well be a problem at the device.
Before ripping things apart, I'd try to get to the input cable to the device and wire it directly to the shore power and see if it drops it (at least you can exclude anything else messing up wiring in your boat)

V,
 
KompetentKrew said:
Hello,

It looks like the charger for my house bank has fried - it appears to be causing the electricity to go out.

I'm used to the RCD on my boat blowing if I put the kettle on at the same time as the calorifier but, with relatively little load, this is causing the trip switch at the boatyard's cabinet to go instead.

Unfortunately the owner of the boatyard does not have much patience for testing (I have to go and ask him to reset the switch each time) but I now think it's Victron that's causing it, when the charger goes into bulk phase. All the yellow lamps indicating "current amps" came on when I tried today - the unit hummed vigorously for a few seconds, and then the trip blew.

I'm guessing that this unit may now be nearly 30 years old - if I'm lucky there will be a component on the mainboard that will be obviously burned out, and it shouldn't be too hard to replace.

If not, I assume that Victron will no longer service it - is there anyone else that does?

Not my pic but exact same model (as far as i can see)

SFIr28G.jpg
Click to expand...
Sellweb in Tamworth will repair. Sellweb:Industrial Electronic Repair & Design Specialists
Don't know where you are though...................

They will post it back to you. I have had Victron units repaired there, £350.
 
Not last time I had any contact with them. They have agents, most of which are useless for repairs and the company is in Holland.
We had to ship lots of units back to Holland years ago when they had a guarantee recall because they could not fix in the UK.
 
vas said:
not enough info, but my old Victron Centaur would overload the circuit and drop it's fuse when the batteries were v.empty / slightly dead.
Is the fuse for the device the right rating? could it be dropping the boatyard shore power due to that?
did you successfully run the charger previously on that socket on that boatyard?

having said all the above, 30A @12V is not an awful lot of Amps at 230V, so could very well be a problem at the device.
Before ripping things apart, I'd try to get to the input cable to the device and wire it directly to the shore power and see if it drops it (at least you can exclude anything else messing up wiring in your boat)

V,
Click to expand...
I've had the boat for four years now - same charger, same batteries - and I've been in this boatyard for over 18 months (must stop procrastinating!).

Nothing has changed and it has suddenly started doing this. The batteries were not low before it started - the power is usually off at night or over a weekend, so it has probably charged the batteries up from 50% in the past, and I've never had any bother before .

I've now tried two different shore power cables, and I also have two shore power sockets (with a switch), so I have isolated the problem down to the charger, the RCD and the wiring between them (or the boatyard's supply, which I think is unlikely).

If I draw excess mains current using the kettle and immersion heater then it's the RCD on my boat that blows. But now it's the boatyard's protection that blows, which makes me think that there's a short or something inside the unit.

I believe have a basic (non-smart) spare battery charger in one of the lockers, so I'm going to pull that out and try it this evening.
 
Slowboat35 said:
Do Victron themselves not do repairs?
Click to expand...
This particular model is probably over 25 years old, so I'm guessing it'll be beyond its service life.

Whereas some yachty suppliers will service and repair their produces irrespective of their age, I have the impression that Victron are more "businesslike" and production-line and I'm assuming that they'll no longer service this model.

Boater Sam said:
Sellweb in Tamworth will repair. Sellweb:Industrial Electronic Repair & Design Specialists
Don't know where you are though...................

They will post it back to you. I have had Victron units repaired there, £350.
Click to expand...
That's just the sort of place that I had in mind, but £350 is about half the price of a new unit so, especially as I am currently in the EU, I would be better off replacing it.
 
KompetentKrew said:
This particular model is probably over 25 years old, so I'm guessing it'll be beyond its service life.

Whereas some yachty suppliers will service and repair their produces irrespective of their age, I have the impression that Victron are more "businesslike" and production-line and I'm assuming that they'll no longer service this model.


That's just the sort of place that I had in mind, but £350 is about half the price of a new unit so, especially as I am currently in the EU, I would be better off replacing it.
Click to expand...
You will find that they are several times more than £700 now!
 
KompetentKrew said:
This particular model is probably over 25 years old, so I'm guessing it'll be beyond its service life.

Whereas some yachty suppliers will service and repair their produces irrespective of their age, I have the impression that Victron are more "businesslike" and production-line and I'm assuming that they'll no longer service this model.


That's just the sort of place that I had in mind, but £350 is about half the price of a new unit so, especially as I am currently in the EU, I would be better off replacing it.
Click to expand...
Quick Turtle, arrived last month ate Nave Pegos had the same issue. There is a sparky here in Albufeura, I trust his judgement, he had the unit to check it over, said that the cycles, hertz, here in Portugal are not too steady, that it is that that makes them pop. He reckons he has quite a few in his shop. Not repairable.
 
Last edited:
Beneteau381 said:
Quick Turtle, arrived last month ate Nave Pegos had the same issue. There is a sparky here in Albufeura, I trust his judgement, he had the ubit to check it over, said that the cycles, hertz, here in Portugal is not too steady, that it is that that makes them pop. He reckons he has quite a few in his shop. Not reparable.
Click to expand...
I'm actually starting to think it's not the charger but the yard, but I'll say no more until I've got some evidence I'm confident in.
 
Borrowed a Honda EU10i generator yesterday and the charger was causing its protection to trip too.

The 12/800/30 in the Victron Atlas Combi's model number stands for 12v battery charging at 30 amps (with an 800W inverter).

12V x 30A is 360W and 15V x 30A is 450W, so I thought the Honda would have enough oomph. It can supply about 900W or 1000W.

I tried again, watching it using my Victron Smart Shunt, and the current on the batteries quickly ramped up to 45A or 50A before the Honda tripped and cut off the charger, so I assume there's something wrong with the circuit in the Atlas Combi that limits the charging current. It seems like it's trying to draw as much as it can before the protection kicks in.

I can't see any obvious damages on the Combi's circuit boards, so I think I'm just going to bin it and replace with a Victron MultiPlus, unless anyone can see any problem with that idea?

The MultiPlus has the additional nice feature that you can set it to limit how much AC it draws, eg. 900W for the small Honda genny, and it'll draw any additional needed current from the batteries via the inverter.

My current battery bank is 330Ah, so a 30A charger is perfectly matched. I was thinking to get the 50A MultiPlus so that I can comfortably increase capacity in the future.
 
Beneteau381 said:
Quick Turtle, arrived last month ate Nave Pegos had the same issue. There is a sparky here in Albufeura, I trust his judgement, he had the unit to check it over, said that the cycles, hertz, here in Portugal are not too steady, that it is that that makes them pop. He reckons he has quite a few in his shop. Not repairable.
Click to expand...

Lots of problems in Nave Pegos since he's running the yard off solar and has changed breakers to 3 amps.
 
tech has progressed enough to call that scrap (imho) newer are more efficient in inverting, have lots of features to tune different type of bat tech, comms to your mobile or whatever.
Not quite sure what is the recommended charge amperage compared to battery size. Are you sure it's officially meant to be 10% of the bank Ah?
Even if so, if you plan to move to LiFePO4 then double that size in amps would be more than welcomed for the same bank Ah.
all imho of course
V.
 
Graham376 said:
Lots of problems in Nave Pegos since he's running the yard off solar and has changed breakers to 3 amps.
Click to expand...
When did he change to 3A breakers, please?

I was certainly getting 16A before this (say 10 days ago), as I was able to run my 3kW kettle off shore power - the kettle and immersion heater together would would trip my boat's RCD.
 
KompetentKrew said:
When did he change to 3A breakers, please?

I was certainly getting 16A before this (say 10 days ago), as I was able to run my 3kW kettle off shore power - the kettle and immersion heater together would would trip my boat's RCD.
Click to expand...

We lifted out around the end of March and most of the 3 amp breakers were in place then including ours, he was working his way around the yard replacing the old ones. A few people who need extra for welding have larger ones but he's trying to stop use of kettles, fan heaters etc. as power consumption larger than supplier would provide.
 
vas said:
tech has progressed enough to call that scrap (imho) newer are more efficient in inverting, have lots of features to tune different type of bat tech, comms to your mobile or whatever.
Not quite sure what is the recommended charge amperage compared to battery size. Are you sure it's officially meant to be 10% of the bank Ah?
Even if so, if you plan to move to LiFePO4 then double that size in amps would be more than welcomed for the same bank Ah.
all imho of course
V.
Click to expand...
10% was the impression I got from my initial googles, but MasterVolt say at least 12.5% for gel batteries and I can find other sites recommending 15% or even as much as 25%.

The 70A MultiPlus is only £100 more expensive than the 50A MultiPlus, so I guess the budget can stretch to that.

I don't really want to fit lithium at the moment because I think that would be more wiring work than I want to do - I think I've read that separate charging and discharging 12v circuits are preferred for lithium, instead of a single one.

If I had to replace these batteries tomorrow I would probably choose AGM, or perhaps flooded lead-acid or carbon AGM, but increase the size of the bank as much as would fit - I guess I might be able to fit 400Ah or 450Ah. I want to stay on conventional batteries for another few years - i.e. the current batteries and their next replacements - in the hopes that I'll understand my own battery usage better by then and perhaps that a drop-in lithium solution will have come along.
 
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