[brainzel]

Hi,

I recieved my Zivan NG3 charger late september this yeahr and today I wanted to charge my battery pack.
But when I plugged in the charger, there only lights up the yellow LED.
No fans, no bleep, no voltage at output.

The manual says: yellow light - shows that the battery charger reached 80% of charge.

But what's with the other 20%? Should the charger not charge it up?

I saw two videos at Youtube, where the charger makes some acoustic signals, but my own charger doesn't make them.
OK:

Not OK:

38 SkyEnergy cells

Output: 120V 15A
Code F7PF49
Kennlinie: WUo
Im: 15A
Um 136,8V

 

[dimitri]

Did you turn on the charger while connected to the battery pack? Just as a test, try to turn the charger on while disconnected from the battery. It should beep and flash red LED, indicating there is no battery connected. If it doesn't do that, then charger is defective and must be repaired.

Working NG3 will always start with red LED and fans will spin up, even when connected to a fully charged battery, then it would quickly sense the battery voltage and go to the next phase ( blinking red LED ) and then to yellow and then to green. If yours doesn't do this, its probably broken.

 

[brainzel]

That would be barbarous! It was the first time since I've got the charger from the original german Zivan distributor and nothing happens ...

Needless to say, that they are all on vacation until monday, so I can't get a technical support on the phone ... damn.
Happy new year ;-)

 

[Guest]

Why did you wait so long to test the charger? I'd have tested it right away because the warranty is not from the time you first plug it in but from purchase. That kind of practice could work against you. I hope the warranty is still in effect for you. Let us know the outcome of this.

Pete

 

[brainzel]

Yesterday I called the german Zivan distributor (Atech) by phone and talked with a support guy.
He checked my order and told me, that there is a "start/stop hardware" at my NG3.
This potential-free contact must be closed to run the charger (for BMS or switch feedback for example).

So I went to my garage and tried out to close this contact and in fact it runs!

Small cause, big effect. The main thing is that the charger works yet.

 

[dimitri]

That is good news! I didn't know Zivan now has BMS input, finally!

Is this feature documented in your Zivan manual? Do you mind taking a close up picture of this NC input and posting it here?

I wonder if Zivan USA offers this new feature on their NG3's.

Thanks

 

[brainzel]

The "start/stop hardware" is an optional feature I think.
That hardware doesn't exist at all NG3.

It's the black cable with the brown/blue wires and the white plug.
I took some pictures and wrote a post to my blog for you:
http://e-vw.blogspot.com/2010/01/zivan-ng3-startstopp-hardware.html