ABSO Battery Charger

[Highdesert]

My house batteries on my 2017 Cutwater 242 are completely dead (0.6v). The ABSO charger seems to be working. The thruster and engine batteries are fully charged. On the ABSO charger screen CH1 (house batteries) doesn't show up. Only CH2 and CH3. I can see CH1 in the settings but not on the main screen. Even with the shore power plugged in and turned on there is no power to anything normally powered by the house batteries (fridge, house lights, dash, etc). I checked the switch and fuse near the charger and they are good. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[knotflying]

Check the lead from the charger to the house batteries and make sure it is providing power. Perhaps a bad lead from the charger. Make sure all connections are clean and tight as well.

 

[cstpt]

I have the Abso in my 2017 21EC. It reads 0.6v when nothing is connected to the channel.

After several months of problem-free operation I came to the boat to find a similar situation (connected to shore power, house dead, starter charged). After checking everything I could think of I contacted Abso, who determined the charger was faulty and sent a replacement. Ranger reps think it was probably bad from the start--evidently there was a bad batch and since your boat is a similar vintage it might be within the affected serial numbers.

The installation in the 21EC is very tight; once I got the connections made the display on the new charger showed proper operation, however when I screwed it back to the bulkhead I lost channel 1--the wire to the charger had pulled free when I twisted it to reinstall. I didn't actually discover the issue until I installed a remote display; the charger is nearly impossible to read with head upside down in the lazarette.

Abso and Ranger were both very responsive and helpful to resolve the issue.

 

[Highdesert]

Thanks knotflying and cstpt for your help.

It took me some time but I figured out what was wrong. I have three batteries for the house battery bank wired in parallel and 2 of them were completely toast. I charged them outside of the boat and the charger signaled that it was done but it apparently just gave up because they were bad. The Kisae ABSO won't "see" a battery or a bank of batteries unless the volatage is above 2.5v. Now I have three brand spanking new AGM batteries and the charger is working perfectly.