Kisae Abso 2000 Inverter-Charger Problem

[MVMischief]

Hi all,

Returned to the slip today after a couple of hours in our new-to-us 2017 R-31S. After hooking up shore power, the Kisae Abso 2000 Inverter-Charger remote panel in the cabin persistently displays "r2.0" and never goes into charge mode. I've cycled every switch I can think of and checked all the fuses including the main bus fuse from the house batteries to the inverter.

Based on some info I've found online and this prior thread (http://www.tugnuts.com/viewtopic.ph...r&sid=d321533234d382f7e2dfb9308b4befd9#p97527) I'm inclined to believe the unit is dead and will need to be replaced.

I'm going to call the manufacturer tomorrow and see what they say, but I thought I'd check with the group and see if anyone has had this problem and recovered from it.

 

[Bruce Moore]

Bumping delayed post.

 

[Kevin Lamont]

Hi all,

Returned to the slip today after a couple of hours in our new-to-us 2017 R-31S. After hooking up shore power, the Kisae Abso 2000 Inverter-Charger remote panel in the cabin persistently displays "r2.0" and never goes into charge mode. I've cycled every switch I can think of and checked all the fuses including the main bus fuse from the house batteries to the inverter.

Based on some info I've found online and this prior thread (http://www.tugnuts.com/viewtopic.ph...r&sid=d321533234d382f7e2dfb9308b4befd9#p97527) I'm inclined to believe the unit is dead and will need to be replaced.

I'm going to call the manufacturer tomorrow and see what they say, but I thought I'd check with the group and see if anyone has had this problem and recovered from it.

Hello,

Sounds like you are on the right track, sounds like it may have failed. Kisae has a great customer service department that can help troubleshoot and replace if needed. Let us know if we can help!!

Thanks,

 

[MVMischief]

Thought I would post a follow-up to this in case it's useful to anyone in the future.

Customer service at Kisae was responsive and helpful, but ultimately the unit was bad and had to be replaced. A couple of things I learned along the way that are not in the manual:

• "r2.0" was the software version number of the remote panel. Normally this is displayed briefly at startup, but is then replaced by the version number of the actual unit, followed by startup. When r2.0 is persistent, it simply implies the charger-inverter unit is not responding. This can be due to a few reasons:
  • The cable between the remote and the unit is bad.
  • The batteries have discharged below 10.5v which will cause the unit to lock out.
  • The unit itself has gone bad.
• There is a procedure to do a "deep reset" of the unit. This is quoted directly from customer service:
  • Turn the unit off (if it was on) and disconnect the battery positive terminal from the battery (hopefully you have a battery disconnect switch and/or a DC fuse there, so to do it easier by opening it)
  • Make a short circuit in between the DC positive terminal (already disconnected from the battery) and the DC negative terminal on the unit. You can use a piece of wire (it could be thin), a couple of screwdrivers, etc. to do so. You may notice a sudden spark, which would be normal.
  • Remove the above short circuit from the DC input terminals
  • Reconnect the battery positive. You will notice a sudden strong spark, which is normal.
  • Turn the unit on and check if it makes some difference

None of this worked for me, therefore I concluded the unit was bad and replaced it with the same model from Amazon. Replacement was straightforward and not difficult given all the wiring was in place already. Note that it is important to also replace the remote panel with the one from the new unit as software in each must be compatible. This caused me some frustration for about 10 minutes. Incidentally, the Kisae rep explicitly told me this and I forgot. 😳

The new unit came online and works perfectly.

Two final thoughts:

• On my old unit, there was no chassis ground cable from the lug on the inverter back to the battery. The manual is explicit about this being required for safety. I'll be adding it. I'm curious if others have this, or if it was purposefully left off for some reason.
• IMO, the placement of the inverter (port lazarette under the edge of the hatch) is not ideal. If the scupper overflows, I think there is a risk of water intrusion into the unit. I'm suspicious this may be what happened to mine. Has anyone else noticed this, and done anything to protect it?

 

[BB marine]

Two final thoughts:
On my old unit, there was no chassis ground cable from the lug on the inverter back to the battery. The manual is explicit about this being required for safety. I'll be adding it. I'm curious if others have this, or if it was purposefully left off for some reason.
IMO, the placement of the inverter (port lazarette under the edge of the hatch) is not ideal. If the scupper overflows, I think there is a risk of water intrusion into the unit. I'm suspicious this may be what happened to mine. Has anyone else noticed this, and done anything to protect it?

Chassis ground cable is a ABYC requirement there is no reason it should be left off. This is good information for the Fluid motion service representatives to follow up on and Ranger and Cutwater owners to inspect the inverter installations in their boats. Hopefully your boat is the only boat that is missing the ground. Easy mistake to make during the installation. The information you provided should prompt other Ranger and Cutwater owners to inspect their boats for proper installation.

I installed a Kisea inverter in my boat. When I talked to the technical service representative at Kisea , he emphasized make sure you case ground the inverter using the same size cable as the battery+ cable feeding the inverter.

This is a ABYC Safety requirement.
ABYC A-20,ABYC A-25 Battery chargers, inverters, and inverter/chargers form an electrical bridge between a boat's AC and DC systems. When installing these devices:

Builders, installers, and well-informed boat owners follow ABYC E-11 Standards document when installing devices in boats.There are additional documents for the installation of charging devices:

Install a DC grounding conductor sized not less than one size smaller than the DC positive conductor and have a capacity such that the DC positive fuse has an amperage rating not greater than 135% of the current rating of this grounding wire. As a practical matter, this wire will be much larger than the AC grounding conductor. This requirement is the latest addition to the standards when it was discovered that faults in the DC side of an inverter or charger could provide sustained high currents that could start a fire from overheating the AC grounding conductor.

As the capacity of chargers increased, and with the introduction of inverters, DC fuses became quite large. It was determined that a fire hazard exists when a DC fault in a charger or inverter can pass DC current into the AC safety ground wire. The AC safety ground was not sized for the high DC currents, so a high capacity DC grounding wire is now required by standards A-20 and A-25.

The area of placement of the inverter /charger has been discussed on Tugnuts in the past. A preferred installation is in a dry, well ventilated compartment. If you feel the location caused water damage and failure to the Charger/ inverter I would relocate it or install a protective cover above the unit to protect it from future damage.

 

[knotflying]

As far as your concern of water intrusion. I made a flexible plastic panel (used a piece from a 2X4 drop ceiling florescent light panel) that fits tightly under the lazarette gutter and down to the floor. It extends about 4 inches to either side of the inverter. Some day I may move the whole unit to the cave.

 

[Kevin Lamont]

Two final thoughts:

• On my old unit, there was no chassis ground cable from the lug on the inverter back to the battery. The manual is explicit about this being required for safety. I'll be adding it. I'm curious if others have this, or if it was purposefully left off for some reason.
• IMO, the placement of the inverter (port lazarette under the edge of the hatch) is not ideal. If the scupper overflows, I think there is a risk of water intrusion into the unit. I'm suspicious this may be what happened to mine. Has anyone else noticed this, and done anything to protect it?

Hello,

Glad to hear you were able to diagnose and find that the unit had failed.

On the R31 with the inverter case ground, there should be a yellow (ground) cable that is bolted to the side of the unit. While testing these boats personally for the past 3 years, we ensure that all ground cables are installed and routed correctly. Did you only have two battery cable connections when you removed and replaced the old unit?

For the concern for water spilling into the compartment, have you removed the scupper drain screens? Here in the PNW we have being doing this for 3-4yrs with boats we deliver to prevent the build up of debris on the screen. We now at all plants remove these prior to shipping. If they are still in I would remove these to help prevent water spilling over and also ensuring that the hatch gasket is good and that the latch is adjusted correctly. Hope this all helps.

Thanks,

 

[MVMischief]

On the R31 with the inverter case ground, there should be a yellow (ground) cable that is bolted to the side of the unit. While testing these boats personally for the past 3 years, we ensure that all ground cables are installed and routed correctly. Did you only have two battery cable connections when you removed and replaced the old unit?

For the concern for water spilling into the compartment, have you removed the scupper drain screens? Here in the PNW we have being doing this for 3-4yrs with boats we deliver to prevent the build up of debris on the screen. We now at all plants remove these prior to shipping. If they are still in I would remove these to help prevent water spilling over and also ensuring that the hatch gasket is good and that the latch is adjusted correctly. Hope this all helps.

Hi Kevin. Love how you guys keep up with things here.

There was definitely no ground cable from the unit. Just two battery cable connections. Can you point me to the right size/length cable to replace? I'm not at the boat currently to measure.

Regarding the scuppers, yes the drain screens are removed. The drain seems slow to me. I've checked the drain through hull on the transom and don't see any blockage there. I haven't disconnected the hoses to inspect them completely.

Thanks all.

 

[Kevin Lamont]

On the R31 with the inverter case ground, there should be a yellow (ground) cable that is bolted to the side of the unit. While testing these boats personally for the past 3 years, we ensure that all ground cables are installed and routed correctly. Did you only have two battery cable connections when you removed and replaced the old unit?

For the concern for water spilling into the compartment, have you removed the scupper drain screens? Here in the PNW we have being doing this for 3-4yrs with boats we deliver to prevent the build up of debris on the screen. We now at all plants remove these prior to shipping. If they are still in I would remove these to help prevent water spilling over and also ensuring that the hatch gasket is good and that the latch is adjusted correctly. Hope this all helps.

Hi Kevin. Love how you guys keep up with things here.

There was definitely no ground cable from the unit. Just two battery cable connections. Can you point me to the right size/length cable to replace? I'm not at the boat currently to measure.

Regarding the scuppers, yes the drain screens are removed. The drain seems slow to me. I've checked the drain through hull on the transom and don't see any blockage there. I haven't disconnected the hoses to inspect them completely.

Thanks all.

Hey Ben,

So in the owners manual it shows that the case GND would be a 1/0 wire gauge and would go from the case GND to the GND buss in the cockpit hatch or the "AFT Buss" per owners manual. Hope this helps and here is the link for the digital owners manual: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12286.

Thanks,

 

[Scuba Too]

My Kisae bit the dust recently so this thread was timely. It was about 4.5 years old. The DC portion went out first followed by the AC bypass (the latter limping along for a couple of months). After doing the recommended tests and deep reset it still failed to come on except for "r1.8" on the controller (nice to have an explanation about that lol). I ordered a new one and the installation was very straightforward with good access (I have a 2017 R29 CB). The inverted did indeed have a ground cable back to the ground buss so no issue there. The inverter may have been impacted when I changed out the batteries a few months ago and had a grounding issue. In any event it does seem like they can go out and I had 4+ years of service off the original.

 

[PlanetoSea]

Hello all, Looks like mine be out too. I have the “r2.0” status and the remote will not respond to anything. I have two questions: 1) do my batteries still charge on engine/generator/solar, and/or shore power?, and 2) does anyone know the model for replacement for an R29 CB, 2018? I’m mid journey so won’t have time to go looking for the actual inverter until much later today. Biggest question is if I’m killing my batteries right now and if there is a way to make charging happen if the inverter/charger is blocking that when dead. Thanks!