Ip22 Blue Smart Chargers - No Lights Non Operational- Repair

[grendel]

I was sent an IP22 blue smart charger that was suffering from no lights or output and asked to see if I could fix it.

the quite famous company that produce this state on their website that if you have one of these units tand it is non operational, there are no internal fuses and the unit would need to be returned to them for repair.

As I belong to our local repair cafe, we find this type of statement to be against the right to repair,

a law was recently passed in the european parliament in favour of the right to repair, making such actions by a company unlawful.

On inspection I found this that the very first component on the live feed after the wire came to the circuit board was in fact a fuse, it was hard wired into the circuit board and looked like no fuse I had seen before. so they should have said no user replaceable fuses.

I got out the magnifying glass and read the tiny writing, from where a google search lead me to the RS components website where a pack of 10 could be purchased for the cost of a couple of pints.

After recieving the replacements I proceeded to desolder the old fuse and fit the new one. wonder of wonders the lights on the unit came on when I plugged it in.

after blowing one fuse by connecting a really dead 12v battery i replaced the fuse and have been testing the repaired part for several hours now. the fuses are a 5A slow blow type, RS cat no 377-2203 https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/non-resettable-fuses/3772203

so for those adventurous types who actually enjoy playing with electronics, the fix is really quite easy

[grendel]

this is the 1A version shown, you would need a 5A one

[grendel]

It's the brown thing you can see, looking more like a capacitor than a fuse

[MargeandParge]

Well done Grendel it's really bad our throw it away attitude which is bought on to us by these monopolising companies. You have repaired it and it lives on.

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

[JanetAnne]

A stunning effort and achievement. These chargers are getting towards £200 a time now so not really a disposable item.

[Bikertov]

I have the very same charger on A Frayed Knot, the 3 output Bluetooth smart charger 

It seems to work great keeping my 3 banks of AGM batteries topped up all year round, even when I was out of the water over the winter 

So great to see the inside of one, and know it can be repaired 

Grendel - I wonder what made the fuse blow in the first place ?

 

[grendel]

well I was told it was never actually installed and used in a boat, so it may have been this way from the factory, or have failed at some point since, its currently under testing conditions, but most of my batteries are fully charged from solar so I need to find one that has some charge left in it, but is fairly depleted to do some proper testing, I have not heard the fan cut in yet, so that might be a possibility that it overheated at some point, on the App, it is only showing 6 charge cycles, so most of those may have been factory testing. one graph shows 43A output which I would think indicates the full loading test.

[SteveO]

Always good to see "dead" equipment resurrected. Kudos to you for perservering.

[Andrewcook]

Well done, Grend,. You've saved a packet on your equipment, and you can now enjoy a Beer or two when on the Broads.