Hi all,

Does any body experience system hang on pro-trak when cycling the pack??

Thanks!

I used to own a Pro-trak, then I sold it to a friend. For the past months he has some serious problem with it. Folows a part of his email to Phill regarding his problems:

" It has been upgraded to version 10.22.
I have several problems for which I seek answers since this is the only charger that I posses and my batteries are at risk. Please bear in mind that the charger used for a couple of months without any problem.

1) I use the charger on a 12v Power Supply. The power supply has a built-in voltmeter as well as an amp-meter. I charge a battery at 5amps but the amp-meter indicates that the charger uses 3amps. I have changed the offset 17 to a value of 8 but the problem is still there.

2) When I charge a battery it requires a lot of time (48 minutes) and can receive up to 7000+mAmps as indicated by Pro-Trak which of course is NOT correct. When discharging the battery it indicates a value of 3600mAmps. The bateries do NOT behave appropriatelly on the track, they tend to have a long duration but NO power at all. After I have changed the offset 17 as mentioned above and changed the value of the charge amps so that the amp-meter on the power supply shows a 5amps current the problem was reduced. The battery now receives 5000mAmps and takes 35 to 40 minutes to charge.

3) The charger does not always use the settings that I have selected, it tends to lose them. i have replaced the backup battery but have not seen any real improvement except that the frequency of the problem has changed and appears once a week. Before replacing the battery this occured every 2nd day. I am also worried that the charger loses the calibration settings.

4) Finally, I try to discharge a battery but when it reaches 5 seconds it stops with a message: "Check external fuse". I do check the fuse but it appears to be in perfect order.

I have noticed that there is a scratch on the back of the board but since I am not an aware of electronics I can not tell if this has caused damage or not.
"

Any ideas what might be the problem and/or solution?

Nick

Pro-Trak checks whether discharge is performed. When FET for discharge is out of order, even if there is no problem in FUSE, discharge failed with "Check external fuse" . It is necessary to exchange FET for discharge. I also encountered the completely same problem. I exchanged FET and solved this problem.


I recommend you to upgrade to Newest ROM simultaneously with repair. Various new functions are added in Newest ROM.

He has spoken with Phill, but he is so busy at the moment (Phill) and since this is the only charge my friend has there is no option sending it at the moment! :)

What FET is that,
where can find it,
specifications in order to find new one?

Nick

For your friends problem #2. I am not Phil or anything but I had a friend of mines charger do the same thing. I think the calibration may be off a bit. Kiyano or Crimson Eagle could help you with that and like kiyano said problem #4 may be the discharge fet. I had the same thing happen to me but it was something that I did that made that happen.
I hope your friend can get it looked at, It is one of the best chargers around and it does so much. I love mine :D


Ronnie

When I bought my Protrak about 2 years ago I sometimes had the problem charge was stopped with the message "Check external fuse".
But there was nothing wrong with the hardware. After changing the ROM the Protrak worked again until now. :)

Hi all,

Does anybody experience my problem before. Which is the discharge capacity is larger than the charge capacity on the same pack of battery??

Many thx!!

Maybe there is a problem with calibration.

Hi v12,

I hope so. But I have try following the data sheet and calibration by external voltmeter. The result is the same. I know that offset 17 is very important on calculating the charging cap as I have try ignore the calibration in the very begining (Pre owner has reset the setting). It have recorded 5XXX plus C cap. However do you know which offset is used to calibrate the discharge current???

Do you have the sheet with the offset values? It´s included with the Protrak and usually somewhere in the Protrak bag. You need that. I know at a certain time one of the values has changed with a specific ROM. From there on you will have false readings if you don´t change the values after switching to this or newer ROM. Maybe this is the problem. Look at the Protrak website. I know there are any informations regarding this. Hope it helps. :)

This problem is also considered for failure of discharge FET . Supposing you have an ammeter, please measure discharge current. Probably current will not be stable. And the average of current is about 10A.

Your discharge FET should be replaced.


This is my personal opinion. When 20A pro-trak doing discharge, a heat sink becomes high temperature very much. As a result, the life of FET may be shortened. I have advised my customer to cool a heat sink in external FAN. 30A pro-trak are equipped standardly with the three external FAN interlocked with temperature.

You will find the external FANs added back of heat sink.
(tre's makes this cool faceplate ;) )
http://www.kimihiko-yano.net/weblog/...s/PB070007.jpg

Yes I did! I have the calibration data sheet come from the charger. I also has follow the numbers it specified but the problem still persist.

Do you think that a new rom will ease the problem???

Hi kiyano,

Thanks for your reply!!

However, is it possible to replace the fets by our own?? If yes would you pls. send mail to me for the details??

Email: [email protected]

Thanks!

mr4-tc sp,

YGM:p

hey that looks an awful lot like my face plate on that 30 amp version. It sure would have been nice for my art not to have been taken without asking.