# Anyone Here Fix Elcon Chargers?



## dgriz13 (Aug 4, 2012)

My elcon (model TCCH-96-18) has a continues red/green/red/green sequence which means there is bad communication with batteries and charger. I'm wondering if there is anyone here that's qualified to fix it if I were to send to you?


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## ricklearned (Mar 3, 2012)

I am no expert, but that may possibly be outside your charger. Tell us more about how it is connected, and others may be able to help.


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

dgriz13 said:


> My elcon (model TCCH-96-18) has a continues red/green/red/green sequence which means there is bad communication with batteries and charger.


That sounds like the error message you get with the CAN enabled model, when the CAN bus is not connected.

Is this the CAN model, i.e. did you get a small box with it for connecting to the CAN bus?

Depending on the exact sequence, this might also be "battery not found". The charger needs to see at least a certain minimum voltage (for a 96 V charger, I'd wildly guess around 60 V) or it won't charge at all. So you'll get this if you just power up the charger without connecting it to a pack.

What was the exact up-to-8-light sequence you are seeing? (There will be a longer gap at one point, that delimits the sequence).


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## 1ev (Aug 31, 2012)

If warranty is expired I would open it and check the internal fuse, if thats not it I would call elcon of sacramento.


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## bluefxstc (Dec 29, 2007)

I agree with 1ev. I had the same problem with my Chenic 2000W charger. Turned out it was an internal fuse. Fixed it in about 2 hr total and $5.00.


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## vuuh (Jun 6, 2011)

Hi, I also have a TC (elcon) charger passed its warranty. There is no light at the indicator led when i plug it in. First time i tested it there was the normal red light sequence indicating the profile and then rgrgrg three times if i remember correctly. Then nothing. I had wired the green (gnd) wire into 12 ground (along with miniBMS controller board connections). I know thats silly. Got somehow confused with that sticker on the pigtail. The TC manual is perfectly clear about this. My intention is to use the simple enable setup with miniBMS. 
Anyway, i think the internal fuse might be burned. How difficult is it to replace this? I have succesfully built an Open Revolt controller if that is any indication of soldering skills. Might have been just lucky on that one though


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## bluefxstc (Dec 29, 2007)

It is not that difficult. There are about 20 small screws to remove to separate the base from the heat sink. My charger had a fuse on each side of the charger. Each fuse was set vertical on the board and covered in heat sink. It looked like a 1 inch tube cover in heat shrink and you could see the wire through the heat shrink running down the side. In my case the fuse structurally failed so it kind of fell apart when I cut the heat sink off. I had to use a fairly big soldering iron to get the old fuse out. Then I just soldered in a fuse holder to replace.


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## newpol (Nov 13, 2012)

Hello
Question about Interface cable TC-619B.
Outside the box PIN 3 is connected to CAN-H
And PIN 1 is connected to CAN-L.
Is any 120 ohm resistor inside the box?
What is connected on the 7-pin side?
Did you have more information about what this CAN-module 
have to do with communication between charger and BMS?
Have all CAN-module 250kbps speed?


Regards
newpol


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

newpol said:


> Is any 120 ohm resistor inside the box?


I don't know, but I think that there would be, since it is expected that the charger and BMS are the only things on the CAN bus. Or it was in the early days.



> What is connected on the 7-pin side?


Here is a post where I took a CAN box apart: http://forums.aeva.asn.au/forum_posts.asp?TID=980&PID=26610&title=weber-and-coulombs-mx5#26610



> Did you have more information about what this CAN-module
> have to do with communication between charger and BMS?


I have some info on this in our build thread; see the "Charger" section of the index here: http://forums.aeva.asn.au/weber-and-coulombs-mx5_topic980.html .



> Have all CAN-module 250kbps speed?


250 kbps is a common but by no means standard speed. 500 kbps is more common. It's a nuisance that it's not selectable speed.

For these reasons, we used the raw 2400 bps serial information, and ignored the CAN box. But they may change the specs of that at any time; it may be changed now.


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## bwjunkie (Jul 31, 2013)

newpol said:


> ...
> Question about Interface cable TC-619B.
> Outside the box PIN 3 is connected to CAN-H
> ...l


Where is PIN3? I have that exact model 619B and mine only has 2 copper pins (with no markings whatsoever). I don't know how to figure which is Hi or Low. Anyone know? 

Two wires I soldered on, no place for a ground/shield wire and no markings anywhere to specify hi/low?


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

bwjunkie said:


> Where is PIN3?


They may not have brought out CAN GND.



> I don't know how to figure which is Hi or Low. Anyone know?


Power it up, and use a multimeter. CAN HI should be about half a volt more positive than CAN LO.

You can leave the CAN GND and shield unconnected at that end. Connect it to chassis at the other end. The other end can send to the CAN box by basically shorting CAN LO to CAN HI, or pushing CAN LO higher than CAN HI, both relative to any ground. It hurts the brain thinking about it, but it's supposed to work.

Disclaimer: I've never used the actual CAN part of that CAN box.


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## bwjunkie (Jul 31, 2013)

thanks, 
I measured with a meter across the hi/low (since there is no ground), and got approx +1 one way and -1 when I reversed the meter leads, so hopefully that mean +1 is HI. I put in one termination and still can't get any communication at 250kbs to the OrionBMS so I'll try using Canbus#1 instead of #2 to see if that helps. For termination I guess I could try two resistors, I still don't see how there is any bus at all when things are 1 foot away from each other, two 120ohm resistors , one on each end is just creating one 60ohm resistor? blah

Josh


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## bwjunkie (Jul 31, 2013)

I've tried everything I can think of, all the different CAN speeds and both bus #1 and #2 can't get the Elcon TC charger to communicate with my Orion BMS. I do see voltages from the elcon CAN, so I guess maybe I'll have to get an oscilloscope next?

Oddly when I view live CAN traffic in the Orion software utility I can see an ID # E5 sending packets and those stop when I unplug the Elcon, so the traffic seems to be there.

josh


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## Weisheimer (May 11, 2009)

Josh,

E5 is data FROM the charger, so when you see that, you must certainly have the CAN speed and orientation correct.

F4 is data FROM the BMS going TO the charger.
Do you see any F4 data?

If the charger does not see any valid F4 data after a certain period of time, it stops.

(Actually, the address is longer than that, but it ends in F4)


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

bwjunkie said:


> Oddly when I view live CAN traffic in the Orion software utility I can see an ID # E5 sending packets and those stop when I unplug the Elcon, so the traffic seems to be there.


Ok, sounds like the Elcon is sending. But it actually sends ID 18 FF 50 E5, not just E5 (so this is a 29 bit CAN identifier). When you said "ID # E5", was this a shortcut for the full ID, or literally just E5 on its own?

It sounds like you need to tell the BMS that this is an extended (29 bit) identifier. The other standard is 11 bits, which would be three zeroes from the zero in 50, and the E5. In other words, E5 is exactly what you would expect if you tell the software you are looking for a non-extended (11 bit) identifier.

But I would have thought that the Orion software would notice that the ID is extended, and automatically handle it as a 29-bit address.


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## bwjunkie (Jul 31, 2013)

Fixed, hopefully... thank you guys for the responses. I did not have the red "charge" wire hooked up to the Orion BMS, I thought it would still handshake without that, but for safety reasons it doesn't send any F4 codes whatsoever until that wire is up. I'm not quite at the finish line but I will proceed to setup a real charging environment now that things look good in the initial pre-testing.



Weisheimer said:


> Josh,
> F4 is data FROM the BMS going TO the charger.
> Do you see any F4 data?


Right, No F4 data previously. Here is pics for sake of completeness to help others.

Before:









After hooking up red charge wire from Orion BMS to +12v.










1806E9F4 is the full code and can now be seen.

Thank you guys for the responses, really helping me to get thorugh this.
Andrew at Orion has been extremely helpful and responsive as well.

Josh


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

bwjunkie said:


> 1806E9F4 is the full code and can now be seen.


Right. And the 8 bytes from the charger, showing 144.8 V (edit, was 132.8, and 93.0 V before that), is in a non extended ID. I think you still need to tell the Orion to expect an extended ID. The charger will be sending it as extended.

Maybe the Orion is happy to treat the extended ID from the charger as merely E5. But it sounds wrong to me.

[ Edit: 05 D0 in the first two bytes of the Elcon packet represents 0x05D0= 1488 decimal, and represents 1488 tenths of a volt, or 148.8 V. ]


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## Weisheimer (May 11, 2009)

Josh,

Actually, the address is 1806E5F4 and corresponds to that same address that is tagged on your CAN adapter.
That is but a minor detail. You're going to get along just fine now and have a bit of work ahead getting the rest of the pack mounting and cables.
I'm going to try to attach the TC Charger / Elcon CAN spec for anyone interested.

Coulomb,

You've been a great guide to me when I was exploring these chargers and knew precious little about them.
I've still got plenty to learn, but I found your posts here and on the AEVA forums quite helpful. Thank You!

Mark Weisheimer


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