# No Neutral on Manzanita PFC30 charger?



## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Opened up my PFC30 and noticed the white neutral wire is not used on the wall plug. It comes with a 4 blade 14-30R plug but inside the charger the neutral isn't wired to anything, so if you use an adapter to plug into a 120 volt outlet there is no neutral, just hot and ground. Just thought this was odd.


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## CroDriver (Jan 8, 2009)

I had to fit another plug on the standard PFC40 because we don't have plugs like those Manzanitia uses here in Europe. 

I was surprised too when I opened the charger. I can't understand why they use a 4 blade plug when they only need a standard 2 blade plug...


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

CroDriver said:


> I had to fit another plug on the standard PFC40 because we don't have plugs like those Manzanitia uses here in Europe.
> 
> I was surprised too when I opened the charger. I can't understand why they use a 4 blade plug when they only need a standard 2 blade plug...


Perhaps this helps justify the cost of the charger?


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

JRP3 said:


> Opened up my PFC30 and noticed the white neutral wire is not used on the wall plug. It comes with a 4 blade 14-30R plug but inside the charger the neutral isn't wired to anything, so if you use an adapter to plug into a 120 volt outlet there is no neutral, just hot and ground. Just thought this was odd.


I doubt they use ground for normal current return when running single phase. If that was the case the charger would be quite dangerous and definitely would not pass regulations here in NZ or Australia. With a single phase adaptor the charger shouldn't work at all. As long as the charger is OK running on only 120V, you can wire the phase to phase input of the charger to a phase-neutral supply for single phase use.

Sam.


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

Mine has the green wire cut just inside the chassis. This is ground. White is neutral. Manzanita has a figure on their website showing wiring for a NEMA14-30 240VAC receptacle to NEMA5-15 120VAC plug pigtail adapter. Green is ground, black is power, and white is common on the 120VAC plug. Green is neutral, and black and white are connected to the power terminals on the NEMA14-30 connector.

Tom


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

tomofreno said:


> Mine has the green wire cut just inside the chassis. This is ground. White is neutral. Manzanita has a figure on their website showing wiring for a NEMA14-30 240VAC receptacle to NEMA5-15 120VAC plug pigtail adapter. Green is ground, black is power, and white is common on the 120VAC plug. Green is neutral, and black and white are connected to the power terminals on the NEMA14-30 connector.
> 
> Tom


Green is never neutral, it is ground. Ground should never carry normal current.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Hmm, here is what I have. Green, ground is bolted to the case inside, white is cut, and red and black connected,(not to each other), deeper in the charger.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Here is the adapter diagram Tom was speaking of. I'm getting confused. So the way my PFC is wired, if I made this adapter, ground would be ground inside the charger, black would be hot, and neutral from the wall socket would connect to the other "hot", red, inside the charger.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Tom, are you sure it's your green, ground wire that is cut inside? If so then the only actual connection you would have with that adapter is wall socket black to charger black and wall socket white to charger red, with no ground.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I guess if there is no neutral wire used inside the charger then when connected to 120 red acts as neutral, and when connected to 240 red and black are power, green is ground, and neutral is nothing. This seems to make sense as I've seen other 240 volt setups that only use 3 wires.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Just got this from Stephen at EVcomponents, he used to work at Manzanita:


> The PFC-30, PFC-40 and PFC-50 all use 4 wire cables. It is the new standard to have 4 wires so new plug installations will usually be like that instead of the old 3 wire setups. The Neutral is not needed though so it is basically just to get the nice end on the charger plug.


Tom, you might want to double check what you have.


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## Lordwacky (Jan 28, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> I guess if there is no neutral wire used inside the charger then when connected to 120 red acts as neutral, and when connected to 240 red and black are power, green is ground, and neutral is nothing. This seems to make sense as I've seen other 240 volt setups that only use 3 wires.


That's correct. Most 220V devices don't require a neutral. They usually only require the +120V and -120V. Most 240V devices in the US are not wired with a neutral. Ovens and dryers usually just have a Black,Red and ground. In this case the charger just takes the potential between the red and black wires as its input. In a 220V setup black is 120 and red is -120 (plus and minus is relative) in a 120V setup Black is 120V and red is Neutral (0V). The charger automatically adjusts to the input voltage.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

JRP3 said:


> I guess if there is no neutral wire used inside the charger then when connected to 120 red acts as neutral, and when connected to 240 red and black are power, green is ground, and neutral is nothing. This seems to make sense as I've seen other 240 volt setups that only use 3 wires.


Yeah, that's normal. In a split phase system like you guys have in the states, current can flow from phase to neutral or phase to phase. The neutral is a "centre tap" on the transformer winding out on the street. Like I said, as long as the appliance is rated for 240V, there's no problem connecting it phase to phase.

We have a similar system here in NZ if there's one house in the middle of nowhere, we usually put a single phase transformer on the pole with 230V-0V-230V secondaries. Things like the electric stove and central heating are connected across both phases for 460V. If you're in town you usually get a two phase connection of 400V P-P and 230V P-N which is 120deg difference between phases, not 180deg. We just have one standard power receptacle which is good for 10A or 2300VA. Anything higher than 10A (apart from the stove plug) in a domestic house is very unusual.

Jeez, I don't know how you guys live with 110V for all your household appliances. What about fan heaters and vacuum cleaners - do you have specially wired receptacles for those?

Sam.


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

> Tom, you might want to double check what you have.


 I stand corrected. I checked and white is cut inside the charger, not green, so it works as Lordwacky described. 

Samborambo, no special plugs, we get along with 110 by using 20A breakers rather than 10.


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## MN Driver (Sep 29, 2009)

samborambo said:


> We just have one standard power receptacle which is good for 10A or 2300VA. Anything higher than 10A (apart from the stove plug) in a domestic house is very unusual.
> 
> Jeez, I don't know how you guys live with 110V for all your household appliances. What about fan heaters and vacuum cleaners - do you have specially wired receptacles for those?
> 
> Sam.


Your 2300VA is what you get at 10 amps, in the United States our standard circuits are rated at 15 amps while the same outlets can run at 20 amps, it just requires slightly larger gauge wiring, the power rating is all determined by the electrical breaker which is sized based on the wiring going to the circuit. 

Typically fan heaters, toasters, some coffee makers, and other typically high drain devices are rated at 1500 watts, vacuum cleaners usually use around 12 amps at 120volts, hair dryers are sometimes rating at 1650 watts or so. My dishwasher, garage, and a few other circuits are wired at 20 amps. In the US Electricity suppliers aim to keep most customers supplied between 114 and 126 V most of the time. Typically 110 volts is talked about but it really isn't that low, most of the time I see electrical things stamped with a 120 volt rating because 120 volts is where they aim for. I've stuck my multimeter into the electric socket at rarely get below 120 volts in my neighborhood. So consider 120 volts 20 amps as 2400 watts. Don't forget VA isn't metered in the US as our spiral meters don't pick up that phantom waste, we more or less get it for free, we pay for watts.


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

Anyone know which pin is pin 1 on the 6 pin Regbus connector on the Manzanita chargers? Is it on the right or left when looking at the connector, or is it the blue or white wire? I don't have it connected to a load yet so don't want to turn it on to check which pin has 5V.

Tom


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I think pins read from left to right, pin 1 being on the left, but you might check the PDF's on the Manzanita site, I think in the regulator section.


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

Found it. You are correct.

Tom


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

> That's correct. Most 220V devices don't require a neutral. They usually only require the +120V and -120V. Most 240V devices in the US are not wired with a neutral. Ovens and dryers usually just have a Black,Red and ground. In this case the charger just takes the potential between the red and black wires as its input. In a 220V setup black is 120 and red is -120 (plus and minus is relative) in a 120V setup Black is 120V and red is Neutral (0V). The charger automatically adjusts to the input voltage.


 I have a "charger relay" connected to one hot (black) and ground (green), which turns off 12V to the system components while charging, so the car cannot be started. It seems a GFCI breaker and 240VAC outlet cannot be used to supply power to the charger then, as it monitors current return on the neutral wire (white) which is not used by the charger, nor by this "charger relay". Current return is through the ground (green) wire. So the breaker would immediately trip due to the imbalance of outgoing current and return current through neutral. Correct?


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

I think I see my error. The charger doesn't require a neutral if the 240VAC is balanced, and the charger relay should have neutral (white) connected to it rather than ground (green). Then the GFCI should see balanced currents for both. Correct?

Tom


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## racunniff (Jan 14, 2009)

tomofreno said:


> I have a "charger relay" connected to one hot (black) and ground (green), which turns off 12V to the system components while charging, so the car cannot be started. It seems a GFCI breaker and 240VAC outlet cannot be used to supply power to the charger then, as it monitors current return on the neutral wire (white) which is not used by the charger, nor by this "charger relay". Current return is through the ground (green) wire. So the breaker would immediately trip due to the imbalance of outgoing current and return current through neutral. Correct?


I solved the same problem by using a small computer +12V power supply driven directly by the 240V input. I encased the PS in a watertight container. The +12V P/S can drive a regular relay that triggers whatever signalling you want, isolating the 240V/+12V system from the car's 12V (or 312V if not isolated while charging!) system.

The other advantage is that most of those power supplies are dual voltage, automatically switching between 240V and 120V mode depending on their power input. I have yet to find a simple relay that can do that.


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

tomofreno said:


> I think I see my error. The charger doesn't require a neutral if the 240VAC is balanced, and the charger relay should have neutral (white) connected to it rather than ground (green). Then the GFCI should see balanced currents for both. Correct?
> 
> Tom


I think that's right. You should never use ground to supply any power, only for protective earth (e.g. chassis of the charger, assuming that the chassis is isolated from everything in the charger). So the ground wires should only every carry current in a fault condition.

Presumably the GFCI will sum the currents in the two actives and the neutral (so it's calculating one active minus the other active and neutral), and the sum of these should be zero or very close to zero when there is no ground fault (like someone getting a shock). In other words, what goes out on one active had better come back on either the other active or the neutral; if not, it could be through a human to ground.


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## kittydog42 (Sep 18, 2007)

If you want to use a relay for a charger interlock, you can get relays with a 240VAC coil. You would connect them the same way as you connect the charger, using the two hot legs on the coil terminals. A cheaper and smaller alternative to the PC power supply would be to use a 240V-24V HVAC transformer, and a 24VAC relay.


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

I turned on my PFC30 for the first time today and it blew the fuse in the charger - or it was blown. I had the DC white wire connected to the most positive terminal of the pack and the DC black wire connected to the shunt, which is connected to the negative most terminal. The charger was the last thing I connected. The cells, shunt regulators, contactor, and shunt had all be connected for days, and pack voltage checked a number of times to ensure it added up to the number of cells times the cell voltage I measured. 

I have an EKM meter on the AC input to the charger, and the charger never pulled over 1A and 18W. Even when I adjusted the current knob up a bit to see if the current reading changed. That's when I noticed the voltage limit light was on, so I turned the volts trimmer clockwise to increase the voltage. I turned and turned with no effect, until the red warning light came on, when I quickly shut off the charger. The charger was on a total of maybe 3-4 minutes. I don't know what to change. Polarity of the DC outputs to the cells is correct. DVM voltage measurement shows the polarity is correct. I checked continuity from the white DC output wire at the fuse in the charger to the most positive terminal in the pack where it is connected and it is good. The Anderson connector seems fine also. 

The photo below shows the white lead to the most positive terminal with the red dvm probe. The black lead can be seen going into a box where it connects to the shunt, which is connected (large black cable in the photo) to the most negative terminal where the black dvm probe is. The dvm shows the pack voltage and polarity. 








I am concerned I might damage the charger when I turn it on again, but I can't see anything wrong. Any suggestions? 

Tom


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## racunniff (Jan 14, 2009)

tomofreno said:


> I turned on my PFC30 for the first time today and it blew the fuse in the charger - or it was blown....


Last year, I somehow managed to damage my first PFC20 during its initial bringup. I never did figure out what happened - I sent it to MM for repair, and it came back fully functional, and has not blown up since.

The only theory I have come up with is that I did not have the ground wire on the PFC20 hooked up to the vehicle chassis, and a transient voltage of some sort fried something internally. I do have it grounded now. Is yours grounded?


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

> Is yours grounded?


 I have red, black, white, and green AC leads from a 240VAC GFCI breaker connected to the respectively colored leads on the AC input of the charger. White is clipped off inside the charger, unused. I did not explicitly add any ground wire from the charger to chassis.


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## racunniff (Jan 14, 2009)

kittydog42 said:


> If you want to use a relay for a charger interlock, you can get relays with a 240VAC coil. You would connect them the same way as you connect the charger, using the two hot legs on the coil terminals. A cheaper and smaller alternative to the PC power supply would be to use a 240V-24V HVAC transformer, and a 24VAC relay.


Yes, but I have yet to find a 240VAC relay that will also be energized by 120VAC. I like to be able to plug my car in to both as needed. Also, if you drive anything while charging (fans, etc.) it is nice to pull the +12VDC from the wall rather than running your aux battery down.


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## racunniff (Jan 14, 2009)

tomofreno said:


> I have red, black, white, and green AC leads from a 240VAC GFCI breaker connected to the respectively colored leads on the AC input of the charger. White is clipped off inside the charger, unused. I did not explicitly add any ground wire from the charger to chassis.


The ground I'm talking about comes off the DC side - a green wire that comes out where the Anderson connector is. You can see the wire I'm talking about toward the bottom-right of this picture - see the green wire near the Anderson connector, hooked via Faston to a black wire going to the chassis.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I don't see why you'd need a chassis ground for the DC output since the pack isn't grounded. Manzanita's manual also does not show it being hooked up to anything.


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

tomofreno said:


> Any suggestions?


Well, if this is the first time the whole vehicle is getting charged, I'd first check to see if the charger will work on a single 12 V battery not connected to anything else. Take your auxilliary battery out of the vehicle if necessary and charge it by itself (replacing the fuse first, of course). ( I believe that all PFC chargers will charge down to 12 V, but check your manual first).

If that doesn't work, you have some sort of DOA case, or the mains isn't connected correctly, or your DC output cable has a short or flashover; test with short flying leads. If no good, discuss with your supplier.

But if that works, perhaps you have some leakage to earth in the vehicle. With a non-isolated charger, it could well be sensitive to leakage to earth, and you'd like to fix any leaks for safety as well. A megger might come in handy here, or any source of high voltage with a low current limit (e.g. 120 VAC with a small lamp in series, possibly as small as a neon bulb).

You could possibly isolate a part of the pack and attempt to charge that part by itself, and keep adding to the part that you are testing till it stops.

Though thinking about this, unless you are charging to a really high voltage, I would not expect leakage to blow a fuse. You've most likely got a fault in the charger that didn't show up in testing, that was affected somehow by shipping.


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## racunniff (Jan 14, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> I don't see why you'd need a chassis ground for the DC output since the pack isn't grounded. Manzanita's manual also does not show it being hooked up to anything.


Interesting. My original manual said:



> Connect the positive terminal of the SB50 to the positive terminal of the battery pack.
> 
> Connect the green lead of the charge cable to the chassis of the vehicle.


But the most recent versions on MM's website do not.

Ground is generally not needed for correct operation for most electrical appliances - but it is very handy when unexpected things occur (voltage spikes, shorts, etc.)


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

> Though thinking about this, unless you are charging to a really high voltage, I would not expect leakage to blow a fuse.


 The fuse is very unlikely to blow from overcurrent as it is 50A and the charger puts out a max of about 30A, plus the EKM meter showed the charger never pulled more than 1A, 18W. Rich at Manzanita said it had to be an overvoltage event. He suspects I connected the leads in reverse polarity at least momentarily. But I was very careful to not turn on the charger until the DC leads were bolted in as shown in the photo, as the manual warns not to operate it without a load. The Anderson connector is connected in the correct polarity, white to positive terminal, and I measure the same positive voltage relative to the pack negative terminal at the white wire in the charger at the fuse, as I do on the pack positive terminal. This measurement is through the Anderson connector.


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

I asked Rich at Manzanita about the snipped off green ground wire on the DC output of the charger and he said AC ground (green) is also DC ground, so if the charger is bolted to the chassis it is grounded. He also said you should use the DC ground, but he doesn't.

Tom


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I hooked up my PFC 30 to the 48 volt pack in the AMPhibian to test it out. Worked fine but one thing that surprised me was the output amperage seemed to equal the input amperage. I thought it would put out more amperage at the lower charge voltage. I had it hooked to a Killawatt and was pulling about 14 amps through that at 120 volts and the PFC was sending 14 amps at 48-58 volts to the pack. The Minn Kota MK440 charger I normally use, which is essentially 4 chargers in one with 4 separate outputs at 10 amps each, pulls about 7 amps from the wall but sends 10 amps to each battery.


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> I had it hooked to a Killawatt and was pulling about 14 amps through that at 120 volts and the PFC was sending 14 amps at 48-58 volts to the pack.


Um, something has to be wrong there. Usually I'd say the Killawatt is confused by the bad power factor of the load, but this is a PFC charger. Presumably, the output is pretty smooth DC, so even a cheap current meter shouldn't be badly wrong.

What you are saying is that you are drawing more than twice as much from the mains (up to 2.5x as much, into 48 V) as you are putting into the batteries. That would mean that the charger is dissipating up to a kilowatt of power. I think you'd notice that sort of power.

So something isn't measuring current correctly, I think. Presumably, your mains isn't sagging to something like 60 V AC is it?

Edit: measuring current


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

No the Killawatt is showing around 116 volts from the mains. I'm measuring the DC side with a cheap clamp on Cen-tech meter from Harbor Freight
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=95652
I thought that might be the problem but it does seem to be reading the Minn Kota output as expected. I tried the meter on different sections of the positive and minus each. The PFC did not get excessively hot, so somehow my measurement must be off.


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> I'm measuring the DC side with a cheap clamp on Cen-tech meter from Harbor Freight
> http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=95652


Ah. Does that even read DC current? If it's expecting AC current and is peak detecting the signal, it would underreport the current by a factor of about 1.4. So the 14 A reading would really mean something like 20 A, which would be more like it, but still rather low.

Can you "calibrate" it with a smaller current, say a 55 W headlight on a 12 V battery? (And perhaps use an ordinary multimeter to read the actual current).


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I was wondering that myself since it specifically says AC current. However, it does seem to correctly read the Minn Kota output at just under 10 amps. Unless the Minn Kota is actually putting out more than 10 amps and the meter is under reporting that.


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