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Mass Combi 2000/12 Problem


TechcareUK

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Looking for some advice on problem with our Mastervolt Mass Combi 2000/12-100.

Returned to the boat Friday eve after 7 weeks to find batteries completley dead, the shore power was  disconnected while away.
So plugged in shore power and left to charge the batteries without issues.
On sunday eve after returning from restaurant the mass combi was not outputting and all the LEDs where on on both the main unit and remote panel.
No amount of restarts, ditching power to both batteries and mains and restarting made any diffetence.

Sequence is:
Switch to on
Fan starts
Individual load and charge leds sequence
Mains power outputs breifly then combi shows all leds steady illuminated and unit stops outputting and fan stops but LEDs remain illuminated.

I have checked boat 240v wireing and combi 12v supply all are fine.
Also checked the combi thermal trip and external fuses.
I have confirmed there is 240v at AC in and 12v at the combi's  battery terminals.

Any advice very much appreciated

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2 hours ago, nicknorman said:

Keith is a top bloke and will at the very least facilitate you getting the Combi repaired in Holland. Well worth a phone call anyway.

Agreed. When the AC input side of my Mastervolt 12/2500-100 Combi failed recently, I rang Keith after a similar recommendation and found him very helpful. He even offered to collect it and take it with him to the Southampton Boat Show to expedite it's return to Mastervolt in Holland.

I've had a look inside mine, but with the exception of an internal fuse you can't see til you're amongst the guts there's little to see or do unless something has let go in a big way. This probably explains why Keith didn't need to see the unit before recommending it was sent to Holland.

Mastervolt do a fixed price repair (£458 rings a bell) but, given mine is a discontinued model, it's not certain to be repaired by this route. If that's the case, Mastervolt may offer a 25% discount on a new one. With the risk of my unit being in Holland whilst I wanted to be cruising and then being all but committed to buying a later model of the same thing, I decided to cut my losses, keep my boat in service (the inverter side still works) and take the opportunity to separate the Inverter function from the battery charging. However, the Mastervolt fixed price repair option might work for the OP.

Nick, should you get the opportunity,  I'd be greatly if you'd take a look at my topic in the equipment section from yesterday regarding my future battery charger options. I've had a couple of comments back, but was hoping the 'resident experts' might chime in. I'd certainly appreciate you giving my thinking a sanity check.

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2 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Agreed. When the AC input side of my Mastervolt 12/2500-100 Combi failed recently, I rang Keith after a similar recommendation and found him very helpful. He even offered to collect it and take it with him to the Southampton Boat Show to expedite it's return to Mastervolt in Holland.

I've had a look inside mine, but with the exception of an internal fuse you can't see til you're amongst the guts there's little to see or do unless something has let go in a big way. This probably explains why Keith didn't need to see the unit before recommending it was sent to Holland.

Mastervolt do a fixed price repair (£458 rings a bell) but, given mine is a discontinued model, it's not certain to be repaired by this route. If that's the case, Mastervolt may offer a 25% discount on a new one. With the risk of my unit being in Holland whilst I wanted to be cruising and then being all but committed to buying a later model of the same thing, I decided to cut my losses, keep my boat in service (the inverter side still works) and take the opportunity to separate the Inverter function from the battery charging. However, the Mastervolt fixed price repair option might work for the OP.

Nick, should you get the opportunity,  I'd be greatly if you'd take a look at my topic in the equipment section from yesterday regarding my future battery charger options. I've had a couple of comments back, but was hoping the 'resident experts' might chime in. I'd certainly appreciate you giving my thinking a sanity check.

Keep it simple. Keep them separate whenever possible. why build in an extra gadget that can and WILL go faulty. That said mine is a combi as is my spare :huh:

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Thanks Sea Dog for the info,

I think mine is discontinued too, its the 2000/12 (i think the current model is the 2200/12) so the fixed fee repair prob wont be available to me :-(

I'm actually an electronics engineer so will prob have a look 1st although you usually find when these types of heavy current equipment let go they usually do in a big way and unless you are familliar with the particular fault trates you can end up killing lots of time & replacement components before getting to the route of the problem (I never have been a fan of working on switch mode PSU's......)    

Thanks Mrsmelly, you may be on to something there, I'm considering options and may have to look at the Sterling route....

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A bit of an update...

I had 10 mins to kill today so took apart the combi for a quick visual look for anything obvious.

Only thing I could see was a burnt resistor that appears to maybe be part of biasing for a FET

I stress this was only a visual look, I didnt have so much as a multi meter with me to go further.

I have attached images with the offending resistor circled in Red!

 

Im thinking that this looks increasingly bad :-(

Resistor1.jpg

Resistor2.jpg

Resistor3.jpg

Transistor.jpg

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Worth a resistor change at a few pence I'd say. I had nothing so obvious in mine (nothing that appears to have a nice red circle round it, anyway! ;) ), so mine needs expert intervention. Incidentally, there's a firm in Tamworth who do fix such things, but very much as a sideline now they've move on to other things, so they do it when they have a bit of spare time and hence their timelines didn't fit with mine. I'll see if I can look up their details for you if you fancy trying them. 

My problem is different to yours. My inverter works fine, so I can still use it in that mode - I think I have a problem with the transfer relay or its control circuitry, so the AC input is u/s hence no DC output for charging. In a few days, once I have my new kit fitted and working and therefore don't need the inverter side anymore, I may give them a go at fixing my Combi and perhaps sell it on if it's back to its former self.  Otherwise I've seen them go for spares or repair. You might think similarly re yours should you also go for replacement kit.

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19 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Obviously the resistor has burnt out for a reason so just replacing it is unlikely to fix the problem. Best to check the adjacent semiconductors too. At least the pcb tracks aren’t burnt.

If you’re going to go to that much trouble then I’d also replace those three electrolytics as a matter of course. 

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Thanks SeaDog. Yes please see if you can find the details of the firm that takes on the repairs.

And let me know when you decide what you are doing with your old one i may be interested if you wanted to sell.

 

Thanks nicknorman and WotEver.

Yes i will check all the components around the FET and failing electolytics somwhere was my 1st thought that may have caused the initial symtoms of the psu not starting that I assumed was marina power issues.

But alas unless im lucky here experience tells me im likley going to find its an snowball effect failure with many components effected and unless you have direct experience working on these units you are likley to get into repeat loops of replacing components before any hope of getting to the end of the repair......or maybe im just being pessimistic.

Anyway its comming back with me today and think i'll have a go at repairing it before getting another firm or Mastervolt involved.

I have got a cheap chinese 3kw inverter that has a 10a charger that ive neveŕ used ( bought for a cruiser i had)  i may throw on for now.

 

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10 minutes ago, TechcareUK said:

unless im lucky here experience tells me im likley going to find its an snowball effect failure with many components effected and unless you have direct experience working on these units you are likley to get into repeat loops of replacing components before any hope of getting to the end of the repair......or maybe im just being pessimistic.

I don’t think you’re being unduly pessimistic. As you said earlier it’s a bit like repairing a switch-mode psu - virtually impossible unless you know them intimately. 

I was repairing a Quad 303 recently and one channel had an obscure fault that didn’t make much sense to me or indeed the ‘experts’ in Brussels. On their suggestion I simply changed all of the semiconductors that might affect the bias and it came back to life. Diode and hfe testing of the replaced transistors showed them all to be good but obviously at least one of them wasn’t. 

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28 minutes ago, WotEver said:

I don’t think you’re being unduly pessimistic. As you said earlier it’s a bit like repairing a switch-mode psu - virtually impossible unless you know them intimately. 

I was repairing a Quad 303 recently and one channel had an obscure fault that didn’t make much sense to me or indeed the ‘experts’ in Brussels. On their suggestion I simply changed all of the semiconductors that might affect the bias and it came back to life. Diode and hfe testing of the replaced transistors showed them all to be good but obviously at least one of them wasn’t. 

This could well be the case, however my only thought is that with all the KWs of power flying around inside the Combi, with only one component showing signs of distress perhaps the failure was fairly benign. Early designs of SMPSU were like a bomb waiting to go off, but later designs tend to have more protection and fault-tolerance built in with less desire to self-destruct on a whim. Perhaps the MV is like the latter? We can only live in hope!

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Ok i'm thinking as nicknorman says there may be a slight chance that with more modern protection the failure may have been restrained and I may take a punt at a repair attempt, checking the FETs and replacing, replacing the small electrolytics and any other failed components I can identify before having to part with a serious amount of cash.

 

if by any chance anyone has access to a Mass Combi 2000/12 that they can take a photo of that burnt resistor so I can see the value it will help :-) 

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  • 1 year later...
On 16/10/2017 at 15:16, mrsmelly said:

Keep it simple. Keep them separate whenever possible. why build in an extra gadget that can and WILL go faulty. 

 

I agree, my charger and inverter are separate. The trouble with combis is often that when they go wrong you can lose everything, including even access to shore power. I'm quite happy to manually switch between mains power sources and my boat isn't so high-tech as to require "seamless" transition.

 

Mastervolt, Victron, etc, are all good names, but for me their equipment is a bit too complex and sensitive and not robust enough for use on boats. I prefer simpler, more basic equipment with fewer features and functions and less to go wrong.

  • Greenie 2
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23 hours ago, TechcareUK said:

nope im still here......and my mass combi is still sitting under my workshop bench!!

 

@Gazzaman2k I will take a photo for you and post tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the info on the resistor ?

hi matey did you get a chance to snap a photo of the ic chip please?

thanks

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