Eurovan Camper mods

Eurovan Battery Charger

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Updated 2023-12-12 : Corrected a typo regarding dirty vs. clean outputs
Updated 2021-05-14 : Added detail picture showing the Magnetek dirty vs. clean power outputs
Updated 2016-06-12 : After numerous charging failures, I'm replacing this device with a Victron IP22 charger
Updated 2014-08-02 : Clarified watt usage in float mode.
Updated 2014-06-05 : Updated with test results.
Updated 2014-05-26 : First version.

Update and Caution

Apparently the ProMariner ProSport is not able to reliably charge battery banks larger than about 100 Amp Hours. Although this is noted in their installation manual, this fact is not widely publicized online when you purchase. Rather than behaving like a under-sized battery charger which slowly, but eventually, gets your battery to 100%, the ProSport actually has a mysterious failure mode where it gets stuck in the Absorb phase and can push one or both batteries up to 15.0V. When it was only happening to me, I thought it was probably my fault, but I've seen other online reviews that suggest the same...

I ended up replacing this with a Victron IP22 charger which I'm quite happy with.

Here is a review from someone else that is having the same problem as I am:

Comments about Professional Mariner ProSport 20 Heavy-Duty Marine Battery Charger, 20A, 12/24V, 2 Bank Charger: Have this hooked to a 220ah battery and a small 60AH battery. 20A is about C/10 for the 220ah battery, so this should be fine. Never goes into maintain - always putting 14.7v on the batteries, causing battery degradation. Call up the manufacturer, and they say that the 220ah battery is "too big" and that's the problem. Huh? You can charge it with a tiny charger, just takes longer. They also admitted that the charger uses voltage (not current) to determine when to go into float. I don't see size limitations on any of the decriptions I find online. I just can't understand how bad chargers exist - 3 stage LA charging is not rocket science. Bottom Line No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
See Original review

In conclusion, I no longer find this product reliable for charging my over-sized Eurovan house battery. The product may work fine for other applications (e.g. you have a small house battery) or if you are religious about watching the voltage to be on guard for the "gets stuck in Absorb mode" bug.

Introduction

The Eurovan Camper comes stock with a Magnetek 3200: User Manual.
The Magnetek has some limitations: By comparison, the ProMariner ProSport 12 dual has...

Notes:

Parts:

Tools:

Step-by-Step:

(click each picture for full size)


  1. Remove the old Magnetek Charger

    David has a great guide here: Converter Upgrade

  2. Furnace Ducts (you can leave these connected, this is just for reference)

  3. The old Magnetek

  4. Remove the Furnace
    Sub-Steps:
    • Turn off the van's Propane valve
    • Remove 2 screws on front of furnace cover
    • Unhook Propane line
    • Unhook furnace wiring harness
    • Remove two screws in base of furnace
    • At this point, the furnace will just slide out

  5. Furnace Removal

  6. Furnace Removed

  7. Install the new charger: ProMariner ProSport 12
  8. Comparison: old Magnetek vs. new ProSport
    1940s technology vs. 1990s FTW!
  9. ProSport mounted in place of the old Magnetek
  10. Detail showing the Magnetek Outputs:
    The Magnetek is so old, it has two separate 12V outputs, "filtered" and "unfiltered" - Modern chargers just have filtered outputs, so we need to combine these into a single crossbar +12V supply.
    This picture shows the 3 wires
    2023 December note: a previous version of this page had Dirty/Clean reversed:
    • Green: the ground wire. This will connect to the negative (-) wire on your new charger.
    • Blue (connecting to Yellow with Blue tape): the Dirty output. This will be capped off and ignored.
    • Red (connecting to Black with Red tape): the Clean output. This will connect to the positive (+) output on your battery charger.
    • Alternatively: one could simply join the dirty/clean wires together here and connect to the new charger, which would allow you to skip step 11.
    Please note that wiring color differs by model year, what you are seeing in my 2000 EVC may not match yours
  11. Combine the old Magnetek unfiltered and filtered outputs on a single crossbar:
    The Magnetek is so old, it has two separate 12V outputs, "filtered" and "unfiltered" - Modern chargers just have filtered outputs, so we need to combine these into a single crossbar +12V supply.
    Cut a piece of 3/4" by 4 inches from your Aluminum Bar. Drill holes as needed. If you have any additional items needing power, drill holes for these too. (In this picture, you'll see I have Solar Charger, a stereo head unit, an amplifier, etc...)

    Old - crossbar with 2 separate circuits:
    • Dirty: The Yellow wire with blue tape is the same wire that connects to the Dirty Output (the blue wire in the Magnetek)
    • Clean: The Black wire wire with Yellow tape connects to the Clean output (the red wire in the Magnetek)
    Please note that wiring color differs by model year, what you are seeing in my 2000 EVC may not match yours
    New - crossbar reduced to 1 circuit for all 12V devices:
  12. Not Shown: fish a new wire that connects to the starting battery.

  13. Operation
    When plugged in, the ProSport takes a minute or two to run self-tests, then begins charging. I've seen it draw up to 180 watts. Supposedly once the batteries are fully charged, it will enter a low-power maintenance mode - I'll update this post when it happens Yes, it does : see below.
  14. Test Results - Initial Problems

    My initial tests were not encouraging: In two tests, the charger appeared to operate normally, bringing both batteries up to 14.6 while charging, holding at 14.6 while conditioning, but then getting stuck there (for over 48 hours in one test) : It never dropped back to ready/maintain (aka "float" mode) of 13.4 V.
    I went down some dead ends:

    • Wiring differences : although there were voltage drops due to fuses while charging, when at steady state the voltages were the same at the charger and at the battery, so I don't believe this was relevant.
    • Parasitic loads: yes, but they added up to about 83 milliamps (about 1 Watt) total. Removing them had no effect.
    The solution:
    • Replacing the starting battery with a brand new one.
  15. Test Results - Success

    Once I replaced the bad starting battery, the test results were perfect: 
    
Time     Charge
(hours)  Mode   V1     V2   Watts
----------------------------------
0.0      off   12.63  12.53     0
0.5      chg   13.92  13.81   151
1.0      chg   14.55  14.25    55
2.0      chg   14.61  14.48    44
2.5      CON   14.64  14.63    35  <-- charger switched to "Conditioning" mode
3.0      CON   14.65  14.67    33
5.0      rdy   13.71  13.13     4  <-- charger switched to "Ready/Maintain" mode
11.0     rdy   12.81  12.83     3 *


Notes:
Battery 1 : 2xGC2 6v Golf Cart Costco (brand new)
Battery 2 : 1 automotive starting battery (brand new)
Watts : measured on 120VAC plug using KillaWatt 
Charge Mode: "chg" = "Charging", "CON" = "Conditioning", "rdy" = "Ready/Maintain"
* When it enters float mode, it will draw beween 3 and 8 watts - 5 watts seems to be the average draw.


  16. Conclusions
    As long as your batteries are in good condition, I like how this charger works. In particular, I like the very low energy usage (about 5 Watts) when the charger drops down to "Ready/Maintain" mode.