Sargent Power Supply / Swift Control Panel / Charging

[LMJ34]

Hi there

I'm 6 months in owning my motorhome and trying to figure out some of the aspects of my electrics.

I've a Sargent EC600 power supply unit (photo attached). First, I am unsure how to determine exactly which model I have e.g. 601, 653 etc. Does anyone know how to determine this?

Secondly, there's a charger button on the unit, in what circumstances should that illuminate?

Then, in terms of my EC800 control panel, on the Power screen I'm seeing as per the attached photo. Yet my solar control unit shows as per other attached photo, I'm not sure why I'm not seeing a sun symbol on the CP to indicate one of the two vehicle batteries is being charged?

Thanks in advance?

 

[rb62]

I'd just go with 'it's a Swift command' unit



I would imagine the charge light would illuminate when on EHU

It looks like the solar feed is going straight to the batteries,rather than through the Sargent unit (so that you can turn the Sargent unit off but the batteries will still charge off the solar),probably the leisure ones.

 

[Barti Ddu]

It's very similar to the pretty basic Sargent unit in my Autotrail. The green charger button simply turns the charger for the leisure battery on or off when connected to EHU. If it's like mine, it is a dumb single stage charger that outputs a fixed 13.7v so never fully charges the leisure battery (it's essentially just a simple PSU giving a float charge). Providing your solar controller is set up correctly (and routed direct to the battery rather than through the Sargent unit), this should go the extra mile and give the leisure battery a proper 14.4v absorption charge (if the sun comes out)!

 

[LMJ34]

Thank you both.

I took a meter reading off the leisure this (bright) morning of 13.0 something, which given the reading is over 13 volts, presumably means that the battery was being charged?

I'd still like to know why my control panel isn't showing solar charge!

 

[GeoffnDee]

The control panel will only show the solar charging if the controller has been wired into the Ec651 PSU (the Motorhome version) this would also enable its solar smart charging feature to operate. If it is wired direct to the leisure battery it will not show on the control (and smart charging using the solar power will not work) .
There is information to be found about your system in the support section of www.sargentltd.co.uk that may be useful.
As stated the charger button turns the charger off and on when on EHU (the charger should be a intelligent 3 x stage item, possibly a PS300 model)