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Post by kris on May 1, 2020 10:41:22 GMT
There’s a boater moored near me at the moment who is having problems with his travel power unit. The belt wasn’t right so he had an RCR engineer out who fitted a new belt. Shorter than the original as he said the original was too long ( I wonder if it just happened to be the one he had on the van.) Anyway now when the travel power travel kicks in powering up the victron inverter charger, it flicks into bulk charge mode for a little while. Then the belt squeals and the power drops out. If left to it’s own devices it just keeps cycling through this. He’s had another “engineer” look at it who has told him it’s a problem with the victron inverter charger and it needs replacing? This sounds wrong to me, I would have thought the issue is with belt, possibly tension or enlinement. Anyway I intend to test the inverter charger for him, but thought I’d ask on here if anybody has any ideas.
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Post by lollygagger on May 1, 2020 16:23:47 GMT
I'd guess the belt. Might he happen to also have the immersion heater or other 240v loads? I get the impression with mine that it would shrug off mere battery charging.
Why was the first belt changed? Worn from slipping?
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Post by Telemachus on May 1, 2020 16:25:17 GMT
There’s a boater moored near me at the moment who is having problems with his travel power unit. The belt wasn’t right so he had an RCR engineer out who fitted a new belt. Shorter than the original as he said the original was too long ( I wonder if it just happened to be the one he had on the van.) Anyway now when the travel power travel kicks in powering up the victron inverter charger, it flicks into bulk charge mode for a little while. Then the belt squeals and the power drops out. If left to it’s own devices it just keeps cycling through this. He’s had another “engineer” look at it who has told him it’s a problem with the victron inverter charger and it needs replacing? This sounds wrong to me, I would have thought the issue is with belt, possibly tension or enlinement. Anyway I intend to test the inverter charger for him, but thought I’d ask on here if anybody has any ideas. On our one, 2009 vintage, there is a freewheel on the Travelpower pulley. Like a sprag clutch. On ours, it started slipping under heavy load eg when I put the 2kw kettle on. It would cycle as you describe. New pulley required, not expensive at around £35 from Ed Shiers. Been perfect ever since. i think it is highly unlikely to be the Victron. obviously first step is to check the belt tension and for any contamination (oil etc) on the belt. Make sure the correct polyvee section belt has been used.
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Post by JohnV on May 1, 2020 16:33:44 GMT
interested in that Nick ..... (I had been keeping quiet, as I have no experience with Travelpower)
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Post by Telemachus on May 1, 2020 16:50:55 GMT
interested in that Nick ..... (I had been keeping quiet, as I have no experience with Travelpower) Both the 175A 12v iskra alternator, and the Travelpower alternator which is a similar size, have these freewheel units built into their pullies on our Beta 43. I’m not quite sure why - does the freewheel disengage and bite at each compression and combustion as the crank slows and speeds? I wouldn’t have thought so, on a heavy slow revving Diesel engine. But I think they may do on petrol cars that have a much lighter flywheel and hence greater variation in rotational speed over the 4 cycles. In the same way that modern cars have dual mass flywheels. So I’m not convinced they are necessary on a boat but allegedly to reduce crankshaft end torsional loading and prolong belt life. When we first got the boat I couldn’t understand why, when stopping the engine or even when slowing it from highish revs, you could hear something spinning down slowly - with the Travelpower off, there is no load on it and it overruns a lot. Someone (probably SMH) told me it was the alternator freewheel and a quick investigation proved that to be correct.
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Post by lollygagger on May 1, 2020 16:54:08 GMT
Yes thanks from me too for the flywheel info, mine's same engine and era.
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Post by Telemachus on May 1, 2020 17:00:07 GMT
Yes thanks from me too for the flywheel info, mine's same engine and era. From new I always found the TP belt a bit difficult to adjust right, not wanting to over tighten, it often slipped sqeakily with the kettle or tumble drier on when we dropped to low rpm to pass moored boats etc, and the first belt was shagged after 1500 hrs. After the pulley was replaced with the one from Ed, which although basically the same was a different make and fractionally different size, it has been massively better, belt never slips and hardly ever needs adjusting and now has 2000 hrs on it still looking as new.
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Post by JohnV on May 1, 2020 17:45:53 GMT
There is a belt dressing that improves the grip of belts over pulleys ...... can't remember what it's called, I used it on the belt drives in the diesel electric boat (I built back in the long ago) as there was a tendency to squeak on star delta changes until inertia was overcome.
(was an aerosol and didn't need frequent application .... just every now and then)
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Post by kris on May 1, 2020 18:31:31 GMT
There’s a boater moored near me at the moment who is having problems with his travel power unit. The belt wasn’t right so he had an RCR engineer out who fitted a new belt. Shorter than the original as he said the original was too long ( I wonder if it just happened to be the one he had on the van.) Anyway now when the travel power travel kicks in powering up the victron inverter charger, it flicks into bulk charge mode for a little while. Then the belt squeals and the power drops out. If left to it’s own devices it just keeps cycling through this. He’s had another “engineer” look at it who has told him it’s a problem with the victron inverter charger and it needs replacing? This sounds wrong to me, I would have thought the issue is with belt, possibly tension or enlinement. Anyway I intend to test the inverter charger for him, but thought I’d ask on here if anybody has any ideas. On our one, 2009 vintage, there is a freewheel on the Travelpower pulley. Like a sprag clutch. On ours, it started slipping under heavy load eg when I put the 2kw kettle on. It would cycle as you describe. New pulley required, not expensive at around £35 from Ed Shiers. Been perfect ever since. i think it is highly unlikely to be the Victron. obviously first step is to check the belt tension and for any contamination (oil etc) on the belt. Make sure the correct polyvee section belt has been used. That’s interesting I don’t think there is a free wheel on it. But I don’t know how old it is. I didn’t think it was the inverter but I’ll plug him into my generator tmw to hopefully eliminate the inverter. Then I’ll try tensioning the belt and see where that gets him.
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Post by kris on May 1, 2020 18:36:00 GMT
Yes thanks from me too for the flywheel info, mine's same engine and era. From new I always found the TP belt a bit difficult to adjust right, not wanting to over tighten, it often slipped sqeakily with the kettle or tumble drier on when we dropped to low rpm to pass moored boats etc, and the first belt was shagged after 1500 hrs. After the pulley was replaced with the one from Ed, which although basically the same was a different make and fractionally different size, it has been massively better, belt never slips and hardly ever needs adjusting and now has 2000 hrs on it still looking as new. it definitely sounds like the issue is the belt on the tp alternator. I’ll check tmw.
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Post by kris on May 1, 2020 18:38:31 GMT
There is a belt dressing that improves the grip of belts over pulleys ...... can't remember what it's called, I used it on the belt drives in the diesel electric boat (I built back in the long ago) as there was a tendency to squeak on star delta changes until inertia was overcome. (was an aerosol and didn't need frequent application .... just every now and then) yes this boater is using this kind thing at the moment, because he needs to keep using the system to charge his batteries.
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Post by Telemachus on May 1, 2020 19:04:03 GMT
On our one, 2009 vintage, there is a freewheel on the Travelpower pulley. Like a sprag clutch. On ours, it started slipping under heavy load eg when I put the 2kw kettle on. It would cycle as you describe. New pulley required, not expensive at around £35 from Ed Shiers. Been perfect ever since. i think it is highly unlikely to be the Victron. obviously first step is to check the belt tension and for any contamination (oil etc) on the belt. Make sure the correct polyvee section belt has been used. That’s interesting I don’t think there is a free wheel on it. But I don’t know how old it is. I didn’t think it was the inverter but I’ll plug him into my generator tmw to hopefully eliminate the inverter. Then I’ll try tensioning the belt and see where that gets him. The freewheel isn’t “obvious” as it’s invisibly built into the pulley. But yes of course, older ones probably don’t have it. In our case, the freewheel would slip, then when it engaged again, obviously the alternator had slowed down a lot so the sudden load on the belt caused it to momentarily slip and screech.
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Post by kris on May 1, 2020 21:24:14 GMT
That’s interesting I don’t think there is a free wheel on it. But I don’t know how old it is. I didn’t think it was the inverter but I’ll plug him into my generator tmw to hopefully eliminate the inverter. Then I’ll try tensioning the belt and see where that gets him. The freewheel isn’t “obvious” as it’s invisibly built into the pulley. But yes of course, older ones probably don’t have it. In our case, the freewheel would slip, then when it engaged again, obviously the alternator had slowed down a lot so the sudden load on the belt caused it to momentarily slip and screech. I’ll have a closer look tmw.
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Post by kris on May 2, 2020 14:55:08 GMT
So it didn’t happen today for looking at the inverter. But this is the kind of travel power unit it is
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Post by lollygagger on May 2, 2020 15:20:07 GMT
There’s a boater moored near me at the moment who is having problems with his travel power unit. The belt wasn’t right so he had an RCR engineer out who fitted a new belt. Shorter than the original as he said the original was too long ( I wonder if it just happened to be the one he had on the van.) Anyway now when the travel power travel kicks in powering up the victron inverter charger, it flicks into bulk charge mode for a little while. Then the belt squeals and the power drops out. If left to it’s own devices it just keeps cycling through this. He’s had another “engineer” look at it who has told him it’s a problem with the victron inverter charger and it needs replacing? This sounds wrong to me, I would have thought the issue is with belt, possibly tension or enlinement. Anyway I intend to test the inverter charger for him, but thought I’d ask on here if anybody has any ideas. On our one, 2009 vintage, there is a freewheel on the Travelpower pulley. Like a sprag clutch. On ours, it started slipping under heavy load eg when I put the 2kw kettle on. It would cycle as you describe. New pulley required, not expensive at around £35 from Ed Shiers. Been perfect ever since. i think it is highly unlikely to be the Victron. obviously first step is to check the belt tension and for any contamination (oil etc) on the belt. Make sure the correct polyvee section belt has been used. I've read through the posts again and realised I can't be sure whether you mean the pulley(s) on the engine or on the alternator(s)?
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