Ranger Mods

Hey all
I was running LLA LED headlights for a while in my PX2 and I'll be honest, I didn't like them. On the weekend I changed them all back to some Narva globes. Now I've gone and double checked all the connections, everything is tight but all headlights, highbeam and the interior lamp all "pulse". Everything will be fine for about 4 seconds then they'll be a pulse then it goes back to normal for 4 to 6 seconds.

I'll get the Forscan on tomorrow to see if theres an error code that might be able to add some more information.

Bit odd that everything will pulse like that - it's a 2017XLT with maybe 45thou on it so it certainly couldn't be the alternator already. And yes, the battery was replaced about 5 months ago, it's still good.

You could try a reset
Remove the earth from the battery for a minute then connect and try it

Ok so I tried the earth reset - same problem. Did some digging around, removed the RedArc1240 and bam...no more problem.
So that's going to be an issue...checked the main redarc feed - it's not getting hot, fuse is good. I checked the earth on that, no problems.

I've sent off an email to Redarc - see if they can provide some ideas on this problem.

I am running a redarc 1225 to aux battery on my 2016xlt and also feeding a 1240 on the caravan with no headlight problems.

Also running a 1240 Redarc in my '17 XLT with no problems.

Redarc have outstanding customer service. I'll be interested to hear what they say.

Yep Redarc got in-touch with me. Tried the following:
1. Connected a jumper cable from the ground on the Redarc through to the ground on the starter battery - no change
2. Disconnected the Victron MPPT from the system to rule out that - no change

While doing work last night, I had my topper lights on which are LED strips and they were pulsing as well. So that's the entire electrical system pulsing which is really weird. Here's the thing - I didn't see anything like it with AGM battery. What if the internal BMS for the LiPo is throwing out some kind of weird signal and mucking up the system?

Anyway - still going through some more testing.

So update
Redarc rep has been really good. We've done a lot of fault finding, isolating items off the circuit however there hasn't been any result. We've even tried changing the charging profile back to AGM (It's just 14.6 rather than 14.5 volts) which didn't do anything.

Contacted the battery seller today, ran one of their techs through the entire event. Mentioned that I was watching the BMS app of the battery and the BMS was turning on charge mode, getting hit with 40amps from the redarc then turning off every 6 to 8 seconds. I'm used to seeing AGM batteries slowing down and only taking a little charge when getting near float. Battery guy agreed, wants me to take the battery out, put it on a bench and hook up a 12v 240v mains charger to it (which I've got) and monitor the BMS, see if it does the same thing and try to take all the available amps off the charger. Will be doing that sometime tomorrow.

It's all still a toss up between redarc, lithium BMS and maybe even the alternator not being able to supply the entire vehicle.

So my van has a 200A lithium and 40A redarc. It's hooked up to the car as I'm using it and it's still dark out so I did a test.

I have a switch in the front of the van to turn the 40 charger off/on. Watching the number plate lights of the car there is a flicker when the redarc starts/stops charge. But there is nothing wrong with my system, I charged while travelling on Monday, 40A for 3 hrs.

Your problem seems to be the battery is not accepting the 40A charge.

Hey everyone - old post but I wanted everyone to get an update incase someone has something in the future similar to this. Turns out it was the BMS within the lithium that was causing all the issues.

One off BMS issue or the brand of BMS causing the symptom?

saeb wrote: ↑Sat Apr 23, 2022 10:00 am One off BMS issue or the brand of BMS causing the symptom?

It was a Daly 100amp BMS inbuilt into the battery pack. Because it was replaced under warranty, I didn't open up the casing to see the model/version. Buddy of mine bought one exactly the same time but didn't have this particular issue. He did have a Redarc as well but the 50amp unit. I've now also got his battery in my car along with the newer one for a total of 340amps of lithium off-grid powwwer!

Gotta be the weirest issue I've ever had with a newer style electrical system. Technically it wasn't ever supposed to do that. That all being said, I should of understood the problem when looking at the BMS app on my phone you could see it flicking on/off for the charging profile.