Home Forums General Discussion Technical Questions MCE battery lowering issue

Found this issue on a couple of MCE controllers... not sure if this is actually an issue or just how it operates which to me would be wierd if this is normal...

I have a couple customers with MCE controllers from about 10-20 years ago... so early 2000s. each have battery lowering (i believe its a reynolds and reynolds make) which consists of 2 batteries, transformer and a single board to operate it all... We discovered this issue during a state test in which the inspector wrote up the battery lowering for not working properly.

What happens is when you switch to battery lowering (jump the disconnect switch, kill power with car running down in between floors) the controller dies out, then the battery backup board lights up and the controller comes to life. This is where I can not say if this is normal for MCE or not because I don't have many like this but at this point when the controller kicks on with battery power the car lowers maybe an inch or so then the controller dies again, a couple seconds later the controller reboots on battery again and the car does the same thing. I was able to get past the test by waiting until the car got into levelling and was close enough to the landing it would make it there rather quickly although it would still do this on and off sort of sequence....even when it would make floor level and the doors would open up it would do it - the doors would open a little ways and the controller would crap out then come back on and the doors would continue opening like that until fully open.

I have tried replacing the batteries and even the reynolds board. ive worked with tech support and have found them to not be so helpful and almost seeming like they are just shooting in the dark with possible solutions.

im wondering if anyone had a similar issue (or if anyone knows this is normal), if anyone has any recommendations on what could potentially be causing this (ie. a separate power supply maybe?), or any more info on it - im able to get by my state tests but my concern is eventually ill have an inspector who will notice how we are doing it and more importantly that if there is ever a situation where this is needed that it may cause a serious emergency for a passenger.

Appreciate any help.

I installed (beta test site) h2000. The battery lowering didn't last a year/before batteries needed replaced.
Check the basics,
New batteries will need to charge sometimes.
Check battery voltage/Check out of charging system.
What is output of inverter(120)

Is there a parameter setting for Battery Lowering in the MCE program? (Y or N)
Symptomatically it sounds like “low battery” but your RR control board would probably flag an LED warning you of that.
Is there an adjustable pot on the RR board to monitor input voltage during rescue?
And are these lowering units add ons or are the prints showing these options?

Let us know the specs batteries

two batteries are 12V 8ah each

Sounds like something is draining the batteries/asking for more volts than what is available. Agreed if it was low charge, R&R unit should show the fault. I would try monitoring the voltage output while it is in emergency lower.

Potentially bad setting for emergency power as well, if my old memory of the MCE controller is correct, the controller does an initial boot up process, 30-45 seconds, before clipping the starter contacts as being available to run....sorta sounds like your timeline, so if on the query to get the starter ready, it finds no incoming three phase, restarts that whole cycle again like an initial power loss.

On the R&R unit, are there “status” LED’s? LOB is “low battery”.
Does this a R&R unit have a system test button? If so, have you tried it?
Does the R&R unit have a sticker which lists battery type? 12V 12Ah? (You mentioned 8Ah)
Do these units have a battery disconnect switch?

The batteries are actually 12v, 6AH, not 8AH. And they don’t come with a battery disconnect switch. You have to have an external disconnect switch which is required by code.