Dead battery ! (1 Viewer)

[Jaws]

Absolutely NO idea what has happened but was doing something unrelated when I noticed the cab vanity light was dim

Checked the voltage.. battery completely collapsed !! 8.8v in fact so proly completely banjaxed

Absolutely NO idea why is should have gone .. ran a quick check and only draw is the alarm .. a few mA.. And I was using the van two days ago !!

the battery is 4 years old so I guess it has just reached its sell by date ..

Have it on charge tonight and will see what it does tomorrow but suspect it will have to be replaced

 

[pappajohn]

sounds like an internal short circuit John, so keep an eye on it when its charging...it may overheat.

8.8v is beyond dead...its truly mummified.

cut your losses and get a new one.

 

[Jaws]

Yup.. agree about it being unwell, but def no short.. Even sticking a 100mA charge on it ( I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to weird battery goings on ) it was up to 12.2 volts within 15 minutes

Rather than a short I have a sneaky feeling one of the connector bars between cells has failed.
Making contact but only just sort of thing..

Anyways, just upped the charge rate to 4 amps and still ok so will just have to wait until tomorrow to see what it does..

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[Landy lover]

Do what I do Jaws let it charge for a couple of hours then shove 80amps through it for a few seconds - do that every 5 mins for an hour and it will either be very good or in orbit

 

[Jaws]

LOL !!!
Okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
Well I have an 80Ah genny fitted so if it takes a charge at all I shall spin it over and wack in a big one up its bum !!

 

[Snowbird]

Have recovered a few batteries of late but have never been able to get one back if it started below 11.5. Even with my gismo, if its below 11.5 its terminal.

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[Jaws]

have to agree

In a previous life I did an extended course in traction battery maintenance and charging..
Still remember all the gassing figures, the optimum specific gravity figures etc etc etc, and still have the kit to desulphate cells etc..
Unless something was pulling it down ( cos they can deep discharge and recover IF they are not simply left ) I reckon I will be off to the battery shop !

 

[Jaws]

Welll.. the mystery deepens

Battery has fully recovered.. Even chunked it with the digi battery tester and it held no problem at all..

Checked for current draw ( again ) and it is still just a few mA and nothing of concern

Now this might sounf fine to some but I bet like me there are a few out there saying bugger !!

The reason.. No fault found

Nothing worse than having a problem and not having a cause

Will spend the day trying to make the battery die now !

 

[Tkly]

Senior Moment

Got to work yesterday and left the sidelights on. Go to start the van to go home and there was not even enough power to work the imobaliser!!!
Checked the battery and only had 3.5v (OH s**t)buggered the battery, got someone to give me a jump start, still thinking need to get new battery. Went home 8 miles then swimbo decided we had to go and see friends, went out thinking if it does not start at least it is on a hill and can bump start it, no Ivy started first turn of the key and the same this morning. I think I need to make an offering to the Patron Saint of batteries if anyone knows who that is.

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[aba]

as was said earlier they can sometimes recover from a total discharge if its not left like that.
but all depends on how low it got and how long you left it and how healthy it was before.

 

[ourcampersbeentrashed]

We will bring the heavy duty jump leads xxxxx

 

[Tkly]

My jump leads can jump start a Tank had them made when in Rough Engineering Made Easy

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[MitchandJenny]

TKLY

When did you leave REME ? I left in 1987 after 25 years.
Mitch

 

[Jaws]

Should have updated this tother day...

All loaded up and ready to go to Waldergraves

Hit the go button and dash went out.. Completely and absolutely dead

A quick check showed a couple of volts

Tried a jump.. nothing I had was really man enough and Darrell had the proper jump leads with him

Tried a starter pack.. turned over twice and then that went futt

Sooooooooooooo

Started removing the battery .. First job is to remove the bloody cruise control unit

Next, undo the battery clamps

Remove the negative terminal clamp

Started to remove the +ve terminal clamp and it just did not feel right

( For anyone with a prefacelift Pug you will KNOW how much fun this job is at best of times )

Decided to wangle it about a bit, and then refit the -ve line

Poxy thing fired up straight away !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sooooooo, slapped it all back together, washed hands and off we went

Then..............

Noticed one of the camera'a was not working

Poo.. checked the fridge.. no 12v feed

Looked on the infopanel

Volts coming from cab battery.... Zero.. zilch.. nadda .. squit all !!

Sod it.. kept going any way

Got to Waldergraves and dug out the meter

Started checking back and guess what ?
Actually on the multi terminal on the battery there is a 50 amp fuse mounted that feeds the hab section

Looks like when I used the starter pack I hooked it on one end of the ruddy fuse !!

About 30 minutes of fiddling about ( and making a fuse from a section of wire ) and all was working again

Now so far nothing too painful either fiscally or physically

Went to use the sat and guess what
The sodding sat control box has gone by by's
Ok, had a feeling it was on the way out as it kept on doing pretty weird stuff ( like finding non-existent sats, like forgetting to seek when first started up, like suddenly wandering off on its own for no apparent reason ! ) ) but still ouch !

Suddenly said fiscal side of things has got REAL painful indeed.. £600 painful in fact

Only up side is that it has given me a good excuse to upgrade the thing to a Vision II controller which means any further messing around by BBC will be of little or no consequence

 

[Chris]

Well, the only bit of that I understood was it's going to cost you £600 so hard luck with that.

I think I might need a crash course on electrics.

Not even sure where e battery is on my vanoh:

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[Tkly]

Jenny and Mitch

Left med discharge May 97 after 20 years but thats life, now flying a desk for a living :Sad:. Still get my hands dirty with my hobbies.

 

[Jaws]

Well, the only bit of that I understood was it's going to cost you £600 so hard luck with that.

I think I might need a crash course on electrics.

Not even sure where e battery is on my vanoh:

Dunno if you are going down to Zahora at all but I am gonna be running a really basic course for total beginners down there..
How to use a multi meter, what to look for.. all that sort of thing

But if not are you doing any of the shows next year ? I can give you some decent basics in about an hour or so .. certainly enough to get you well on the way to understanding whats what and where ! :thumb:

 

[Chris]

Dunno if you are going down to Zahora at all but I am gonna be running a really basic course for total beginners down there..
How to use a multi meter, what to look for.. all that sort of thing

But if not are you doing any of the shows next year ? I can give you some decent basics in about an hour or so .. certainly enough to get you well on the way to understanding whats what and where ! :thumb:

Not going to Zahora but will make some of the shows. Thanks for the offer.

I hope you are patient!!

Cheers

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[Jaws]

I am when it comes to this sort of thing :thumb:

Scotty is organising some small cheap multimeters for folk as well..

You will be surprised at how far you can get with just basic info !