Leisure Batteries, Draining???? (1 Viewer)

[pelliott1954]

Hi All,

I have a 2007 Autotrail Cheyenne 635SE, only purchased late last year and only used once, had it standing all Winter and had it on charge most of the time to keep Batts charged up.
I took it out for a Drive last week and parked up for an hour at a friends house and when I went back the system was showing the leisure battery dead flat, it wouldn't even power one light.
I did notice once when first learning about the systems that the Display over the door showed a Battery drain of 5 or 6 amps even with nothing switched on, I pressed the midddle right hand arrow on the display and the unit recallibrated itself and seemed ok.
I have had the battery checked and have added another 85 amp battery in parallel and have just noticed that although the battery is showing 11.9 Volts, it also shows a drain of 2 to 3 amps with only the 12v lights on, is this too high a drain??? what is normal for three internal lights?
Also is it normal for the display to sometimes need recalibrating from a minus figure back to nil when all is switched off?? and lastly the battery amperage moves to a positive figure when I connect the cable to the mains, am I right in assuming this is the chraging rate??

Can anyone help please, I am still very much a novice!!!

Paul

 

[jonandshell]

11.9v= discharged battery!
12.6-12.8v= charged battery!

Hope this helps. It sounds like your original is goosed!

 

[magicsurfbus]

Amps = Watts/Volts

A single 16 Watt fluorescent tube running on 12v will consume:

16 Watts/12 Volts = 1.3 Amps per hour

Maybe you should check the wattage on all your lights and calculate the drain on your battery.

This is one of the reasons I switched all my internal lights over to LEDs, which consume very little in terms of Watts, although the lights themselves can be costly.

As for your rapid drainage problem, is it possible the battery is in poor shape from earlier use, possibly discharging during winter? Another thing that can put a small constant drain on a leisure battery is a 240v inverter, even when it's not in use. However I don't think that explains your power loss. A healthy fully charged battery should be producing a current in excess of 12v - my leisure battery reads 13.75v when fully charged by the solar panel on the roof.

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[lunarman]

Hi Paul,

I sure others will post the exact figures but I think that a battery showing 11.9volts is virtually flat, a fully charged battery should show 13.9+ volts.

As for the lighting discharge if the bulbs are the small halogen type then each of these draws about .9 amp so if you have 3 switched on then the discharge would be nearly 3 amps.

Lunarman

 

[mike mcglynn]

Leisure battery

Hi, Paul I have the same model as you, mine is a 2006 shortly after I had bought mine from the dealer 2nd, hand my bttery wouldnt hold a charge for very long and there was a strong smell coming from the battery and after investigation I found that the battery was dry and I had virtually cooked:shout: it so check that its fully topped up and test it also you can recalibrate the display screen by disconnecting from the power for a few minutes the surround is gently pushed to the left this will release the module and you will see the wire connectors try this first before spending out any money. I now have two new batteries connected together "with the kit fom autotrail "the connection is already in your van should you wish to go down this road someone more knowledgeable will soon give you technical advice :thumb:

 

[Wildman]

hi a number of points raised here.
1) if it is a lead/acid battry was it kept topped up?
2)By adding a second good battery to a bad one you will effectively kill the second one.
3) if you have an alarm that could drain the system quite quickly.
4) When you say it has been on charge all winter do you mean the engine battery or the leisure battery, most systems charge them seperately and you would have to switch between them unless you have gadget fitted to manage both.
5) 2-3 amps seems high for a couple of small lights what wattage are they? If you switch them off does the drain stop? I suspect something else is running like an alarm or radio on standby, TV antenna booster etc.
how was it on charge, mains or Solar power? There are members here with that model who can advise on specific switch positions. Changing lights to LED will help but suspect both batteries are now dead. Try taking them off and charging indoors then check 24 hours after coming off charge to see what charge you have left.

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[pelliott1954]

Thanks everyone for the replies so far, I have checked the water levels in the old batt and all cells had water in but looked a little low so have been topped up, batt was showing 12.1(Good) but showing a discharge of Minus 23.8 amps, this went back to Nil when I pressed the middle button again to recalibrate.
The lights appear to be taking 1.1 amp each so I guess from some of the replies this is about right.

I had both batteries tested last week and the old one was said to be"OK" but not as healthy as the new one, will some use bring it back to full capacity I wonder as I don't think batteries like prolonged periods of inactivity, nor perhaps being left on charge for long periods??

I believe my system charges only the leisure battery although I am not certain, as I have never had to charge the vehicle battery at all and there is an alarm to power which has been on all the time which I would think would be powered by the vehicle battery??

I have now put it back on charge with both leisure batts connected, then the Display shows over 14 Volts.

Paul

 

[Stephen & Jeannie]

This happened to me !!!

Look in the left hand locker behind the driving position. There is a little black box that is the entertainment controller, on it on either side are 2 rocker switches if you put these into the off position and then turn the control off above the door then you should get a zero current display !! :thumb: