kelpbeds
Free Member
Some of you may remember reading my posts on problems with leisure batteries and my Webasto diesel heater.
Well I am very pleased to say that it is all sorted now!
The final thing that sorted it was connecting the leisure batteries direct to the fuse of the Webasto with a heavier duty cable.
My setup now is as follows. I put the two old leisure batteries under the passenger seat and the 2 traction batteries under the single seat by the door. The traction batteries are charged solely by the Sterling Charger, there is a relay which isolates the traction batteries from the rest of the caravan electrics when the ignition is running, so the traction batteries get full love from the Sterling.
Batteries are sealed in the box you can see and vented to the floor via 2 washing machine pipes bought from Wickes. I also put a 12v computer fan underneath, where one pipe finishes, to extract the hydrogen away from the van.
The cables coming out of the box are all sealed via some grommets from Maplins which are Araldited in.
The big test came on a snowboarding trip to the Alps last week. Temperatures dropped to -20 degrees overnight. Heating ran 24 hours a day for the first 3 days - no issues at all. Then had to move van couple of times over next 3 days meaning 1 hour or so of charge and heater continued to run without issues. 90w solar panel gave good charge on sunny days.
It was a lot of work and head scratching to get it sorted but was well worth getting it right. Many thanks to all those who helped me especially Jon whose advice and telephone support was invaluable - top chap!
Hope the information is of use to someone else in getting the most out of their diesel heater. Happy to answer any questions
Tim
Well I am very pleased to say that it is all sorted now!
The final thing that sorted it was connecting the leisure batteries direct to the fuse of the Webasto with a heavier duty cable.
My setup now is as follows. I put the two old leisure batteries under the passenger seat and the 2 traction batteries under the single seat by the door. The traction batteries are charged solely by the Sterling Charger, there is a relay which isolates the traction batteries from the rest of the caravan electrics when the ignition is running, so the traction batteries get full love from the Sterling.
Batteries are sealed in the box you can see and vented to the floor via 2 washing machine pipes bought from Wickes. I also put a 12v computer fan underneath, where one pipe finishes, to extract the hydrogen away from the van.
The cables coming out of the box are all sealed via some grommets from Maplins which are Araldited in.
The big test came on a snowboarding trip to the Alps last week. Temperatures dropped to -20 degrees overnight. Heating ran 24 hours a day for the first 3 days - no issues at all. Then had to move van couple of times over next 3 days meaning 1 hour or so of charge and heater continued to run without issues. 90w solar panel gave good charge on sunny days.
It was a lot of work and head scratching to get it sorted but was well worth getting it right. Many thanks to all those who helped me especially Jon whose advice and telephone support was invaluable - top chap!
Hope the information is of use to someone else in getting the most out of their diesel heater. Happy to answer any questions
Tim