kelpbeds
Free Member
Follow on from 'leisure battery confusion' post.
It was all going well, got the relay in (after having found switched live) which worked perfectly and fired everything up (feeling very pleased at this point). The Sterling started okay so I checked how many amps it was delivering. Started at 14a, nice, then dropped to around 6a, not so good. I checked how much charge was in the starter battery (as the Sterling wouldn't give it power unless it needed it)and the BM1 battery condition meter said 75% so I figured the Sterling should be giving it more amps than that.
So I had a think.
1. I'm now on one 95ah battery (temporarily) whereas before I was on 2 x 115ah plus the auxillary battery i.e. 3 leisure batteries. Does this make a difference to how much the Sterling chucks out?
2. I also realised that I had only used 27amp wire to connect the Sterling to the leisure battery so I changed this for 110amp stuff and moved the Sterling back right next to the leisure batteries to eliminate length of wire and thickness. But the result was the same. Battery at 75%, fire up engine, Sterling whacks up to around 14amps then gradually goes down to 6amps.
I've also checked that the BM1 is setup correctly i.e. I have told it that the battery is 95ah, so it is correct when it reads 75% charge. Oh and I took out the relay to try it with this in and without, but didn't make any difference.
I am hoping this is just because I have changed from 3 batteries to 1 but I'm not sure. Before when the 3 batteries were at 75% charge and with the engine ticking over, the Sterling would pump out a constant charge of around 14amps.
What's going on now!? Help Jon please! :Blush:
Thanks
Tim
It was all going well, got the relay in (after having found switched live) which worked perfectly and fired everything up (feeling very pleased at this point). The Sterling started okay so I checked how many amps it was delivering. Started at 14a, nice, then dropped to around 6a, not so good. I checked how much charge was in the starter battery (as the Sterling wouldn't give it power unless it needed it)and the BM1 battery condition meter said 75% so I figured the Sterling should be giving it more amps than that.
So I had a think.
1. I'm now on one 95ah battery (temporarily) whereas before I was on 2 x 115ah plus the auxillary battery i.e. 3 leisure batteries. Does this make a difference to how much the Sterling chucks out?
2. I also realised that I had only used 27amp wire to connect the Sterling to the leisure battery so I changed this for 110amp stuff and moved the Sterling back right next to the leisure batteries to eliminate length of wire and thickness. But the result was the same. Battery at 75%, fire up engine, Sterling whacks up to around 14amps then gradually goes down to 6amps.
I've also checked that the BM1 is setup correctly i.e. I have told it that the battery is 95ah, so it is correct when it reads 75% charge. Oh and I took out the relay to try it with this in and without, but didn't make any difference.
I am hoping this is just because I have changed from 3 batteries to 1 but I'm not sure. Before when the 3 batteries were at 75% charge and with the engine ticking over, the Sterling would pump out a constant charge of around 14amps.
What's going on now!? Help Jon please! :Blush:
Thanks
Tim