Advice on charging batteries over winter please

[Revolvor]

To charge my leisure batteries I have a CTEK D250s combined MPPT solar charger and B2B. I also have a Vanbitz Battery Master to charge the van battery.

My van is parked on the north side of our house and the solar panels don't see much sun in the winter.

In order to keep the batteries charged I bought a CTEK XS 0.8 maintenance charger.

Initially I set it to charge the leisure battery, and it settled at the following charging voltage:
Leisure batteries -13.4v
Van batteries - 12.7v
I was worried that the 12.7v was too low.

I then set it to charge the van battery, with the B2B charging the leisure batteries:. It settled at:
Van battery - 13.2v
Leisure batteries 14.1v

Which setup is going to be the best for the batteries, or should I charge leisure and van batteries separately? ( Disconnect the B2B)

Thanks, John

 

[gerry mcg]

What is the chemistry of your starter and leisure batteries?
Starter battery is normally a flooded lead acid, leisure could be gel / AGM / lithium / flooded lead acid, etc.
The charge / maintenance and resting voltages are dependent on the battery chemistry

 

[Revolvor]

What is the chemistry of your starter and leisure batteries?
Starter battery is normally a flooded lead acid, leisure could be gel / AGM / lithium / flooded lead acid, etc.
The charge / maintenance and resting voltages are dependent on the battery chemistry

Sorry - I should have said - all batteries are flooded lead acid. Leisure batteries 2x 100Ah, both 5 years old, with no obvious signs of needing replacing. Van battery about 3 years old.

I did wonder if it's asking too much of the CTEK maintenance charger to manage 3 batteries at once, with the loads of alarm, tracker, flashing lights etc?

 

[gerry mcg]

i think 12.7v on the starter battery is OK - especially if it is getting a trickle feed from the leisure battery via the Battery master to maintain this even accounting for parasitic drain such as alarm etc.
It sounds like when the charger is connected via the Leisure battery, it is charging these as per its charging profile below

This is the charging profile that a Votronic B2B would apply to a Leisure battery if it were working …so an short (2-6hr) initial high voltage of 14.4V, then dropping to 13.5V.

 

[599]

hi. if you park outside of your house what's wrong with using the inboard 12v charger that's what we do when we bringing it off storage to load up before a trip .val

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[Revolvor]

i think 12.7v on the starter battery is OK - especially if it is getting a trickle feed from the leisure battery via the Battery master to maintain this even accounting for parasitic drain such as alarm etc.
It sounds like when the charger is connected via the Leisure battery, it is charging these as per its charging profile below
View attachment 564745
This is the charging profile that a Votronic B2B would apply to a Leisure battery if it were working …so an short (2-6hr) initial high voltage of 14.4V, then dropping to 13.5V.

View attachment 564746

Thank you very much. I think I will revert to putting the maintenance charger on the leisure batteries, and rely on the battery master to charge the van battery.

 

[Revolvor]

hi. if you park outside of your house what's wrong with using the inboard 12v charger that's what we do when we bringing it off storage to load up before a trip .val

I don't think the Sargent charger is very "intelligent", so I would rather rely on the 6-stage CTEK charger in the winter. In the summer, the solar panels keep all batteries fully charged.

 

[599]

hi . solar panels are ok in the summer or Spain in the winter but struggle to get much with these last few weeks weather we have had .
even parked up they use electric & soon can run a battery down . bill had to go & sweep the snow off the panels to keep things topped up because its on storage you are lucky . val

 

[DavidG58]

What is the chemistry of your starter and leisure batteries?
Starter battery is normally a flooded lead acid, leisure could be gel / AGM / lithium / flooded lead acid, etc.
The charge / maintenance and resting voltages are dependent on the battery chemistry

That query might just have identified my own issue

Starter battery has failed after 5 years, not too concerned about that and will buy a new one, but we leave our MH on permanent hook up. The on board charger is set to gel to match the hab batteries , but also charges the cab battery

Now wondering if this isn’t good

 

[deleted79651]

Hoping to get an Ablemail AMT 12-2 Battery Conditioner fitted on Tuesday. Has dedicated Lithium profiles and fires up to 3A pulsed Trickle Charge to the Starter Battery to protect the latter, leaving the Lithium to 'catch up' via Solar Panel charging later. Should protect the ECU!

Steve

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