disconnecting leisure battery with solar panel - is it safe? (1 Viewer)

[TheLifeofBrian]

Hi all,
first night away at Stratford on Saturday & the leisure battery was completely flat when we came back from watching 'Peter Kay' so we had to start the engine just to get a light on!!
We have a solar panel & that was working fine a few weeks ago but now I'm getting 14+ volts in the morning but down to 10v by the evening with nothing switched on (that I can find).
I want to disconnect the leisure battery and charge & test it but will the solar panel be OK or do I have to turn something off first - obviously I won't let the terminal touch anything!

cheers
Chris

 

[KimSteve]

I did notice that too after greeting it but I did email Sargent and they said it was fine but not sure how

They are fitted and it seems to all work

Yes vented to out side the vehicle through the battery box, no point in vent a battery into the habitation area

do the cables get warm in use?

 

[RM_Marine]

I have to admit I don't know, I haven't seen, smelt and felt anything, when working on the wiring.

I was in the van on Thursday and all seemed good

If I did I know I would need to upgrade the wiring as stated in a earlier feed on here

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[RM_Marine]

Is that experience of AGM batteries or from research? The reason I ask is I've just bought one
I read a lot about them and they seem better than wet batteries and similar to Gel for holding voltage & taking loads.
The solar panel seems to all be working OK and the charger on hook up and also the alternator so hopefully it was just the battery!
My son has a Halfords trade card so I did get the 20% off - partly why I went for the more expensive battery.
It's worth pointing out that you don't get discount off everything with a trade card, I bought a new bike chain and that was the same price, I think it just covers service parts & tools mainly - if you have an AA card you get 10% off everything though!

thanks again everyone for your help

But you do get 10% off everything if you have a blue light card or armed forces card

 

[KimSteve]

I have to admit I don't know, I haven't seen, smelt and felt anything, when working on the wiring.

I was in the van on Thursday and all seemed good

If I did I know I would need to upgrade the wiring as stated in a earlier feed on here

if the cables are not getting warm then it's a decent indication that the cable size is ok

 

[Budgie 27]

I've disconnected the positive feed from the solar panel and took the negative terminal off the battery and it's not looking good 8.5 volts
Now its on a charger for 30 mins or so & I'll see if the voltage drops like a brick when I take it off charge.

The question now is GEL battery or not?

Why do you have to disconnect the solor power to connect a battery charger? The battery will obsurb the current.

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[Reallyretired]

With it in circuit the input voltage from the panel should be around 17 to 22v and the output when charging should gradually rise to 14.4v and when charged drop to 13.8v.

Good point about the regulator Lennie. I have this very one and it's working fine. Its big advantage to me is that it is a proper dual battery one and can be set to prioritise the vehicle battery whereas most seem to allow max 1A charge. In the winter while in storage it is the vehicle battery that's doing all the work, alarm tracker etc and that needs the lions share of what little charge there is.

 

[Lenny HB]

Good point about the regulator Lennie. I have this very one and it's working fine. Its big advantage to me is that it is a proper dual battery one and can be set to prioritise the vehicle battery whereas most seem to allow max 1A charge. In the winter while in storage it is the vehicle battery that's doing all the work, alarm tracker etc and that needs the lions share of what little charge there is.

I have a Votronic that has only 1amp charge to the starter battery it's more than enough to keep the battery fully topped up all year round.

 

[TheLifeofBrian]

Why do you have to disconnect the solor power to connect a battery charger? The battery will obsurb the current.

it wasn't to connect a charger - I wanted to change the battery.
I was just checking it wouldn't damage any part of the solar or charging system and it didn't.
This was on my last van a year ago by the way