Had an excellent night , then no electricity!

colyboy

colyboy

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spent a very pleasant night at the famouse Bridgwater Carnival and the night in Morrisons carpark only to find leisure batteries were flat in the morning, No heating or lights on during the night. After driving the 60 miles plus to here the batteries did not look full HELP

The two leisure batteries are both two years old. Checked to see if we had left any thing on like taps etc. Loooks kike the solar panels are charging .

What to look for next?

How can I check the batteries?

Colyboy
 
Have you got a garage?

I once accidently knocked the light switch in there.

Is your ammeter showing a discharge? If so, you may have a short circuit somewhere. Pull each fuse in the fusebox till discharge stops, in order to identify the faulty circuit.
 
Should've had a genny.
Get the batteries recharged asap.
 
Driving for 60 miles won't fully recharge your batteries, you need to hook them up to mains for at least 24 hours to get anything back into them and hopefully they'll still work okay.

Do you know what the levels were during the daytime? Were you just assuming your solar would keep them charges up? With less sunlight etc, they may not depending on usage and how much solar you've got.
 
Before I left home the van was on hook up, then drove 60 miles to Bridgwater. Just driven about two miles to do some shopping .Showing 13.0 have left heating ticking over and have a look at it on about an hour.

Colyboy

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If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got !

Leisure batteries do not perform well in the cold even when fully charged, well maintained and at full capacity. It's difficult to understand from your post what knowledge you have about leisure batteries and in particular the ones you have fitted. As a starting point, I would suggest getting a multi meter and measuring their present status. I suspect they are flat! If so you may be able to recover them by charging with decent intelligent charger over 24 hrs, then disconnect, allow to rest for a few hours and measure again. However, as I said in my opening sentence if you just carry on as before your going to get the same results. Never let batteries discharge below 50% of their total capacity and understand how they are performing when off hook up. Sounds to me as if you need a lot more solar as one thing is for certain your taking more out than your putting in.
There is loads of threads on here about battery to battery chargers, solar panels, intelligent chargers and leisure batteries.
 
colyboy said:
Before I left home the van was on hook up, then drove 60 miles to Bridgwater. Just driven about two miles to do some shopping .Showing 13.0 have left heating ticking over and have a look at it on about an hour.

Colyboy
Click to expand...
Is the 13.0 whilst they are on hook-up?
 
If the battery has been heavily discharged you probably need a charger with a desulphation stage. Some intelligent chargers have this stage but not all.
 
If your batteries are flooded lead acid and can be topped up check the levels, it wouldn't be the first time that a battery had run dry(y)

Martin
 
Hi Paul, did you leave heating on while at the carnival , that might have discharged them
 
What type of charge unit do you have?. Older units are only designed to keep the charge and you need an "intelligent" charger to get them back to a fully charged state. Get the batteries checked out, if you have one "dud" cell it will bring down the whole bank. Anything less that about 12.6Volts after an overnight charge and standing for up to an hour before test indicates battery issues.
 
colyboy said:
Showing 13.0
Click to expand...
Is this a measurement with a meter at the battery terminals, or a number on the display panel?

If you're trying to find the problem when there might be a fault somewhere, you need to get a multimeter and measure the voltage on the actual battery terminals.

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I had an interesting chat with the operator of an AA Battery Service van the orher day. He had been called out by my neighbour.

He said they were no longer recommending the use of battery maintainers, other than on new batteries, because they were disguising sulphation problems. It seems that when batteries are heavily discharged the plates can become part sulphated. When they are charged up they can reach and maintain full voltage, using the parts of the plates that have not been affected. However, the capacity of the battery is much reduced and whilst it may work ok in day to day use, it can easily fail when anything heavy is demanded of it having no depth of charge. I believe the same applies to leisure batteries, they appear ok and fully charged but rapidly run out of puff (a bit like many people of my age).

He went on to say sulphated batteries can sometimes be rescued by a charger with desulphation settings. This involves pulses of higher voltage that knock the sulphates off the plates. It appears that many chargers, intelligent ones included, do not have desulphation phases. Bulk, float and maintenance phases alone will not cure sulphation. Perhaps there are a good many that think they have 70ah or 100ah stored away but really it is only a fraction of this.
 
Had a very useful chat with VanBitz on the phone this morning. They suggested the following~

1. Charge batteries for 12 hours

2. Disconnect the two batteries (power and neg terminals) on batteries

3. Use a multi meter, check voltage both should read over 12.7

4. Re check voltage after another 12 hours. Reading should NOT. Be below 12.5

5. If less than 12.5 battery/batteries will need to be replaced.

Colyboy
 
At (2) also disconnect the batteries from each other.
At (3) & (4), voltages should be the same foe both batteries.
 
colyboy said:
Had a very useful chat with VanBitz on the phone this morning. They suggested the following~

1. Charge batteries for 12 hours

2. Disconnect the two batteries (power and neg terminals) on batteries

3. Use a multi meter, check voltage both should read over 12.7

4. Re check voltage after another 12 hours. Reading should NOT. Be below 12.5

5. If less than 12.5 battery/batteries will need to be replaced.

Colyboy
Click to expand...
And.......

Did you do as suggested.

If so what we're the results

If not, why not... You asked for, and got, help.

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@pappajohn I was wondering too. for the first time ever our power went down and knocked off John's CPAP we have 2 batteries and Solar and had just had 24 hours on hook up. However one of our batteries is external under the side skirt although the other is inside. Short of putting in a smaller fresh water tank and utilising the gained space can't think of anywhere to put another inside don't think there is enough room under the passenger seat as we thought of that when we had the second battery fitted. The tool box could be relocated in the garage. Batteries are almost 4 years old so may be ready for new ones.
 
I cannot remember what your front seat looks like but it could be worth a look. However may I warn you the seats can be very heavy to lift out.
Have you managed to get power back up and running?
 
rosalan said:
I cannot remember what your front seat looks like but it could be worth a look. However may I warn you the seats can be very heavy to lift out.
Have you managed to get power back up and running?
Click to expand...
Hi Alan was fine after the drive home from the tunnel but have not tried it in earnest since, it's going in for some work in January the battery system will be looked at then too, will investigate space under the seat and available suitable batteries may be able to dispense with outside battery and fit another inside, but would lose a bit of seating. No more dining for 6 lol
 
think I better look for the other thread, checked batteries today 4.5 in each have brought one home to charge and see how it does under load. had 9 weeks away, sites and aires, only seemed to fail on the last night. Solar appears to be working regulator lights on but battery 2 which I assume is the leisure one is giving a red flashing light, there isn't a code for that on the controller. no light from the battery master, spoke to VanBitz and that would be normal with flat batteries, 3 year guarantee we think and we have had for 3 1/2 (one we have taken home) the other was supposedly new with the van a couple of months earlier, have not removed that yet as it is awkward, but at least it isn't under the seat. How do I check that the onboard cherger is working? We have handbooks for all the eqipment except that think we may have to remove the seat to get to it if it needs changing.
 
scotzsue said:
How do I check that the onboard cherger is working?
Click to expand...
You must have a multimeter to know there's only 4.5v in the batteries so that's a start.
As you have removed the battery Put the voltmeter across the battery charger Pos and neg wires when on hookup (keep the wires away from any metal or each other) , the voltage should be at least 12.6v or 13.6v if the battery is still connected.
If the charger isn't working the voltage will be either 0v without a battery or less than 12.6v with a battery.
If it isn't working the mains breaker may have tripped, the chargers internal fuse may have blown or the charger may be faulty
 
Than @pappajohn just checked battery we brought home it's been on charge overnight and is still trying to charge so fear the worst. the multimeter says 14v though so leaving on charge till he gets back from golf. doubt if he disconected charger first though.
 
scotzsue said:
it's been on charge overnight and is still trying to charge so fear the worst.
Click to expand...
What sort of charger is it? A 5 amp smart charger will take 24 hours to fully charge a flat 100Ah battery. As you say, it's not looking good.
 
scotzsue said:
How do I check that the onboard cherger is working?
Click to expand...
An isolated lead-acid battery can not give a voltage of more than 13.6 volts. If you disconnect the solar charger (or run this test in the dark) then any voltage above 13.6 means the battery is being charged by the onboard charger. Typically a good charger will be charging at 14.4 to 14.8 volts. When charging is complete, the voltage will drop down to about 13.8 volts to avoid overcharging (trickle charge mode).

If the voltage is 15 volts or more, the charger is faulty. If the voltage is 12.5 or less, then maybe the charger is faulty too, or it could be a bad connection or blown fuse.

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