Help/advice Please - Electroblock Ebl 215... Battery Jumper Setting

[Fletton]

The MH (Knaus) came with a big pile of manuals - but alas all in German!

Anyway .... I've been trawling the web and downloaded some in English

On browsing the EBL manual I notice the unit has a jumper for either "Wet" or "Gel" batteries... upon inspection it's currently set to "Gel"...

I've recently had two new Banner "wet" 100ah leisure batteries fitted.

From another trawl of the Link Removed.... I have deduced (in very simple terms) that a "Gel" battery requires a lower charge input than "Wet"... So a "wet" setting would be more detrimental to a Gel battery - than a Gel setting to a Wet one!??... In simple terms - is this correct?

Without a lot of faffing about - I cannot see what the Cab battery is when I remove the cover in the Hab area - other than it having a vent tube to the outside!.. Can I assume that this would mean it too is of the wet variety?..

Sooooooo...... should I be setting the EBL jumper to "wet" and is there any special precautions/procedures/isolation of stuff - I need to be aware of? - Btw... there is a SP fitted to the MH too along with a battery master etc!

Or..... if a vent doesn't necessarily indicate "wet" for the Cab and I need to establish one way or the other - and it turns out to be a Gel battery.... What the dickens do I set the Electroblock jumper to - or do I leave it on Gel!??...

SlightlyConfusedDotCom

 

[JeanLuc]

The EBL battery setting only refers to the habitation batteries, not the starter battery. The latter gets only a maintenance (or trickle) charge so there is no charging program to alter. You should set the EBL to wet lead-acid.
In the earlier EBLs, (e.g. EBL99/100) the difference between Gel and Wet (normally marked Blei-Gel and Blei-Saüre on the EBL) is the time taken for the second stage of the charge. It lasts much longer when set to Gel. I'm not sure if the later EBLs such as yours have any other parameter changes in the charging program such as voltage. Certainly the earlier EBLs were optimised for Gel and have a maximum charging voltage accordingly - 14.3 volts. This is OK for wet lead-acid, but is one of the reasons why they are not ideally suited to AGM batteries which generally require a higher maximum voltage.
On another note, I believe your Banner wet batteries are not sealed (if they have top-up ports on the top plate) so they should be vented to the outside if they are located in an internal or un-vented locker.

 

[Fletton]

The EBL battery setting only refers to the habitation batteries, not the starter battery. The latter gets only a maintenance (or trickle) charge so there is no charging program to alter. You should set the EBL to wet wet lead-acid.
.......
On another note, I believe your Banner wet batteries are not sealed (if they have top-up ports on the top plate) so they should be vented to the outside if they are located in an internal or un-vented locker.

Hi JL...

Thanks for that...

The Banners are in an outside locker.... and vented too via a vent tube to underside of bus..

So just need to sort the Jumper....

Any fuses need pulling?...

John T

 

[Lenny HB]

The difference is on Wet setting once they reach 14.3v they hold it for 1 hour before reducing to 13.8v, on Gel they hold 14.3v for 8 hours, which will nicely cook a wet cell.
They do a reasonable job of charging AGM's on the Gel setting, as holding the voltage for longer gives them nearly a full charge.

 

[JeanLuc]

The EBL must be switched off from the mains and batteries before making any changes to the battery switch / jumpers.
Ensure that there is no incoming 230V either by disconnecting any lead from the EHU input or pull out the mains 'kettle lead' that is plugged in to the front panel of the EBL.
I am not familiar with your model of EBL - never heard of a 215 but if it is like the 225 I don't think they have a main 12V switch on the front panel to siconnect the EBL from the leisure batteries. So you will have to pull out the fuse that connects it to the leisure batteries. This is normally in the battery compartment and is probably a large 50 amp blade fuse. There is probably a small 2 or 3 amp blade fuse next to it that protects the signal cable for the control panel etc., back to the EBL. I don't think you need to pull this out.

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[Fletton]

The difference is on Wet setting once they reach 14.3v they hold it for 1 hour before reducing to 13.8v, on Gel they hold 14.3v for 8 hours, which will nicely cook a wet cell.
They do a reasonable job of charging AGM's on the Gel setting, as holding the voltage for longer gives them nearly a full charge.

Oh dear... best I get switched to wet asap then...

 

[Fletton]

The EBL must be switched off from the mains and batteries before making any changes to the battery switch / jumpers.
Ensure that there is no incoming 230V either by disconnecting any lead from the EHU input or pull out the mains 'kettle lead' that is plugged in to the front panel of the EBL.
I am not familiar with your model of EBL - never heard of a 215 but if it is like the 225 I don't think they have a main 12V switch on the front panel to siconnect the EBL from the leisure batteries. So you will have to pull out the fuse that connects it to the leisure batteries. This is normally in the battery compartment and is probably a large 50 amp blade fuse. There is probably a small 2 or 3 amp blade fuse next to it that protects the signal cable for the control panel etc., back to the EBL. I don't think you need to pull this out.