Hi everyone. Its about my solar power system.

[Lionheart71]

Hi everyone. We are away at the moment in our motorhome. We call her daisy lol. We'll anyway in the early hours of last night. I woke to find out We had lost nearly all power to the battery's. The solar control panel was showing a flashing battery. The thing is was are on hook up.
We had two things plugged in which I think mite be the problem with draining them. But can't understand why it's not charged up via hook up. Does anyone think it's the inverter that's died.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks .

 

[GeoffnDee]

Are you sure that power is getting to the van from the hook up ,it may have tripped stopping the mains battery charger from working

 

[Jimbohorlicks]

As above ,check the hook up that it hasn't tripped and you have been using your 12 volt all night. You mention an inverter ,what have you got connected to that ?

 

[Lionheart71]

Hi everyone. We had mains. power as all the 240v things was working good. I said inverter in my last message. I can't remember what it was called sorry. It's the unit that charges battery when hooked up.

 

[pappajohn]

If you had 230v then your charger is either not working or switched off, either at the charger or the 230v breaker supplying the charger.

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[two]

Yes, it could be that your charger has failed. It would appear that mains is fine but 12V systems are not, so your battery is flat - possibly because it's not being charged. Check that the mains is getting to your charger, that no fuses have blown and it's on (is there any indicator/red light?). Your batteries might also need checking. If they were poor, they may have damaged the charger.
Try to get the battery recharged asap. It's not good to leave them discharged.
Let us know if you discover more.

 

[Jamesh]

See if the fuse for you charger has gone?
.what model of distribution system do you have Sargent, CBE or another?

 

[TCG]

Notice you have a swift, and therefore a sergeant system... Check your charger is switched on at the ECU.. Green light should be on

 

[GeoffnDee]

If your habitation electrical system is not a Sargent one, I expect, as your Motorhome is Talbot based , it could be a Zig or Nord elettronica system . There should be some sort of markings on the fuse box / charger that may help to work out which system your van has running its habitation electrics and charger to enable advise to be given as to what could be wrong.

 

[Lionheart71]

Thanks for all your help everyone. When we first got the van the charging system didn't work cos of lack of use as it hadn't been used in 20 or so years. Had it serviced and the guy that did it said then it mite be OK as it worked OK when he did it....but also said it could need changed. Any ideas wot I could change it to if that is the problem.

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[GeoffnDee]

How old is your leisure battery ?

 

[Andacami]

Five posts used, is that the limit for free member? Hopefully be back when paid-up with an update...

 

[Lionheart71]

The battery's are only 1 or 2 years old. We have two connected.

 

[autorouter]

Thanks for all your help everyone. When we first got the van the charging system didn't work cos of lack of use as it hadn't been used in 20 or so years. Had it serviced and the guy that did it said then it mite be OK as it worked OK when he did it....but also said it could need changed. Any ideas wot I could change it to if that is the problem.

As you can imagine, battery chargers and batteries have changed a lot in 20 years, so there are better, cheaper more intelligent chargers available, that can be set to look after all the different types of leisure battery if you want.

You are right that when on hookup the battery charger should charge the battery. There are a number of possibilities if it doesn't. Maybe a switch set wrong, a fuse blown, or a bad connection somewhere in the wiring. Can you tell what the make/model of the charger, fusebox and control panel are? Maybe you could post a picture or two, someone is sure to recognise them.

As Andacami says, after 5 free posts you need to subscribe to post more.

There will be a wire from the charger to the leisure battery, with a fuse near the leisure battery end. That's the first thing I'd check.

 

[ManTheVan]

I think that the first thing to check is that the EHU on the site is actually live. It might have tripped and a simple switch-on is all that’s needed.

If the hook-up is live, then, as others have said, check the main fuse box (the unit with main circuit breakers) which should be in the garage somewhere, to make sure nothing is tripped off. Then make sure that your mains battery charger is actually switched on (there’s usually a power switch on them somewhere). If there’s power to the charger (you can only tell by testing with a meter) and it’s switched on but not working, then it might have its own fuse, which you can check with your meter. If that’s ok, then the charger might be duff.

They are not at all difficult to replace. I’d suggest a reliable brand like Sterling Power, Victron, etc.

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[Andacami]

There are a few things to understand better in order to help. Photos and model/type numbers of your main power supply, control panel and charger would be helpful. Do you have access to the manual?

Then we can systematically run through tests one by one.

It does "seem" as if the charger has failed (as you say, your mechanic said it did not work and he "fixed" it but said it could need changing) and is not/has not been, charging the batteries. It could of course be as simple as a blown fuse; you would need to refer to the manual and trace all the fuses from the terminals at the leisure batteries back to the charger and power supply - if one is blown, replace it with exactly the same type and rating as the manual suggests and see if it blows again. If it was a fuse and you did replace it, and it did not blow again, you should see 14v or so at the leisure batteries (you will need a multimeter for this). The batteries, if not already dead due to being discharged will take some time to get back to operational levels but could be the fix.

If all the tests show no blown fuses and the systems are to all intents and purposes "on", and you do NOT have 14v at the batteries then as above the power supply/charger is goosed and further investigation is needed to determine a fix or replacement.

If as above but you DO have 14v at the batteries, but they fail to be useable after charging, then the batteries are dead. In this scenario, it may look good at 12.8v or thereabouts but they will die within hours, rapidly going down in volts - time for new batteries.

If it looks like the systems required cant be turned on or show no signs of life when turned on then again, the power supply/charger is goosed and further investigation is needed to determine a fix or replacement.

As to what to replace with, folks may have suggestions if we can see what you have now. I can't comment on how easy or hard or advisable it would be to do that yourself; fuses and switches and new batteries are all very easy if done methodically with care. Faulty or dead power suppliers and chargers need greater knowledge and skills than I have.

EDIT: posted just after the preceding posts but we are basically saying the same thing

 

[Lionheart71]

Thanks to everyone how's sent me messages. I have subscribed to the site so can keep in touch. Will go and take pics etc.when I go back in van.

Spoken to a mechanic this morning and he's going to look at it on Saturday for me so will let you all know wots up .

 

[Bucket]

I recently woke up to the same, after a lot of head scratching I checked the fridge and found it was still pulling power from the 12 v rather than switching to 220 and had been doing so ever since we left home. Oops.
Later we found the fridge fuse had melted, probably as a result of that. So it's adviseable to check the basics first.

btw. The folks at Van Bitz were very helpful advising us over the phone where to look....