Leisure battery dead after 1 week sitting around

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Gazuk

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Nov 6, 2021
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Picked our new (to us) motorhome up last Thursday 9th Dec) from Dealer. It;s a Carthago C Tourer I 150 (year 2018)

Dealer had it on hook up all for the whole morning (min 4 hours) and we then drove it home (200 miles).

When we got home, all was woking fine off Lesiure battery.

Went back to Motorhome today and Lesiure battery totally dead. When we left it last week we made sure the Entertainment button was switched of at the control panel and the contro panel itself was switched off.

We do have a Pioneer unit fitted but this wasn't on (read on another post that this could be a source of battery draining).

Will try and gt it on hook up this weekend to charge it then turn the battery isolator off and see if keeps it charge.

So, any ideas? Or do we just have a knackered Leisure battery?
 
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Gazuk said:
Picked our new (to us) motorhome up last Thursday 9th Dec) from Dealer. It;s a Carthago C Tourer I 150 (year 2018)

Dealer had it on hook up all for the whole morning (min 4 hours) and we then drove it home (200 miles).

When we got home, all was woking fine off Lesiure battery.

Went back to Motorhome today and Lesiure battery totally dead. When we left it last week we made sure the Entertainment button was switched of at the control panel and the contro panel itself was switched off.

We do have a Pioneer unit fitted but this wasn't on (read on another post that this could be a source of battery draining).

Will try and gt it on hook up this weekend to charge it then turn the battery isolator off and see if keeps it charge.

So, any ideas? Or do we just have a knackered Leisure battery?
Click to expand...
Could be either... Or both. First job, Put a DC clamp meter round the leisure battery positive wire with everything off and see if there's any current flowing.
 
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My leisure batterys drain approximately 60ah over a week!!!!
You definitely would be better Hooked up!!
 
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The fact that the dealer had it on hookup for 4 hours before you collected it tells me they knew it was knackered - very likely been sitting around in their - or someone else's - yard for weeks/months. Not entirely unusual so best to just request a replacement from the dealer.
Happened to me when we bought our van. They insisted on testing it but the mechanic had no idea how to do a proper check so I "politely explained" and they did eventually replace it.

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I’ve just come inside after trying to start our 2021 Carthago. The engine battery is dead and the leisure battery’s won’t power up the interior lights. I have not had Media turned on, so maybe not Pioneer. What else could cause it and can we turn everything off when we park it up. It started fine when I pulled it out the garage 4 days ago and everything else seemed to be ok. We were going to load it ready for setting off to Filey.
 
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Casper46 said:
I’ve just come inside after trying to start our 2021 Carthago. The engine battery is dead and the leisure battery’s won’t power up the interior lights. I have not had Media turned on, so maybe not Pioneer. What else could cause it and can we turn everything off when we park it up. It started fine when I pulled it out the garage 4 days ago and everything else seemed to be ok. We were going to load it ready for setting off to Filey.
Click to expand...
You need a battery maintainer on each battery really, even with no significant drain they'll get discharged eventually.

Got these on ours :

Amazon product ASIN B00B3L8MZA
PS unless you have solar 👍
 
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On Carthagos there is a leisure battery isolation switch. When storing without ehu you need to first shut down the panel, then make sure the step is retracted (if that is how you prefer to leave it) and finally shut the battery down using the isolation switch.
 
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My first Moho, Marquis Majestic 125, was about sixteen months old when I bought it. Drove home 70 miles and connected EHU. About a week later I was checking things over and the leisure battery was red hot. Totally shot so one wonders how much abuse it had suffered from the original owner. Fitted a replacement which the dealer readily paid for. Subsequently left it with a pair of 60w panels keeping it ticking over and no further issues. Not had any significant drain on my 2016 Compactline and now that I have Lithiums, I only charge them through solar periodically.
 
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ManTheVan said:
Have you got solar panels?
Click to expand...
Yes, but it’s been in the garage. We have roof windows, in summer the sun is high enough to get a bit of power, but probably nothing at this time of year. We put it on EHU an hour ago and it’s showing signs of life. If we had been thinking in advance we would have checked it earlier, but the new pup is running us ragged and everything else has been forgotten.
 
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My 2010 Carthago doesn't have an isolation switch on the leisure batteries. Neither a fancy media head unit. But the leisure batteries still deplete to 50% soc (state of charge) over 2/3 weeks and need topping up with EHU.

I blame the crappy CBE control system. Never had a problem with my previous Hymer with the Schaudt control system. Don't think Hymer have ever found it necessary to add an isolation switch to avoid leisure battery drain. Comments from Lenny appreciated.

Must get my DC clamp meter deployed and find out, from where, the drain is occuring.
 
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Welcome to the wonderful, and mysterious, world of batteries! DC really is 'Lecky Trickery', smacks of a bit of black magic.

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Ok, so heres an update on my issue.

Put the motorhome on EHU yesterday and things all worked as expected. But I did notice a buzzing noise (possibly a fan) from the front of the vehicle. Assumed it was something to do with battery charging,

Went back today, dsconnected EHU and checked the battery via the control panel and was showing fully charged. BUT, then I turned the control panel off, so there should be not electric trickery going on, but the buzzing noise was still there. Turned the battery isolator off and the buzzing noise stopped. WIll leave it like this for a coule of days and see what happens to the Leisure battery.

In the meantime, need to find the cause of the buzzing noise as that could quite possibe be the cause of the battery drain.
 
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Gazuk said:
Went back today, dsconnected EHU and checked the battery via the control panel and was showing fully charged. ........... WIll leave it like this for a coule of days and see what happens to the Leisure battery.
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Be aware that the voltage will drop from the post-charging reading because for an hour or two after the charger has been turned off the battery will still be showing voltage close to the charging voltage.

1639934458296.png


Edit......
P.S. Some m/h control panel gauges are not particularly accurate. If you don't have one a simple voltage test meter at around a tenner is a very useful tool when you have a m/h.
 
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Gazuk said:
Ok, so heres an update on my issue.

Put the motorhome on EHU yesterday and things all worked as expected. But I did notice a buzzing noise (possibly a fan) from the front of the vehicle. Assumed it was something to do with battery charging,

Went back today, dsconnected EHU and checked the battery via the control panel and was showing fully charged. BUT, then I turned the control panel off, so there should be not electric trickery going on, but the buzzing noise was still there. Turned the battery isolator off and the buzzing noise stopped. WIll leave it like this for a coule of days and see what happens to the Leisure battery.

In the meantime, need to find the cause of the buzzing noise as that could quite possibe be the cause of the battery drain.
Click to expand...
I would start off looking at the components that stay live when the panel is shut down but the isolation switch is still on. The retractable step is one possible culprit, there are probably relays associated with it that might well buzz if they are not locking out properly. There is also the warning buzzer for the step, perhaps the switching on this has a fault.

I always use the isolator when leaving my motorhome in storage. My Carthago manual says to do this, presumably because there are quiescent currents that will eventually drain the battery if left on.
 
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ok, so dragging in info from various sources:

We have a Pioneer system which apparently uses a fan.
The fan is normally wired to the engine battery.
Many people (with Cathargo's) recommend this is rewired to use the Leisure battery to avoid draining the engine battery.
In addition, the same people suggest going into the Pioneer AV option and selecting Power Off (althought the manual does say the fan may still work if necessary).
I'm assuming the previous owner of my motorhome had the fan rewired to the Leisure battery

So, my plan is to turn the isolator back on , turn on media, check fan is running, try and Power it off via the AV menu and see if the fan stops. If this doesn't work then we going to have a huge problem if we're camping without hookup.
 
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Pausim said:
I would start off looking at the components that stay live when the panel is shut down but the isolation switch is still on. The retractable step is one possible culprit, there are probably relays associated with it that might well buzz if they are not locking out properly. There is also the warning buzzer for the step, perhaps the switching on this has a fault.

I always use the isolator when leaving my motorhome in storage. My Carthago manual says to do this, presumably because there are quiescent currents that will eventually drain the battery if left on.
Click to expand...
Thanks, If selecting Power Off for the Pioneer unit doesn't work then it will have to be a call to the dealer and I will suggest the retractable step.

But, and I'll have to confirm this, I think my retactable step does not work when the control unit is off

We did buy it from a major Carthago dealer so I'm hoping they will be accoodating.

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when we bought our present van got it home put on charge overnight and checked in the morning it was at 16v phoned dealer who put me through to there chief fitter who said it was probably the solar panel which I knew it couldn’t be as they had disconnected it after a bit of haggling and telling them to come and pick it up they agreed to send me a new charger and 2 new batteries
 
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I found a similar 'buzzing ' sound from front of our Carthago. Turned out I'd accidentally switched the Alde engine pre heat pump on.
The switch is on the panel next to passenger door hinge.

All the best
Antique
 
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Gazuk said:
Picked our new (to us) motorhome up last Thursday 9th Dec) from Dealer. It;s a Carthago C Tourer I 150 (year 2018)

Dealer had it on hook up all for the whole morning (min 4 hours) and we then drove it home (200 miles).

When we got home, all was woking fine off Lesiure battery.

Went back to Motorhome today and Lesiure battery totally dead. When we left it last week we made sure the Entertainment button was switched of at the control panel and the contro panel itself was switched off.

We do have a Pioneer unit fitted but this wasn't on (read on another post that this could be a source of battery draining).

Will try and gt it on hook up this weekend to charge it then turn the battery isolator off and see if keeps it charge.

So, any ideas? Or do we just have a knackered Leisure battery?
Click to expand...
Gel leisure batteries are often good for 10 years, probably caused by a lazy dealer not keeping them charged. I would be looking for the dealer to replace both leisure & starter battery as if one has been left to go flat you can guaranty the starter one has as well.
The Pioneer head unit is powered from the starter battery
Wagoneer said:
I blame the crappy CBE control system. Never had a problem with my previous Hymer with the Schaudt control system. Don't think Hymer have ever found it necessary to add an isolation switch to avoid leisure battery drain. Comments from @Lenny appreciated.
Click to expand...
Depends on the setup our first Hymer had a LCD panel and with the panel on would draw around 400ma with everything turned off. The last two have had the simpler panels and draw between 0 to 150ma.
 
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My LB always drained within 3 days of standing without hook-up. I recently discovered a connector a short way along the length of the LB wire. I unplugged this and lo and behold the battery holds its charge, over several weeks. There is definitely something running the battery down, even with all power switches off. I have heard similar stories from other funsters. My advice is to always disconnect the LB when not needed for any length of time over a day or so. or leave hooked up to a timer switch.
 
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And thanks to this forum we have a solution.

And the winner is .......

Antique

Apparently I also hava an additional Alde pump thingy that has a switch right next to the passenger seat, perfect knee hight. It's also one of those big silver switches that are very easy to switch one. Even with the contol panel turned off, if this switch is on, some fan/pump thingy is run from the Leisure battery. My switch was on.

So, with the leisure battery isolator turned off, my leisure battery stayed fully charged for the last 2 days. Therefore I'm fairly sure that the draining of the Leisure battery was due to the Alde pump/fan thingy

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Glad its sorted Gazuk (y)

We were in deepest Spain and had called engineers out!!!!!!
Luckily I found it and managed to cancel them in time :giggle:

All the best
Antique
 
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Antique Thanks again for your post. I'm new to motorhoming stuff and don't even know we had that button, let alone know what it does. I'm gussing the dealer didn't know either as it wasn't mentioned in the 3 hour handover we had.

We have installaton insructions for an Alde Power Booster, so I'm guessing it's that. Do you actually know what the button is for and why it is needed as it looks like its an optional Alde part.
 
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Think you'll find it takes heat from the Alde system and transfers to the engine coolant system thus warming engine block to ease cold starting.

All the best
Antique
 
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