Leisure battery dead? Autotrail

[James Paulley]

Hi! New to autotrail Cheyenne SE. If I connect to mains, LCD panel says leisure battery 13.5v (good). If I unplug mains it says 0v (poor) and nothing seems to work. Switching to vehicle battery seems to make electrics work but it will not let me switch back to leisure, I have to turn the LCD panel off then on again.

Is the Leisurely bat dead? Anything I can try? Thanks!

 

[Lenny HB]

Yep, sounds dead, measure the voltage directly at the battery with a meter, if it's just been charge let it sit with no lod for at least ½ hour and it should read over 12.7 v probably 13v.

 

[James Paulley]

Hmm ok cheers. I'll see if I can find a meter. The van was left untouched for many months, maybe something drained it? Someone fitted a solar charger that I thought was supposed to keep it charged but maybe that was only for the vehicle battery?

So, is there anything else I can try or should I just go straight to getting a new leisure battery?

 

[flatpackchicken]

Sounds like your battery had had it, but everything should work whilst your plugged into ehu so carry on till you go home and get new battery as being flat for a long time it probably won’t recover Good luck

 

[James Paulley]

Cheers. Any tips going forward? Am I supposed to turn off the PSU in the cupboard during storage, for example?

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[autorouter]

It sounds like there could be another problem apart from just a dead battery. If you have solar, that should keep the leisure battery topped up in storage, it should never go so flat.

You need the information to decide if either battery is being charged or not. A cheap multimeter from a DIY store will be quite OK for this.

A battery not being charged, with no load draining from it, will after a few hours settle to a 'resting voltage' between about 12.8V (fully charged) to 12.0V (as flat as you should let it go). If it's 13.0V or more, up to about 14.5V, then something is charging it. If it's 15V or more then there's a charger problem.

You should notice the voltage varying as the battery charges. The voltage will gradually rise to about 14.5V , then will stay at that voltage while being actively charged. When full, the charger will dial back the voltage to about 13.5V to keep the battery topped up without overcharging. All this should happen automatically.

The mains charger will go through this charging sequence uninterrupted. The solar controller will try to do this, but obviously the sunshine input may vary and interrupt proceedings. It will try to resume where it left off when the sun shines again.

 

[Kannon Fodda]

Some of the Autotrail systems with solar have a switch to either charge the leisure or engine battery. If vehicle unused for a long while both engine and leisure would need charging so need to swap the switching over periodically, especially winter when the solar is poor may even need a top up from mains charger.

Both cab and leisure will have gradual drain if lead acid type batteries that slowly loose charge if unused. Add parasitic type drain from alarms , radio (on Autotrail radio may be fed from leisure not cab), and lengthy periods of non use will need a charging source for all batteries.

 

[tonka]

If your still on and reading..
It certainly sounds like a duff battery.
You dont state year of the Autotrail or which Sargent / EC unit you have. Something to be aware of is that some AT's have a small constant drain created by the Sargent unit even when turned off ie 0.2 amp, that mounts up over time.

If you decide to subscribe here (£20 per year) i am sure myself and other can offer more advise and info

 

[James Paulley]

Some of the Autotrail systems with solar have a switch to either charge the leisure or engine battery. If vehicle unused for a long while both engine and leisure would need charging so need to swap the switching over periodically, especially winter when the solar is poor may even need a top up from mains charger.

Both cab and leisure will have gradual drain if lead acid type batteries that slowly loose charge if unused. Add parasitic type drain from alarms , radio (on Autotrail radio may be fed from leisure not cab), and lengthy periods of non use will need a charging source for all batteries.

There's a Votronic box that doesn't seem to have any buttons on it, not sure how it works or how I should use it.

If your still on and reading..
It certainly sounds like a duff battery.
You dont state year of the Autotrail or which Sargent / EC unit you have. Something to be aware of is that some AT's have a small constant drain created by the Sargent unit even when turned off ie 0.2 amp, that mounts up over time.

If you decide to subscribe here (£20 per year) i am sure myself and other can offer more advise and info

Looks like a Sargent III? I wasn't given any instructions when I inherited this van; do I need to turn off either of the switches pointed out when leaving the van in storage? I assume I turn off the power button on the LCD display panel, right?

Thank you all!

 

[tonka]

You can get the manual for the sargent unit here..


Ignore my comments about leaving switches on / off.. That only applies when they wire the solar panel via the sargent unit.
Your has a Votronic controller (good make) and looking at pictures its wired direct to the leisure battery and also the cab battery. So should charge both.
Do you have any lights on the Votronic ?? Do you have access to a multimeter so you can check voltages ??

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[James Paulley]

Thanks! In storage, am I supposed to turn off that switch on the PSU or anything like that?

These lights are often on on the Voltronic.

 

[KimSteve]

Hi! New to autotrail Cheyenne SE. If I connect to mains, LCD panel says leisure battery 13.5v (good). If I unplug mains it says 0v (poor) and nothing seems to work. Switching to vehicle battery seems to make electrics work but it will not let me switch back to leisure, I have to turn the LCD panel off then on again.

Is the Leisurely bat dead? Anything I can try? Thanks!

I connected a CTek charger lead, pluged in and it conditions the battery, let it go through the charge cycle which sorted out the leisure battery.
If the battery is showing ok when on mains it's likely that it's end of life.

 

[autorouter]

Thanks! In storage, am I supposed to turn off that switch on the PSU or anything like that?

I think it's a good idea in storage to turn off the PSU switch, and the pump switch. The Votronic unit is wired direct to the batteries, bypassing the PSU, and will keep them topped up. PSUs like that usually have a constant small drain when switched on.

If you want to know what that AES light is, it's for an Automatic Energy Selection fridge. When the battery is 100% full, the AES light comes on. Some fridges have a function where they switch to 12V while they are receiving an AES signal from the solar controller. This allows the excess solar power to run the fridge when available, and switch back to gas when the sun goes in.

 

[rwg]

Hi,

the Votronic solar controller should top up both the leisure and the vehicle batteries, and from the lights it looks like it thinks they are fully charged. If you can, get a multimeter to the terminals of the leisure battery and measure the voltage there. I wonder if it's possible that a fuse has blown (or been removed) somewhere between the leisure battery and the Sargent ECU? There is usually one fuse near the battery and another in the ECU fuse bank too.

cheers,

Robin

 

[Landy Andy]

I haven’t read all the above, but have noticed your other post, about a unknown switch. Could this have knackered your batteries? Or be the supply to them?

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[Cush]

Off the wall thoughts…

the leisure isolation switch is after market. May have been fitted to resolve a battery drain issue.
the red switch on top of the ec200 simply turns the battery charger on or off when on ehu. It will have no effect on charging via solar.
I always turn the control panel with the lcd display off in storage, even overnight. If it and your pump are left on as in the picture it will drain your pleasure batteries fairly quickly.

you arent stored under cover are you (I only ask as the the gent that stores his van next to me in a barn was surprised his solar wouldn’t work in daytime. I would be surprised if it did).

Hope you find the answer. It does sound like your will be

 

[Cush]

Having revread the OP’s OP I’m wondering if your 0v is to do with that after market battery isolation switch?

what happens to the voltage when you toggle it on and off. What would have happened if the batteries were isolated but the charger was on?