Question about replacing a cab battery??

Teasy2007

Teasy2007

LIFE MEMBER
Joined
Sep 26, 2007
Posts
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Location
Rotherham South Yorkshire
Funster No
428
MH
Carthago Malibu PVC
Exp
Since 2005
Hi could anyone please advise me if a cab battery can be disconnected and a new one installed without the Pioneer radio system needing to be reset or the tracker company getting in touch to say the battery had been disconnected???

Ginny
 
We were told that the media system ran off the cab battery, so we couldn’t understand why nothing had changed on the radio, by the time we realised the tracker company had not been in touch we were already home!

We are now very annoyed that we can be told what appears to be lies.
 
Well what a surprise!!!!! Mike has just checked the cab battery and after a good run yesterday, and sun all afternoon through the solar panel, the cab battery is again showing 12.5!!! The hab battery is showing 13 and full.

When the battery reading goes down to 12.2 we get a notification that the tracker shows that the battery has been disconnected.

Where do we go from here?

He said he had checked the battery and the drain, which he said was correct at 0.07amps. He also said we should take no notice of the display! Should we take no notice of the tracker notifications as well?? Do they think because we are retired we dont have the intelligence to question what we are told??

I feel like screaming, Mike just wants to ring the main manager and give him an earful.
 
Does your solar panel charge the cab battery as well as the habitation? If not fit a dual regulator.

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I recently changed my starter battery. With full charge in the hab batteries and the sun shining there was 13.6v on the battery terminals with the battery disconnected so no problem. Because the + terminal is still live though disconnected care is needed to avoid shorting it to ground, I sealed it up in a freezer bag.
Incidentally the battery, though quite old, appeared fine voltage wise, but checking with my battery analyser showed the CCA which should be 900A was only 320A so unsurprisingly couldnt turn over my 3L engine.
 
The cab battery may not be being charged from the alternator, if as you say you had a "good run" out with it but it is now showing 12.5 volts. If fully charged you would expect 12.7 after it has rested for a while. An easy way to check is to put a voltmeter across the cab battery terminals and start the engine. The voltage should climb up to something over 13 after a few seconds, especially if you gentle rev it. If it doesn't, check the fuses which are probably attached to the positive terminal of the battery - probably worth visually checking them first before even getting the multimeter out. :)
Alternatively, if you have a Battery Master or equivalent check it is working. If you can see it there should be LEDs glowing. From memory the BM only kicks in if the difference between the cab and leisure batteries is more than 0.5 volts so if the leisure batteries are only at 13 volts (which is low if the sun is shining) then 12.5 on the cab battery may not be enough to wake it up.
 
Teasy2007 said:
Hi could anyone please advise me if a cab battery can be disconnected and a new one installed without the Pioneer radio system needing to be reset or the tracker company getting in touch to say the battery had been disconnected???
Click to expand...
Yes, it's quite easy, and normal for a garage that does this job regularly. Any battery, even a a small motorbike battery or a 12V jump starter battery pack, can be temporarily connected to keep the permanent electrics powered while the cab battery is swapped.

Obviously you have to be careful, because the positive is live all the time, so don't touch any metalwork with it. But that's easier than looking up the radio codes and resetting any other devices.
 
Perhaps I should have said that the Camper is only 9 months only with 1500 on the clock.

We have had the same set up in our previous Motorhomes and never had this problem, even though some were much older.

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Teasy2007 said:
Perhaps I should have said that the Camper is only 9 months only with 1500 on the clock.

We have had the same set up in our previous Motorhomes and never had this problem, even though some were much older.
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You've got a fault somewhere - you shouldn't be changing the cab battery this early - after five years or more would be more normal.

You mentioned the tracker telling you if the voltage gets below 12.2 - has this happened to you because it should never have gone that low given your solar should be topping it up?
 
Yes, exactly, if the battery gets below a certain level the tracker disconnects and the tracker company tell me. The first time this happened was in the summer when it was in their garage for a few days and no access to the solar panel.

It happened again in December and the battery showed 12.2 for the cab and 13.5 for the habitation. We contacted the tracker company and queried whether the tracker was working correctly. They sent a technician out who reinstalled the tracker unit and said the amount of drain from the unit was minimal.

We then started checking the battery reading every few days. We found that hook up charged it to 13.5, without hook up, within a day it was down to 12.5, if the sun was out it went to 12.7 if not it dropped to 12.5.

Yesterday the technician said he had checked the battery and it was fine, and it showed a drain of 0.07 which was correct. He then told us that he would replace the battery !!! I was surprised, if the battery was fine and the drain was correct why replace the battery?

If he replaced the battery why is the ‘brand new battery” working exactly the same as the last one.???

Ginny
 
My guess is your dual regulator isn't working correctly, or is incorrectly set up, if it can be configured. With the sun out 12.7 on the cab battery is far too low. 12.7 volts is what a fully battery should show when it is not being charged. A typical "float" voltage should be around 13.4 and the regulator should deliver that. If you have a voltmeter you could check the voltage at the regulator terminals and compare them with the cab battery voltage. Any difference greater than say 0.1 volts suggests a wiring fault. If the terminal voltage is below 13 volts with the sun out and no significant loads then the regulator may be faulty.
 
We asked about the regulator and he said it was set at 50/50. He also said he could set the regulator to boost the cab battery more, but we like going to rallies and shows and prefer that the hab battery is fully charged. At the moment the hab battery is 13.5 and the cab battery 12.5, by tomorrow morning it will be 12.2 and we will have to put it on hook up.

Surely this cant be right!

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If it is set for 50/50 then I would exoect it to show the same voltage on both batteries. At 12.5 volts it isn't being charged and is already partially discharged, down to about 80%. At 12.2 volts it is just below 60%. This shouldn't happen overnight.

I suggest contacting whoever you bought it off and get them to investigate with a view to a warranty claim.
 
That’s exactly why we took it to the dealer yesterday, he tested the battery said it was good with a drain of 0.07 which he said was correct. Then he said he fitted a brand new battery.

This morning it was down to 12.5 again, exactly as before.
 
Teasy2007 said:
That’s exactly why we took it to the dealer yesterday, he tested the battery said it was good with a drain of 0.07 which he said was correct. Then he said he fitted a brand new battery.

This morning it was down to 12.5 again, exactly as before.
Click to expand...
Something has to be wrong with the charging system, including the engine system. After a drive to the dealers it should have read 12.7 volts after a while, and more than that immediately after turning off the engine.

Of course your vehicle might have a smart alternator which is an area I know little about but may explain the low voltage?
 
Smart Alternator???

Its a Carthago Malibu which is on a Fiat Ducato 2.3 engine. That’s the extent of my knowledge which is why we rely and TRUST the dealer, and why, if something does not seem right, we ask the question on here hoping someone more knowledgeable than us will help!!
 
Teasy2007 said:
Where do we go from here?

He said he had checked the battery and the drain, which he said was correct at 0.07amps. He also said we should take no notice of the display!
Click to expand...
Maybe he noticed that there was a discrepancy between the display reading and the battery voltage as measured by a meter on the terminals. It's something you can check for yourself. You can get a cheap multimeter for about a tenner that will do the job.

If you've not done this before, voltage measurements are quite easy and safe to do.
One of the sockets is labelled 'COM'. Another socket is labelled 'V'. It may have other labels including 'mA' and an 'Ohms' symbol (looks like a headphone).

Around the Range Setting Knob, the V may have a tilde ~, a small twiddle that means AC. If it has two lines, upper solid, lower dashed, that means DC.

Set the range to '20V', DC. Batteries are always DC.
Plug the black test lead into the 'COM' socket.
Plug the red test lead into the 'V' socket.
Push the black test probe onto the battery negative terminal.
Push the red test probe onto the battery positive terminal.
Push firmly to break through any layers of dirt down to the metal.
The display should read between 10 and 15 volts.
If it shows a minus number, you've got the positive and negative the wrong way round.

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Teasy2007 said:
Smart Alternator???
Click to expand...
New thing to reduce emissions I think. They switch off at times and will come on to assist braking when you press the brake pedal. Some of the latest vehicles have them - but don't ask me if yours has! However, this may be a red herring because the MH should be designed to match the vehicle electrical system.

I suggest you may have to leave it overnight with the dealer so they can do their own checks after it has sat overnight.
 
Well, its a while since Mike has fiddled with his Multi Meter, but he says he will give it a go tomorrow.

I still dont understand why the technician would say he had checked the battery and it was good and then in the next breath say he was going to change it for a new one.

That makes about as much sense as putting a new battery on (if he did) and the results being exactly the same!
 
Are you sure the dealer who said they had changed the cab battery actually did so ? Were there any marks or different labels on the "old" battery to the "new" one ?
 
Friend took his into the dealers on a brand new motorhome as the battery was duff. Probably left flat during the conversion works which knackers them.

Dealer told him they fitted a new battery, they hadn’t as his tracker wasn’t disconnected and it hadn’t moved from the car park despite them telling him it was in the workshop. Only after he pointed this out, was it moved and the battery changed....
 
I think the idea of a smart alternator is as DBK says to do with braking. When the brake pedal is pressed, the alternator switches on, and there is an extra load on the engine which translates to extra drag to slow the vehicle down. A kind of electromagnetic brake. So waste energy from braking is used to charge the battery, instead of extra fuel while the engine is powering normally.

In order to work, there has to be some space in the battery for the charge to go, so the normal battery charging stops at some point, maybe 60%, to leave room for the charge during braking.

So maybe the 12.5V is perfectly normal after a long run when you've been very easy on the brakes. And if it still starts the engine OK, maybe everything is fine, and the tracker needs to be set to trigger at a lower voltage.

Apparently the smart alternator also causes problems with habitation battery charging, if you have a standard split charge relay. There are ways round it, including fitting a B2B with a trigger from the ignition, not the alternator D+.

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Sandancers said:
Are you sure the dealer who said they had changed the cab battery actually did so ? Were there any marks or different labels on the "old" battery to the "new" one ?
Click to expand...

We tried to get at the battery this morning and found that one of the plastic screws would not come off no matter which way it way turned, you could not get the battery out with it in place so I dont know how they could have replaced the battery.

The battery reading on the display is 12.2 this morning, exactly the same as the ‘old, 9 month old battery.
 
Googlebot said:
Friend took his into the dealers on a brand new motorhome as the battery was duff. Probably left flat during the conversion works which knackers them.

Dealer told him they fitted a new battery, they hadn’t as his tracker wasn’t disconnected and it hadn’t moved from the car park despite them telling him it was in the workshop. Only after he pointed this out, was it moved and the battery changed....
Click to expand...

What happened to being able to trust the company you are dealing with? What can you do if you believe they are looking you in the eye, shaking your hand and telling you a pack of lies!?
 
autorouter said:
I think the idea of a smart alternator is as DBK says to do with braking. When the brake pedal is pressed, the alternator switches on, and there is an extra load on the engine which translates to extra drag to slow the vehicle down. A kind of electromagnetic brake. So waste energy from braking is used to charge the battery, instead of extra fuel while the engine is powering normally.

In order to work, there has to be some space in the battery for the charge to go, so the normal battery charging stops at some point, maybe 60%, to leave room for the charge during braking.

So maybe the 12.5V is perfectly normal after a long run when you've been very easy on the brakes. And if it still starts the engine OK, maybe everything is fine, and the tracker needs to be set to trigger at a lower voltage.

Apparently the smart alternator also causes problems with habitation battery charging, if you have a standard split charge relay. There are ways round it, including fitting a B2B with a trigger from the ignition, not the alternator D+.
Click to expand...

‘From research I’ve done I dont believe this model has a smart alternator fitted, just the ordinary one with what appears to be a duff cab battery.

We have been having problems with the habitation battery from new, we had two gel batteries fitted from the start and a solar panel, so it matched the set up we had in our previous campers. We had a 3 year old Globecar before this and never had a moments problem with the batteries.

Because the Habitation and cab battery were not holding charge we had a third gel battery fitted for the habitation. We were still getting a drain which we couldn’t understand. We used the
camper for rallies and shows so it was getting a good charge, but it still drained.

When I first spoke to the technician in January he said it was like having 2 buckets, and one had a hole in it, it would drag the other down which made sense. So why check the battery and say it was good, why then say it needed to be changed, and why is the battery reading showing 12.2 this morning???

Mike has used his Multi meter on the battery and it reads 12.4. !!
 
I spoke to the technician a short time ago and he assured me the battery was ok. If it would start the engine it didnt matter what it read on the Multimeter. When I pointed out that it would disconnect the tracker if it went below a certain level, as it had done in the past, he advised me to ring the tracker company and ask them to disconnect it from their system!!!

I asked him point blank if he had exchanged the battery and he said he had, when I then asked which battery it was he said he thought it was the AGM Fiat, he had switched it like for like.

He said a reading of 12.4 was a full battery not under charge.
 
He is talking utter tosh!

Not just tosh but deceitful tosh!

It should read 12.7 at rest with no load when fully charged. If it is not, then it either has a load on the battery or the battery is duff.

That is the fact of the matter and if he is trying to tell you anything else he is lying. Please let us know who it is so I can avoid them in future.

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