VanBitz Battery Master Wiring

[Abgs]

Battery Master Fitting

My power hunger Sprinter Van seems to drain its 95AH starter battery in a week or so of non-movement.

I have 200 watts of solar running through one of these:

to the 95A Starter battery plus 2 x 100Ah leisure batteries.

Battery1 and Battery2 are the starter battery and leisure batteries outputs.

When it’s sunny enough the starter battery gets a user configurable share of the generated power.

I have an alarm, electric assist close on the sliding door, dash cam security monitoring plus the MBUX and ECU bits of the Mercedes set up all drawing power from the starter a battery. The starter battery starts to show low voltage if left for more than week without an EHU.

I’ve acquired a VanBitz Battery Master so I can balance the starter battery from the 2 x 100Ah leisure batteries.

I was just have a quick look see where the best place to fit it would be and wondered whether I can just wire it across the battery outputs on the Solar Regulator as that is the easiest bit of the system to get to.

Thanks in advance ..

 

[Lenny HB]

As you have a dual output solar regulator you shouldn't need a Batterymaster. I have a Votronic dual unit with just a 1 amp output to the starter battery it keeps it topped up without any problems.

If you starter battery is going down within a week you need to investigate what is causing the drain, it should be OK for 3 to 4 weeks or more.

 

[Abgs]

If you starter battery is going down within a week you need to investigate what is causing the drain, it should be OK for 3 to 4 weeks or more.

Reading the Sprinter forums this seems to be a common problem. Probably exasperated by using the van as a Man-Cave when it's on the drive at home. Every time I open the driver's door the dash springs into life and you can hear the electronics and various fans kicking in for the computer stuff, if I open the slider then the auto-close motor is used. I also have dash cams running front and rear, an alarm and tracker for security monitoring etc.

However I am only using the Hymer Led battery display panel as my reference - so I'm not sure how accurate that actually is.

When parked at home it's mostly in the shade so the solar panels only have direct sun for an hour or so. I can plug it into the EHU but I'd rather not and aim to get the van as self-sufficient as possible so I know I can use it for 'x' number of days off grid. Best outing so far was 5 days at Latitude festival but it was mostly very sunny and we were out every evening so no TV use etc. However the 12v fridge was running for 5 days non-stop.

Question for max efficiency ... should I adjust the settings in the Solar Charge Controller to give more to the starter battery, or set it so the majority goes to the leisure batteries and then use them Battery Master to balance that surplus back to the starter battery?

 

[funflair]

So you have identified that you are possibly using quite a bit of starter battery capacity using the van as a "man cave" so I wouldn't worry too much about why the battery drops, but I would be investigating why it doesn't seem to get enough charge from the trickle from the Dual output solar reg, I would take off the starter battery +ve at the solar reg end and check for 12v to establish that the cable/fuse route is OK.

EDIT just read your post again, in the shade most of the day is not good, I would still establish that the connection to starter is OK but then I might be tempted to just fit the battery master anyway and you could that cable to feed the starter battery from the BM.