Jump to content

Battery drain with Sargent Ec160


trialsrider

Recommended Posts

I've been convinced since renewing my battery and charger that my campervan is suffering battery drain of the leisure battery. I had not paid it any attention before I bought the new battery. I have a yuasa L36efb 100ah battery, ctek charger and Sargent Ec160 unit. The ctek has replaced the charging function of the sargent. The charge switch is now off on the Sargent unit and the ctek comes on automatically whenever the van is plugged into hook up.

 

My van seems to go from 12.9v (after 3 hours no load rest or charge) to 12.6v within 12 hours. I disconnected the battery and charged it standing alone and it held its 12.9v for the 24hrs I monitored it. So I'm presuming it must be something in the van causing it to drain.

 

So all this week I have been disconnecting things and measuring voltages. Firstly I disconnected the split charge to rule out battery drain to the drive battery. That made no difference and the leisure battery drained from 12.9v to 12.6 again in the same time period. I then began removing fuses from the Sargent units 12v fusebox. I noticed immediately that when I removed the 'charger fuse' for the Sargents own charger the voltage rose from 12.6v to 12.7. None if the other fuses appeared to effect voltage when removed.

 

I'm no electrician but I have a very simple understanding of current. I connected my multimeter to the fuse slot that the charger fuse would slot into. I've tried to measure current. With the red cable in the 10 ADC port and the black cable in the com port, I switched the dial to 10a. The meter reads 0.07. Is this 0.07 amp ? Have I measured it correctly?

 

I then did the same with all the fuse slots and all read 0.0 except for the aux fuse slot which read 0.03. The aux powers my propex heater and the oven ignition and light.

 

What I want to know is could these two current readings of 0.07 and 0.03 cause a drop of 0.3 volts within 12 hours ?

 

I've isolated the solar via a switch on the positive cable before it goes into the charge controller so I don't think it is discharging via the solar panel at night.

 

I'm going to leave the charger fuse and aux fuse out tonight and see if the voltage drop occurs tonight. I appreciate it's going to be cold tonight so figures may be slightly skewed.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Gareth

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All battery chargers, when the output 14v side is left connected to the battery, will draw charge. Even if the 'mains' is off.

Solar chargers also do this when the sun goes down but the best have efficient 'blocking' diodes to restrict the amount drawn back by the charger.

A cheap solar charger rarely has the best blocking mechanism and will draw some charge back at night.

 

A proper Leisure battery mains charger will also have effecting blocking to the usual effect of 'reverse' charging.

A car battery charger rarely does because they are only connected to a car starter battery for a short time so they don't need decent blocking diodes.

 

I would suggest that in, this respect, you may have a triple wammy of a poor Sargent charger, Solar regular and a CTEK Car battery charger?

 

Although each one may only draw back low current, over several hours it can add up.

 

Plus don't forget the extra load of the CTEK might be placing a load that might artificially drop the voltage of the battery lower than it's normal resting voltage.

So while you are seeing 12.6v, unloading the battery completely may be show 12.7?

 

Measuring the current draw at the battery and removing all the loads in turn, will be the only way you will able to sure what the culprit is?

 

 

Have a read of the 'Wiring Your own Camper' page where we warn that the Car battery based CTEK's are far from ideal, and probably less appropriate than the Sargent charger it replaces : http://www.aandncaravanservices.co.uk/wiring-your-camper.php

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

aandncaravan - 2019-05-03 8:47 PM

 

All battery chargers, when the output 14v side is left connected to the battery, will draw charge. Even if the 'mains' is off.

Solar chargers also do this when the sun goes down but the best have efficient 'blocking' diodes to restrict the amount drawn back by the charger.

A cheap solar charger rarely has the best blocking mechanism and will draw some charge back at night.

 

A proper Leisure battery mains charger will also have effecting blocking to the usual effect of 'reverse' charging.

A car battery charger rarely does because they are only connected to a car starter battery for a short time so they don't need decent blocking diodes.

 

I would suggest that in, this respect, you may have a triple wammy of a poor Sargent charger, Solar regular and a CTEK Car battery charger?

 

Although each one may only draw back low current, over several hours it can add up.

 

Plus don't forget the extra load of the CTEK might be placing a load that might artificially drop the voltage of the battery lower than it's normal resting voltage.

So while you are seeing 12.6v, unloading the battery completely may be show 12.7?

 

Measuring the current draw at the battery and removing all the loads in turn, will be the only way you will able to sure what the culprit is?

 

 

Have a read of the 'Wiring Your own Camper' page where we warn that the Car battery based CTEK's are far from ideal, and probably less appropriate than the Sargent charger it replaces : http://www.aandncaravanservices.co.uk/wiring-your-camper.php

 

 

Thanks Allan and I hope you have recovered from your recent hospitalisation.

 

I just went out to check the van. This is the first time it's been left without fuses in the charging slot and aux slot on the Sargents fuse box. Voltage was 12.9 this morning. Bearing in mind it's about 5 degrees outside I think I've clearly found the culprit to my battery drain.

 

I'm not surprised the sargent charger draws current even when switched off to mains but I am surprised at how much. But why am I seeing a minimal drain of 0.03 amps from the propex heater and the smev oven when they are both in active?

 

The ctek was only fitted as I had it anyway and it cost me nothing. I can also disconnect the fly charge lead to prevent any drain from that too. It is still a major improvement from the built in Sargent charger.

 

Am I right in thinking that my switch I have fitted on the positive cable from the Solar panel going to the.charge controller will also eliminate drain at night if in the off position ?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes thank you stronger Steroids and a bigger Morphine dose have made things much more comfortable.

 

 

I am not certain how the Solar regulator wires in on the EC160, I think it is stand alone, but on some ECxxx units it effectively goes in through the same cabling as the Mains charger. If it wires in through the mains charger porting, then removing the mains charger fuse might also isolate the Solar?

 

But usually the Solar Regulator will continue to draw current until the regulator itself is isolated from the battery, but turn off the Solar Panel side switch first.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

aandncaravan - 2019-05-04 1:05 PM

 

Yes thank you stronger Steroids and a bigger Morphine dose have made things much more comfortable.

 

 

I am not certain how the Solar regulator wires in on the EC160, I think it is stand alone, but on some ECxxx units it effectively goes in through the same cabling as the Mains charger. If it wires in through the mains charger porting, then removing the mains charger fuse might also isolate the Solar?

 

But usually the Solar Regulator will continue to draw current until the regulator itself is isolated from the battery, but turn off the Solar Panel side switch first.

 

The solar was fitted after the conversion and because of the inaccessibility of the back if the sargent panel, the solar is wired to the leisure battery terminals

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...