ike Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 I know this will have been covered but the search thingy is acting up so please bear with me. We have two leisure batteries which we regularly charge up when the van is parked up not being used. Normally we can go for 5 days or more without any problem but we're just back from a long weekend and we lost power on the second night. Drove for about an hour and parked up again. Guage showed leisure battery at 12.5v. A few hours later and we were down to next to nothing.We'd been using only the lights, water pump to fill the kettle etc,gas heating. One battery is showing a black indicator and the second green. Both batteries are less than a year old. Any ideas please?Thanks ike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davenewellhome Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 Sounds like a duff battery, possibly caused by extensive use of a non intelligent charging regime when in storage. If your on board battery charger is not of the three stage type then it can easily overcharge the batteries if left on for extended periods without current being drawn off the batteries. D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ike Posted February 24, 2009 Author Share Posted February 24, 2009 Dave Thanks for that. I think non intelligent just about sums us up! I don't know if we have a three stage charger. Is this something that comes "inbuilt", our van is a 2004 model? Or is it something one has installed? We usually plug the van into our household elec supply for several hours, about once a month. We may even have left it charging like this overnight. But this is no different to being plugged in and therefore recharging when on a site, presumably. So would that cause the damage? Also I have two leisure batteries. Would they both be rendered duff, even if one was showing a green light? My husband's solution to this is to call out an auto-electrician but I'd rather have an idea of what might be the problem to try to avoid unnecessary expense.thanks ike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davenewellhome Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 You may have an intelligent three stage charger fitted, many more modern vans are so equipped. As you only normally put the 'van on charge for a couple of hours at a time its unlikely to be the cause so forget I mentioned it. It is possible that one battery has died so I'd suggest you disconnect both of them check and top up the electrolyte (unless they're gel batteries) and recharge them separately then use them to power something individually and see how long they last. If they are gel have a close look at their casings as gel batteries generally bulge when they b***ered. D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 If the "eye" on one is showing black, I suspect that either it has died as Dave suggested, or it is being discharged but not taking a charge. If the two are in parallel the duff one will pull the good one down. Try disconnecting the black-eyed one ansd see if the other lasts longer on its own. Stuart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ike Posted February 25, 2009 Author Share Posted February 25, 2009 Stuart Thank you. I wondered why the green eyed one wasn't providing the necessary power. Will try what you suggest. What's bothering me too is why a relatively new battery would die.Cheers ike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hallii Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 ike - 2009-02-25 4:06 PMStuart Thank you. I wondered why the green eyed one wasn't providing the necessary power. Will try what you suggest. What's bothering me too is why a relatively new battery would die.Cheers ikeNew batteries are renowned for being "duff" , particularly the cheaper ones.Try taking the duff one off and charging it on it's own, then check the voltage (12.5 to 13.5 volts). Then put a load on it (maybe a couple of headlight bulbs) then depending on the Wattage you can calculate the current since Watts divided by Volts gives Amps.So if the headlight bulbs were 55 Watts each giving 110 Watts then divide that by the Volts, say, 12.5V giving 8.8 amps. 8.8 amps connected to a 110 Amp hour battery should in theory last 12.5 hours (110 amps divided by 8.8 amps gives the hours).That's in theory, in practice the voltage drops and you would be lucky to get more than, say, half that. So if it lasted 6 hours I would consider that reasonable.Might be worth checking all the connections are clean and tight.Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.