Charging twin leisure batteries with Battery Master

[roger20]

Apologies for bringing this up yet again but despite following battery threads for years I don't think my particular query has come up.

 

I bought a CTEK 7000 to charge my leisure battery thinking that the charger's stated capacity of up to 225AH would be more than sufficient. I am thinking of changing my single 110Ah for 2 x 100Ah and now find that CTEK have refined their specifications for this charger to show up to 225Ah for maintenance but only 150Ah for charging. If so, the CTEK 7000 may no longer be big enough for what I want.

 

However the onboard Sargent EC225 charger is rated up to 16amps (as opposed to 7amps for the CTEK 7000) so it should be sufficient for the 2 leisure batteries (the Sargent layout diagram shows 2 leisure batteries)

 

My concern is that even if I charge the leisure batteries up with the Sargent, the Battery Master will always be dragging them down again because of the current drain which sems to be a feature of the X250 Fiat.

 

So do the experts think that the CTEK 7000 would work to maintain all the batteries? Or will I have to bite the bullet and go to the next step up for a CTEK MXS 25 (formerly XS 25000) which is a 25 amp charger rated at up to 300Ah for charging and up to 500Ah for maintenance but costs £200?

 

What do others use to charge and maintain large capacity twin leisure batteries?

 

I asked CTEK UK this question but they didn't seem to know. I have also asked Sargent what they think, mainly because of the Battery Master aspect which I seem to recall may possibly cause problems (with the bigger EC325 unit?)

[Guest Tracker]

Many of us, me included, use a solar panel and regulator to keep our leisure batteries charged - and with the right wiring it will also keep your starter battery charged as well.

 

General advice seems to be to go for the biggest solar panel you can justify buying - as long as you have enough roof space for it.

 

That said a 60 watt panel does the job for us very well and probably would for most folks unless they spend prolonged periods camped with no mains hookup and no driving.

[scramblers]

I have twin leisure batteries with a Battery Master fitted to maintain the vehicle battery and, like Tracker, I have an 80 watt solar panel. The combination works extremely well. All through the recent winter the solar panel kept the three batteries fully charged without the use of a secondary charger.

 

The bonus is that during the summer months you don't need the EHU.

[Dave Newell]

The CTEK 7000 is more than capable of charging your leisure battery bank. I have one fitted to my camper and a leisure battery bank of 330AH. The CTEK will charge them all very nicely thank you as long as you give it long enough to do its job.

 

D.

[Brambles]

Go for it Roger20, it is not ideal for doing a bulk chargewith 200Ah as woul not supply the ideal current, however is fine for maintenance. As you are not really bulk charging but only feeding a bit off now an again to top up the engine battery via the Battery master it should all work fine.

 

However, what I would personally do and this is me, is disconnect my leisure batteries when laid up, and use the Ctek to maintain the engine battery and maybe once a month or less top up the leisure batteries.

If your leisure batteries are fully charged then disconnected they should survive at least 3 months before needing topped up and if good ones a lot longer in excess of 6 or even 9 months.

 

Or another view is take the easy option and just use the Ctek as planned because its easy and no mucking about disconnectng etc or having to fit switches, and also having to consider the effect on the on board Sterling charger if disconnected.

 

Hope this makes sense as rattling of the reply pretty quick as want to go watch TV. Good question though.. like it, better than the normal, my battery goes flat what is wrong?