Vixter Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 Can anyone tell me what in general terms would be the useful life of a leisure battery. Ours are four years old and dont seem to be holding their charge like they used to do. Vixter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sshortcircuit Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 Did a load test on mine the other day, 65A/h left in a 110A/h battery, not good. Tried charging on own but did not improve. Removed battery from MH and put on a high charge with another charger, to no avail, just to prove MH charger OK Phoned Swift, as MH is a 55 Reg, and asked what warranty is and was quoted 1 year. Phoned two dealers one who quoted 2 years and other "manufacturers warranty" ??? Will be picking up 115A/h leisure battery from motor parts factor at £53.00 + VAT THe battery state indicator in the MH is a bit useless as it is based on the battery voltage measured. A flat battery can indicate a good volltage but has no oomph in it. With respect to your question, I would say that 4 years is a good life. If it is in a warm condition this can reduce. Hope this helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terrytraveller Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 Hi Vixter, You can recon on around 5 yrs useful life from a battery, but if its been completely discharged a number of times, perhaps this will reduce its life expectancy a little. I check my leisure battery from time to time by fully charging it, disconnecting from the charger, removing a wire from the Solar panel regulator so there is no external power going into the battery. Then I place a known load on it and time how long it powers the load. If you have a portable TV which switches off when the load drops to 10.5 volts, such as the popular Panasonic G10 would be ideal. Any known load for example all your downlighters switched on, are around one amp each, usually 10 watts, add all the wattages up and divide by 12 will give you the exact load in amps. If you take around half the power available from the battery, say 85 amp battery should give you at least 45 amps of usable power, then a TV using around 4 amps should give around 10 hours use, before the battery drops to where the TV will cut our because of low voltage as with the G10. These figures give only a rough but useful indication of battery condition, if your fully charged battery will drive a 12 volt TV for only 5 hrs continually, then your battery is bad. Battery power does last longer with intermittent loads, as the battery will recover a little from resting between power demands. Regards Terry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Ord Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 One main problem for leisure batteries on MH's is the onboard charger as it only charges to 13.8 volt and never fully charges the battery, they really need to be charged at 14.6 volt to make them 'gas' if you have a solar panel this gets around the problem as most of the solar regulators I know of charge correctly. Under charging will shorten the battery life. It is done for a good reason, when the vehicle is plugged in to an electric HU the 12 volt items on board will not tolerate 14.6 volt for extended periods. Having said this I've had no problems on my vehicles with the 12 volt kit while my battery has been at 14 volt on solar charge. Bill Ord Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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