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Leisure Battery venting


Brian L

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I recently bought two new leisure batteries for my Autosleeper Kemerton XL. The existing batteries are located underneath the sofa/bed in the lounge , and are vented via a tube through the bottom of the van. The tube is connected to the battery with a L shaped plug (a bit like a jack plug) that is circular in cross section - so round peg in round hole.

My new batteries have a square vent hole, which the round plug won't fit into. I've googled extensively, but can only find round plugs, and no mention of anyone else having a similar problem. I know that I'm special, but I can't be that special!

The batteries are Numax CXV30HRMF Sealed Leisure Batteries, which I bought from Tayna (who can't offer any solution). I've also emailed the manufacturers, Ecobatt, but haven't had a response as yet.

Any thoughts appreciated. I've installed the batteries without  the vent tube, but I'm obviously slightly concerned as they are sited in the habitation area. The vent hole is about 1cm wide by about 0.5cm high

IMG_20231205_163901.jpg

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Hi

You say Numax CXV30HRMF Sealed Leisure Batteries, may have a valve fitted and may be just for external lockers. Always of course ensure you are using the correct charging and they are placed in a battery box which itself should be vented outside. Contact Numax (Ecobat) for further advice 

Regards

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Evidently this battery's non-standard vent is nothing new. There are several reviews of the Numax CXV30HRMF battery on the Tayna website that mention this peculiarity, including a 2014 review that said

The product description did not mention that these batteries were supplied without venting kits or that the oblong vent holes on the batteries wouldn't receive the normal round vent tubes and therefore only suitable for external lockers. When discussed with Tayna customer technical services they seemed unaware of this and offered no help.

This link is to a 2013 RoadPro FAQ file about Banner "Energy Bull" Leisure batteries and includes the following

image.png.6cea30516bb5b1e62dafeb3fe503b051.png

It was regularly advised on motorhome forums that the electrolyte-level of Banner "Energy Bull" leisure batteries should be regularly checked as they could lose water at an unusually high rate. The batteries were not 'sealed' and had removable cell-caps through which water could be added when necessary and this makes me doubtful that they had 'recombination' technology. Rapido used to factory-install "Energy Bull" batteries and these were always fitted with a vent-tube even when the battery was mounted outside the motorhome's habitation area. (In the Banner battery's case a non-standard vent-tube was needed.)

Even if a 'sealed' battery is the 'recombination' type and, consequently, its electrolyte loss should be minimal in normal use, if a fault does occur and the battery gasses with a vengeance, if there's no vent-tube and the battery is within a motorhome's habitation area, the result is inevitable.

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For what it's worth, this link is to a NUMAX catalogue .pdf file and data on the sealed leisure and marine CXV range are on Page 4. 

https://www.tayna.co.uk/docs/catalogues/numax/numax-catalogue.pdf

Two variants of the XV30 battery are listed - XV30HMF or XV30HRMF - with the obvious difference being that the latter has the less-usual Terminal Layout "0" (rather than "1"). The two variants also have single terminal posts, not the double posts of the XV23MF to XV35MF products.

This 2012 entry

http://www.factorfocus.ie/index.php/numax-adds-to-xv-leisure-battery-range/86

includes the statement

The range is manufactured using state-of-the-art plate design, semi-traction paste, envelope construction and gas recombination technology, which means that they will last substantially longer that a conventional flooded leisure battery. As a result, every Numax XV battery comes with a three-year warranty.

Although there are plenty of on-line mentions of these Numax batteries being 'recombination' type, all such entries highlight that this should make the battery longer-lasting than non-recombination equivalents (a not unreasonable claim), but there's nothing I can find saying that they do not need to be vented if they are installed within an unvented compartment inside a leisure vehicle.

Apparently Manbat is now called Ecobat

https://www.ecobatbattery.com/about-us/our-group/our-history/

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