Leisure Battery

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I’m afraid that your battery isn’t an inexhaustible supply of energy; it needs charging up. Even if you don’t use it for anything there is usually a small drain. An alarm takes a bit etc. So, if you don’t have a solar panel you need to take the motorhome for a run about once a month to charge both the engine battery and the leisure battery.

A Solar panel, the bigger the better, is the way forward to keep batteries charged at any time of the year.

Add a cheap (£20) 'trickle' charger between Starter and Leisure battery/batteries and the panel should keep everything charged even this time of year.

Give the MH a run as often as you can, it saves having flat spots on tyres and any parts such as brakes 'rusting' on, and with a panel you should have no worries about flat batteries.

Hope this helps.

 

I brought my MH home yesterday morning from storage and it's been hooked up to the electric since then. I've just been out to it and the leisure batteries haven't charged at all. I started the engine for about 15 mins and the batteries charged up to about 70%. However, within 10 mins they'd gone down to 30%. On the Alde heating display panel there is an icon that shows it's hooked up but on the main display panel there is no led indication to show mains electric. Any ideas please?  

When you connect your battery charger it will initially supply about 14.4V, then when the charger has sensed your battery status it will adjust its self. Usually the charge voltage will drop to about 13.3V and remain at that indefinitely. Checking the battery voltage whilst the charger is connected will simply show the battery charger voltage. If you disconnect the charger from the battery and check the battery voltage with a multimeter you will initially find the residual battery voltage to be very high - perhaps 12.8 or higher. This residual voltage will drop fairly quickly initially and then slower for the next 20 hours or so, until the true state of charge can be measured. A fully charged battery should settle down at about 12.4V. You need to be patient and wait while your charger does its best for a day or two, then disconnect the charger and wait 24hrs before measuring the battery charge state. If the voltage falls below 12V, you have a problem. I am assuming the battery is not being discharged by something while this process is going on. Ideally the battery should not be connected to anything but the charger. Don't hold me to the precise voltage numbers I have given, as these are only typical and approximate.

About 12.7v for a fully charged battery, possibly a bit more for a good quality fairly new one.

There is a lot going on here so it is quite difficult to give specific advice but as Cyberyacht says, a fully charged battery will be around 12.7 volts.  Lead Acid batteries do hold a higher voltage immediately after charge and drop down to this figure when subjected to a load or after a few hours. It is not clear what batteries you have, what charger you have and how you are measuring the voltage. Also what make of van and how old?

It is also possible that you have a 12 volt load connected somewhere. I left a tank heater on once and it flattened the battery very quickly. Also, my Alde system has a switch hidden in the wardrobe and without it on you can only use it on gas.

I assume that you have checked all the obvious things - is the charger supply on and not tripped etc. You will need more than a 15 minute run to charge the batteries; about 30 minutes would be better.