leisure battery confusion

[buddyh42]

Hi,we have had the van now for 4 years and I still aint sure about this leisure battery.
What it is, is I charged the leisure battery so that if we wanted a brew or to stop we didnt need a site, so fully charged the battery, then we left drove 400 mile approx never used the battery for anything, we had booked into a b&b for 2 nights then drove home again 400 mile approx, again never used the battery, when i arrived home checked and leisure battery was showing in the red, I thought that while we were driving the leisure battery would not lose charge as it would keep being topped up by driving, i thought that it would keep the charge until you either used it or a few weeks if not using it.
Am i totally wrong in my thinking or is my setup not working in which case it never has worked, i am really confused.
Its an Imperial Moonfleet conversion.

[dave_aber]

The answer, as ever with conversions, is "it depends"

To work as you expected, you would need something installed to take the charge generated by the alternator, and feed it to the L/B. This is usually taken care of by a split-charge relay, Willinton kit, or similar.

Have you got anything like that installed?

Having said that, a fully charged L/B which is carried around for 800 miles over 3 days doing nothing should remain pretty much at full charge by the end - so your battery may be on the way out too.

[g8dhe]

When you say the battery is "in the red" how are you measuring this ? If your plugging it back into a charger, then yes it will quite often say "red" for the first few minutes and then go back to "Green" once it has established that the battery doesn't need charging - but it isn't always instant, it may take a few minutes to work it out!

[buddyh42]

The red light i am talking about is on the panel in the car, there is one for the water and one for the battery on leaving it was green on returning it was red will get a pic if that would help, as for the Willington kit i dont know what it is but when buying from Imperial we were told that by the time we drove home it would be fully charged but by the time we got home we had forgot to check. Home being just outside Edinburgh, had my battery checked and was told it is fine.
Thanks for your help.

[g8dhe]

They don't say on the Imperial site what sort of charging arrangement they have. But if the light stays on for more than a few minutes then it may not be a problem but just merely checking what state the battery is in. However if you have had it for 4 years then it could well be time to replace it;

Battery Elecsol 100 amp five year warranty leisure battery. LED display control panel and battery charger with mains inlet and rcd

You could try having a word with Imperial as they are supposed to have a 5 Year warranty according to their site But I suspect that the small print will have something to say .....

[Simon Jones]

Older Imperial conversions us a fairly basic split charge unit (can't recall the make & model at the mo), but they cost about £15 to replace from Autovan. It has two outputs: one to the leisure battery and the other one to a relay under the conversion to switch the interior lights off when the engine is running. There's some regulation that lights in the habitation area cannot be left on when the vehicle is in motion. I found that one of the two outputs had failed, so I just swapped the wires around so the LB got the output instead.

First thing to try is to run the engine and then press the battery check button on the conversion. If its working correctly then it should be on orange or green. If still on red, check the yellow 20A blade fuse by the LB as this can blow quite easily if the battery is heavily discharged. I can dig up some photos later on showing what you should have under the bonnet.

You could fit a Willinton kit, although it would require a bit of re-jigging to update the wiring.

[Poohbear]

What you will have under the bonnet is one of these: -




You need to check that it is functioning correctly. In the second photo the smaller red wire goes to the relay behind the drivers seat to switch off the interior lights and the bigger wire goes to the leisure battery. You can check whether the interior lights are switching off and you can also test for an output on the charging wire with a meter. You also need to check both the fuses (you can see one of the fuse holders in the photo).

Mine wasn't working when we first got the Bongo second hand so I bought a replacement relay on Ebay. It now works perfectly.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SELF-SWITCHIN ... 416463bc94

The website for Ryder is http://www.rydertowing.co.uk/

If you need any more help, we have exactly the same conversion so I am quite familiar with the details of it.

[Simon Jones]

Yup, that's the badger. The 20A fuse can be seen in the foreground:

[buddyh42]

Sorry never managed to continue ended up with visitors, that looks exactly like what is under the bonnet, i have a test meter somewhere just got to find it. Will hopefully get it done tomorrow and will keep you informed.
Thanks for help it is much appreciated

[Poohbear]

Not wishing to teach grandmother to suck eggs as I don't know what your abilities are but the best thing to do first is measure the voltage across both batteries and make a note of them. They should be 12.6V or thereabouts. Then start the engine and check again. You should get around 14V across the starter battery as soon as the engine starts and after a short delay you should get the same across the leisure battery (there is a delay built in to the relay). If the split charging circuit is faulty then the leisure battery will remain at the initial voltage of around 12.6. The little volt meter inside the van with the button and the four lights on it (green, two amber and red) should be on green with the engine running and the interior spotlights shouldn't switch on.

[buddyh42]

Been bucketing of rain here today so not been atthe van. Still cant find my meter but cant be far will keep looking, again thanks for the help

[buddyh42]

Well i came out when it was dry but after mins its bucketing again, in saying that i managed to get my test meter and my starter battery is doing as you said but my leisure battery is at 10.8 and when running the engine it is the same, so i take it that my leisure battery has gone to the big camping ground in the sky and so i need a new one, am i righst in my reckoning, and if so now to try and work out what battery to get and where, who said having a camper was leisurly. Lol anyway thanks again for all the help, still not managed to do my sliding door yet but thats another thread. Cheers

[Poohbear]

Your leisure battery may be recoverable from 10.8V. Take the battery off and charge it with an intelligent charger. The fact that the voltage didn't increase when the engine was running would indicate that your split charge system isn't working. Check the fuses and the outputs on the relay first to see if you can tell where the problem lies.

[buddyh42]

Its been chucking it down again so will wait till rain goes off then go check the fuses and relay.

[buddyh42]

Pooh on your second photo, the small red wire was not even connected, the big 40 amp fuse in the holder beside them was okay where is the other fuse i have to check? I have tested the big red wire and it seems to be putting out a charge.