Leisure battery not holding charge

[llitvack]

Hi folks.

I'm not using the van that much at the moment, but went for a run of about one and a half hours yesterday.

My Nasa Marine battery monitor

(http://www.nasamarine.com/proddetail.ph ... -1_Battery)

tells me that the battery charged at 14.1 volts with the Bongo running. This morning, however, the leisure battery charge was down to 7 volts.

Does this mean that it's time to replace the 85 Ah leisure battery (which is more than five years old)?

The van starts fine, because I bought a new Bosch starter battery earlier this year.

I also have both leisure and charger batteries connected to one of Dodgy's 100-watt solar panels; but it's not that sunny in Belfast at the moment, so very little charge has been trickling into either of them.

Cheers from Leon

[Tony x]

It probably is the battery but I'd first check there's no current drain.
If you can, turn the solar panel off or cover it if not.
Then check the current flowing from the leisure battery with the starter battery still connected.
You should be looking at a minimal amount - maybe 0.05 amps max.

You'll have to charge the battery somehow prior to the above.

A 100 watt panel should easily keep the batteries topped up in winter unless you keep the Bongo undercover.

A couple of points to note-
When measuring the current drain, wait around 5 minutes following shutting the door / turning the ignition off or you may get a falsely high reading. On or Bongo, something uses power for these 5 minutes. I've no idea what but it's around 0.1 amps.

Leaving the starter battery connected is also important. You'd think you could disconnect both batteries, measure the current through each individually, then add the results to get the total drain. This did not work for us, again for some unknown reason.

[Dodgey]

Indeed - at 7 volts you have a problem. Even in the winter a 100w panel of mine will never let your batteries go flat if there is little to no drain.

If I understand right - your starter battery (SB) is ok, but your LB is 7 volts right?

The kit I supplied had the dual battery charger with remote LCD display.

What is the display panel showing? for each battery? voltage level, and charging level?