MountainGoat wrote:Sorry Ron, no offence intended but my question was aimed at others to suggest a possible alternative explanation. At the time Dandy fully explained to me what he believed the problem was with my Bongo. At some later date he posted this eplanation on the Forum on one of the many times that this problem has arisen. What he said is as follows:
Jim, I think what Tony's alluding to is that the Bongo alternator doesn't like being tapped into for a split charge relay which is what his converter had done. The heavy duty "intelligent" relays work far better although mine packed in under high temperatures in East Europe this year
On a positive note, Martin of Willintons changed it without query.
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I had only had my Bongo about two months before I set off on holiday in it. Before I did so I took it round to my local auto electricians where they spent a day having a look at it, charged me £115.00 then told me that it should be ok. Five days later it failed to start again and needed a jump start. Looks like my auto electricians did not have a clue about split charging and just charged up my battery, That was a really expensive charge up, to think I could have got the breakdown out for nothing. After a month or two of my Bongo being stuck on my drive I got to know dandy and he agreed to have a look at my Bongo for me. He even showed me how to use a multimeter.
..and no offence taken, although whatever was wrong with your original split charge system, I think it simply confuses the issue for BongoJon, whose problem by his own clear description seems to simply be due to too many engine starts, and too little engine running (i.e., mileage) to replace the repeated heavy engine starting battery discharges.
That would happen whether or not he's got a split charge system, or even whether or not he's got a leisure battery - and indeed he confirmed that he does not have - unless, as suggested by several other people here, his battery is occasionally taken out of the vehicle for offline re-charging when necessary.
Can't tell what the Willinton system actually does BTW, as I haven't located one online but would guess that it perhaps disconnects the leisure battery from the alternator once the static leisure battery terminal voltage indicates a full charge. Perhaps dandywarhol knows that older Bongo alternators don't provide a sufficiently heavy duty output to concurrently re-charge starter and leisure batteries for sustained periods but, both by multimeter checks and by sustained charging performance, mine certainly does - it's a post '99 series Bongo, and perhaps at that point the alternator was uprated. Anyone know? Otherwise, as I said, one possibility in your case was simply an underperforming alternator - perhaps they're common on Bongos as they age?
, but have you left any interior lights, radio, cooler, etc on 
I use mine only once a week at the moment and it starts first time.
Mine's got a voltage sensing intelligent split charge system installed already 
