Bongo Fury

Hi long time no post. Thankfully all has been running fine, until now.

I'm having problems getting my Willinton split charge kit to charge the leisure battery and wondered if anyone out there has and ideas on what I can check as I'm out of ideas.

Ok so I'll start at the beginning as it may have some relevance. Last year my alternator went. I didn't really notice as it was Summer and I have a solar charger charging both leisure battery and starter battery, I didn't use the van much so I drove it, the solar charged the battery and I didn't really notice that it wasn't charging off the alternator. So bought a refurbed alternator, that worked for a week then broke, sent that back bought a new alternator, that worked for a week as well the packed in. Isent that back and got a replacement which touch wood has been working fine ever since.

So the leisure battery was going flat, and not charging up it was only then I realised that the split charge kit wasn't charging the leisure battery, starter battery seems to be charging fine as it goes up to 14.7 (ish) volts when the engine is running, and drops when not. It was then I noticed that I didn't seem to hear the familiar ticking sound of the relay kicking in either. So turns out the leisure battery was now knackered anyway so purchased a new leisure battery. The new battery seems fine chucking out between 12.5 and 13 volts and charging currently on the solar panel (although not much as there's very little sun at the moment), also bought a new split charge relay. The original one was a NAGARES rl-180 12. I purchased a Cargo replacement of the same specs (160477) this also didn't work, and just in case even purchased another relay of the same specs and still no joy. Starter battery is wired to terminal 30 on the relay and the leisure battery is wired to terminal 87 and earth to terminal 85.

So I wondered if it was a dodgy earth as the relay was earthed onto the mounting bracket and in my opinion didn't seem very good so ran a wire from terminal 85 on the relay straight to the starter battery. I've checked all the fuses (the ones on the relay, the fuse board and the the big ones under the bonnet, plus the ones going from the positive on the batteries to the relay and all are fine).

I'm kinda out of ideas. I've totally disconnected the solar element just in case it was that that was causing a problem but it is still the same.

The relay was never connected directly to the alternator so I'm assuming that the new ones need not be connected to it either.

Sorry for the long post but I thought the more detail the better. So am I doing something daft as I'm stumped.

The relay on our Williton kit failed after about 7 years.
We too have solar panels which don't really suit the Williton kit as the batteries are always connected when the sun's out.
I replaced the Williton relay with a 30 second timer relay. This works well with the batteries disconnected when parked and for 30 seconds when you turn the ignition on which allows time for the glow plug light to go out and start the engine.
A couple of overide switches allow you to charge the SB from the LB if needed and allow you to jump start another vehicle without straining the LB.
I realise I'm not answering your question - just offering a potential different set up for solar/ Williton / LB setups

Thanks Tony. Sounds like a possibility. Just looking at timer relays now as a possible fix. Can I ask what one you have?

I see you have checked the two charging fuses, have you measured the voltages at the relay itself ?

yes the voltage at the relay terminal on the SB side is 14.7 when the engine is running and 12.5 at the LB side so its not doing its job. I assume in theory it should trigger at 14 or so volts.

Any ideas if I could connect an ignition switch wire to terminal 86. Mines never been wired like that before but reading up (although my auto electrical knowledge is limited) it seems a lot of other relays including this one, as far as I can see, can be wired in this way so the ignition itself triggers the relay to work.

Just looked up that relay, the relay itself is not a VSR type just a standard relay, when you say replaced do you mean on the Willington PCB which has the actual voltage sensing circuitry? Otherwise if you replaced the whole module with the above relay then that is the problem it needs connecting either to voltage sensing circuitry or the IG2 circuit from the Ignition switch (fused at Ignition switch or one of its feeds).

Thank you for your time. I haven't seen any PCB involved, I still have the original installation instructions from when it was installed (it was in when I bought the van and was told it was a Willington kit, maybe its not)

It looks like its just a relay, mounting bracket, fuse box and cables as far as I can tell there is just patch leads going from the fuse box to the relay connecting on the LB side. I assumed the relay was a voltage sensing relay I'll follow the patch leads and check there isn't some form of PCB mounted under the steering wheel that I've missed. If not I've no idea how this thing ever worked in the first place as there was never any wire connected to the original nagares relay on terminal 86.

I'll go do some more crawling around

I think the ones I've seen had the electronics in the relay case as it had a LED light at the rear to indicate when it was operated. The relay was a "NAGARES RL/180-12 12V./100A" which is also a straight relay out of the box so I suspect maybe Willinton may have added bits inside perhaps ? There is a youtube video showing such an installation here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzJx6dk7rg0
Some sites suggest picking up the Alternator charge indicator circuit to drive a relay direct, but this is not a good idea as it leaves you with a glowing Charge lamp on the dashboard, better is to pickup a fused feed from the IG2 ignition switch circuit, this prevents that problem.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head there as there is alight on the top of the nagares one but the others have no light so it may have been modified. Looks like i may have to either put in a different relay or do a bit of tweaking.

Just nipped home on my lunch break and yes the original nagares relay has been modified with some sort of voltage sensor. Soldered to the relay terminals inside the relay housing. I'll upload a pic when in back at work.

Makes me feel a bit better as I couldn't work out why if I was directly replacing a faulty part with one of the same specs why it wasn't working.

Just got to decide if to unsolder the board and put it onto the new relay of just go for a different set up such at the timer option like Tony suggested.

There are pro's and Con's for each method. I prefer the IG2 connection as it allows me to turn the Ignition to ON and parallel the two batteries, this means if I have flattened the SB I can push some charge into it from the LB and EHU/Solar chargers, but it disconnects the battery when you turn to Start so that only the SB runs the starter motor itself. If you rely purely on a VSR then you need a jump lead to achieve the above. Another pro is the VSR's only operate when the voltage has risen to 14 volts roughly this means that the surge current into a flat LB is much higher, which means you need a bigger more costly relay (hence 100Amp as opposed to 40Amp rating) and also much greater chance of blowing the charging fuses, using the IG2 method when switched ON before starting there is a lot lower surge current as the voltage is around 12.6volts.

Really appreciate the assistance on this. Not sure I would have twigged that without your prompting.

Might go for the IG2 method in the future. Maybe wait till its a bit warmer to rewire though. Temporarily I've just soldered the board to the cargo relay terminals and put it back into the nagares housing so assuming the relay was at fault and not the circuit board then fingers crossed that should resolve my problem. I'll test it tonight if I can see what I'm doing in the dark.


Cant seem to upload pics even after ive compressed them.

Photo's need to be saved to an online site like https://Imgur.com upload the image, then when you can see the image, right click and select "Copy image address" this can then be posted between the two sets of brackets created when you click the image icon

[ img]https://i.imgur.com/ckNNHWY.png[/img ]

like so;

Fitted the modified relay and I'm now getting 14.7 on both batteries when running. Yay!!! Although the relay light stayed on when I killed the ignition. Doh!! Maybe the PCB is shot. I'm not fussed though at least the leisure battery will charge when driving and I wont be camping any time soon so wont really put the leisure battery to the test until summer. At least it gives me something to work from now. I'll troubleshoot or redesign the charging system when its not zero degrees outside and cannot feel my fingers and also see if I can find the flippin fuse box cover that I managed to drop into the engine bay area which then disappeared into thin air.

Might celebrate with a beer.