Bongo Fury

Hi All,

first time poster based in Galway, west of Ireland. Trying to figure out a long running issue with my Bongo during lockdown, replaced leisure battery last year but still find it get's drained after a few days, have fitted a kill switch to all the switches in the factory kitchen pod but it is still connected to the relay / battery monitoring and charging setup. Have fitted multimeter and observed a 0.12 amp draw when everything else is disconnected except the standard charge and monitoring setup. I can hear and feel the relay with S10K on it cutting in and out when I connect the battery and press the reset button so I'm certain that this relay is somehow contributing to the draw. When I either remove the relay, allow the reset button to pop out or remove the 30 amp fuse the draw goes to zero. I've read 20 threads online of people with this exact problem but none seem to detail the solution except one guy in NZ who removed the system and replaced / simplified it but there are no pics or instructions.

Looking for advice from someone who has solved this problem. I would also like to add a small 35w solar panel which I have been given but would like to rectify the draw first as I have never been able to run the engel compressor fridge which came with the kitchen cube with any confidence without killing the battery and leaving me with no lights or pumped water.

Help please!!

What age and state is the internal battery in the unit ? If its not been replaced in the last few years then don't be surprised, lead acid batteries don't last for ever.

Replaced 11 months ago with a Yuasa 80AH leisure battery

From reading on here, this looks like a common problem with factory kitchen cubes

What was the original capacity battery in it ? 80AH is quite a size, what sort of technology is it AGM /GEL or Flooded ?

Yuasa YBX Active Leisure & Marine L26-80 Battery 12V 80Ah 560A

thats the new battery, the one i replaced was also a yuasa 80ah

Yup a normal flooded battery, in that case it may well be the normal situation, there always seems to have been reported problems on the cube kitchen and its battery. There isn't a circuit published and not had one to reverse engineer so what is in the control module is unknown, wondering if its holding a relay operated which would account for the 120mA current draw.

Exactly, I have seen many threads detailing this exact problem from 2008 onwards but none that have a solution posted.
Thinking I might just remove the monitoring / reset switch system

There might be a clue in the partially translated user manual. See https://igmaynard.co.uk/download/kitchen.pdf

Thanks for the manual, had a good look through it and v handy to have. Unfortunately no further clues

This may be my course of action:

Re: Mazda Kitchen Battery Charging.
Post by hailseizer » Fri Jan 08, 2010 8:26 am

Hi All. Well i pulled the kitchen out and noticed that someone had been tinkering with the wiring. Due to my hate of redundant things that can go wrong i ripped out all of the 100v stuff and the relays and diodes. After a bit of bench testing i found that the charge controller is a rather nice voltage sensing relay with, i think ,solar panel connections. Using this relay i invented a far nicer, simpler system with no stupid red cut out switch or 100v stuff. Works a treat, just need to add a cheapo volt meter to keep an eye on the battery. Thanks for the help, good luck with the snow!!!

Resolved this, spent pretty much the day yesterday studying the wiring diagram. Came to the conclusion from my testing that either by design or fault the T303 relay was the cause of the discharge. Deleted it by joining terminal 3 with terminal 5 and removing the relay. White and green wire with white and blue wire. This effectively removes the relay and the reset button and gives you constant power to the switch panel. In conjunction with this, I wired up one of the switches on the switch panel as a kill switch. I have observed the current draw drop to less than 0.01 on my ammeter with this setup.

I also wired in a 35w solar panel and charge controller to keep the battery topped up which was donated from a friend's electric fence, now can't wait for this lockdown to be over so I can use the van.

Indeed, we're all looking forward to getting back out Bongoing.