Battery drain.

Thanks to all who suggested ideas to solve my water problem, it was indeed air sucked in on pump, tightened screws and all good. Now for my next problem, used the 08 Nuevo EK just before Christmas for short break, all good. Had van on EHU every week since, noticed this morning battery reading very high drain on MES panel. Checked everything turned off, went to check fridge and will not work on any of the three options, thought this could been drain problem. Removed fuses to fridge but, still high drain. Any ideas please. Battery is less than tree years old and has been performing well.

The MES panels are certainly not the best.

Ours consistently (or often, anyway) shows high drain on the battery, even with nothing in use.  If I disconnect the leisure battery, and the reconnect, it then magically shows low drain.  I think it just gets confused.  If you really want to know, you could connect an ammeter of your own to the leisure battery and see what that says.

For me, I just ignore the drain reading.

Nick.

On the Sargent Control Panel there is a re-calibration procedure for the current reading. Is there for the MES panel?

Sorry if I have misled you all but, not only does MES show battery drain, there is definitely drain as if I unplug electric you notice drain within a few hours. I have a Fox regulator with battery read out which also shows drain. I still cannot see why my Dometic fridge has gone down, is it coincidence?

There are a few variants of the MES system but with a bit of luck you will have a 12v distribution box like the one in the picture (under a cab seat). You can remove the fuses in turn to find where the current is going.

The fridge switching to 12v power (and step activation) is enabled via a motion sensor. If that has gone faulty you could be sending 12v to the fridge all the time but it will be 10 - 15 Amps and discharge the battery quickly.

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Could the relay connecting Hab and vehicle battery when engine running be stuck in closed position, so Hab battery is feeding vehicle battery?

Peter Brown wrote:There are a few variants of the MES system but with a bit of luck you will have a 12v distribution box like the one in the picture (under a cab seat).  You can remove the fuses in turn to find where the current is going.

The fridge switching to 12v power (and step activation) is enabled via a motion sensor.  If that has gone faulty you could be sending 12v to the fridge all the time but it will be 10 - 15 Amps and discharge the battery quickly.

In our Nuevo, the fuse panel is under the wardrobe floor.  Fuse allocations in the handbook.

Thanks all, will remove fuses one by one tomorrow to try and trace drain. Still baffled by fridge though.

Stoneman wrote: went to check fridge and will not work on any of the three options, 

I don't know if the 3-way fridge needs a 12v supply to work on mains but it does to work on gas and obviously on 12v.  Could it be that no 12v is getting to the fridge?  Have you checked with a multimeter?  How certain are you that it not working on mains?

to test a drain you can put a volt meter across each  fuse and should read .00 volts to test a  heavy drain and put the meter on mv for a small drain

I'm sure glynne means put the meter across the fuse holder after removing the fuse. Any voltage then measured will indicate the potential to drive a current with the fuse in place.

you can do test with the fuse in place . if all the fuses have the small test point on the ends as some don't  .or as you say remove all fuses and test across holder

Probably the battery is dying

Thank you all for your suggestions to fix my battery drain and fridge problems. Mobile engineer called this morning, good chap ( Rob from Lydney ). Fridge had shifted forwards, never been fixed apparently and pulled a wire out from rear, wires very short and tight. Reconnected, fridge works and battery drain disappears.

Stoneman wrote:Thank you all for your suggestions to fix my battery drain and fridge problems. Mobile engineer called this morning, good chap ( Rob from Lydney ). Fridge had shifted forwards, never been fixed apparently and pulled a wire out from rear, wires very short and tight. Reconnected, fridge works and battery drain disappears.

And hopefully he fixed the fridge in place while he was there! It's a big lump to be wandering around inside the van during an accident...

It's also not at all easy to see how a disconnected wire could cause a battery drain, so there may be more to this than has been found so far?