05 Nuevo, Leisure Battery Electrics Problem

Hi,
    My name's Ken, fortunate enough to live in the South Lakes, Cumbria. Bought this van in March with lots of faults appearing which the dealer was awful in repairing. Now I find that the leisure battery appears to rapidly lose it's charge when attached. Remove the terminal attachments and the battery still has it's charge at 13v.
Discovered the problem when I attempted to use an inverter from a 12v socket. I unfortunately wired positive to negative, etc and lights briefly went out so whether that has anything to do with it I don't know.
I charged the battery up, tried again and eventually discovered the problem as described.
Any help gratefully received,
Thanks,
Ken

Hi Ken

We need a lot more information to help.

1 Have you used the van on the leisure battery (no electrical hook up) for a few days at a time to know your battery was good
2 What capacity was the inverter you connected
3 Does everything work now and if so how long before the battery is discharged
4 Anything else you can say about the electrical operation of the habitation area on and off hookup.

Peter

Hi Peter,
             Thanks for the quick reply.
1. We've only been away 2 short periods and used hook up both times so I wasn't aware if the problem existed before. I have put the battery on charge a few times now thinking it wasn't holding the charge as the indicator on the control panel showed a dead battery. I charged it last night and left it disconnected. I just tested it with a volt meter/tester and it shows a reading of 13.7v.
2. A week back I tried the tele with a 500w inverter and it all worked fine. The inverter was 150w when the wiring was wrong. It then worked ok when rewired and was attached to a 19" tele. I did later, briefly try the 500w as the 150 had a loud fan. It was about at this point I realised something was wrong.
3. Last night I had no inverter or tele attached and nothing switched on i.e. the master switch off. After a couple of hours the control panel shows the battery as dead and the lights don't work.
However, as mentioned, this doesn't seem the case. When the battery was attached and charged I attached the meter and watched it go down .2v at a time every 10 or 20 seconds. Put a light on and it's very dim. Switched everything to off and still it went down. It got down to 7v, I removed the connections and tested the battery. It was at 13.7v
 4. No problems as I remember with a hook up. On 12v, the few times I have used the lights in the past they were ok. As said, the use of a 500w inverter and tele worked about a week ago. I had to drive about a mile to find a place to test the tele aerial but I don't think this problem was present then.
Can't think of anything else that maybe relevant,
Thanks,
Ken

Kennion

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Thanks to Roli for the reminder.

Power = Volts x Amps with inefficiencies your 500w inverter will draw about 50 amps and kill the battery in about 15mins.

I don't recommend using an inverter larger than 150W and then only when on hook up.

You need to check the water levels in your battery and test it for a few hours with a couple of lights on but I suspect its had it.

Peter

That's strange. I used this 500w inverter in a vw camper with an 80aH battery and happily ran a laptop and charged batteries. I'll put it on this battery, which has stayed fully charged, and charge a camera battery and let you know the result.
Regarding using a hook up with an inverter. The point of an inverter is to use it when no hook up is available.
The battery seems to be sealed so can't try filling with water,
Thanks,
Ken

Hi Ken

I should have course have qualified that the current I quoted was if the 500W capacity was used, it will reduce if less power is drawn.

You should be ok charging a phone via an inverter. If you have a fair sized solar panel and decent weather you should also get away with charging a laptop. You will be drawing at least 6 amps and possible 10 and that is a fair drain on the battery without support.

I still think your first checks should be of the battery whilst it is drawing current as you intend to do.

Peter

Ah! I see. Have had the 500w inverter charging a camera battery for an hour then checked volts in battery. Gone down from 13.7 to 12.7 which, in my book, is fine. My conclusion must be that there is nothing wrong with the battery. So, the problem remains,"why is it draining power when it is connected and nothing is switched on,
Ken

Is it fair to assume that the inverter is switched on only when you are actually using the 240V output?

One further point on inverters - typically the bigger the inverter, the less efficiently it will run at low load so - all other things being equal - running your 5W phone charger on a 500W inverter will take more power from your battery than the same charger on a 150W inverter, though the design of the inverter itself will also be a significant factor.

As a general observation, inverters should only be used as a last resort. A much better solution is a DC to DC adaptor, because they are typically much more efficient.

Thanks Mojo,
                   The inverter is only switched on when I wish to convert from 12v to 240 and run a laptop, tele, charge batteries. Up to now I've only had a tele on for 15 mins and part charged a camera battery.
The use of the inverter isn't a problem. Problem is a .2v drain on the battery every 20secs or so when it is connected and nothing is switched on.
As previously mentioned, I ran the inverter for and hour and battery went from 13.7v to 12.7v which is fine. I disconnected the inverter left it for another hour and the battery is now 12.8.
Been scratching me head for a couple of days now,
Ken

Radio Feed

The Peugeot Conversions of your period had a Radio on/off toggle switch in the habitation area, probably near the back door. The vehicle radio was rewired by AS to the Leisure battery and bypasses the PSU/Control unit. If the toggle switch is on, the radio is in standby mode and draws enough current to flatten the battery in about 5 days with nothing else (not even the habitation electrics switch) switched on.

To test the battery:

The battery must rest for 4hr after charge before voltage is measured and must be totally disconnected from load.

100% 12.7v or more
75% 12.5v
50% 12.4v
25% 12.2v
discharged 12v or less

These are all temperature dependant but should be ok for UK this time of year.

I assume a battery capacity of 80AH. Discharge to 75% by drawing 4A for 5hr, 5A for 4hr, etc. One 10W tungsten bulb draws just under an amp so if you have 4 spots on you can estimate the 75% charge in 5hr including consumption by control unit etc. Connect the battery to discharge then disconnect and leave 15mins before measuring. Repeat to try 50 and 25% points.

to check current draw when all off:

I assume your tester has a 10A DC range. ENSURE all habitation electrics is switched off, no hook up and engine off.

Connect tester in series with the battery positive lead ie one test lead to battery terminal and the other to the feed to the habitation circuitry. I would expect less than 0.25A to be drawn. Make sure all 12v connections are switched off (you can only be sure of this by removing 12v distribution fuses as the fridge and oven ignition circuits are not switchable). Switch on the habitation 12v and there should be not much change. Switch on one spot light and the current should increase by about 1 amp - that lets you know the test is working properly. Replace the other fuses one by one until hopefully when all are in with nothing switched on you are drawing less than .25A. If at any incremental stage you find the current increase then you have found the culprit.



Peter

WOW!! Thank You.
The radio toggle switch has been switched off all of the time.
It now seems to have sorted itself out with no help from me so I'm not so sure I should tempt fate and mess with it.
After using the inverter for the half hour I discovered that the connected battery was not losing any power and the control panel was showing it as nearly charged. I left it a while and tested again with the same result. I then left it connected for an hour and tested with the same result. Disconnected, same result. Started the engine for a couple of minutes and testing showed a slight increase. I'm getting very excited by now.
I connected 240v to the van and charged the battery for an hour and it shows 13.7 on the tester and fully charged on the control panel.
As you suggest, I'll now leave it probably 'till tomorrow and test again and hopefully will put the seat back on with a fully operational leisure battery.
If I have any further problems I will be returning to your checking procedure,
Many Thanks,
Ken

Hi,
    Left the connected charged battery all night. It was fine the next morning at 13.7v. Decided to try leaving a couple of internal lights on for 11/2 hours. Sadly the battery seriously discharged it seems. The control panel showed it flat, the tester showed it at 7.8v. Disconnected the battery and it showed 9.5v. Left it for an hour and it had climbed up to 12.1v.
Have put it on charge for about 7 hours and intend disconnecting tomorrow and trying connecting a 60w inspection lamp to see what happens before I finally go out and buy a battery,
Ken

Ok. I connected a 21w bulb to the disconnected battery and in 5 hours the battery was flat. Bought a new battery and it seems fine. So after all that, a duff battery. Should have bit the bullet ages ago. Many thanks to Peter for putting up with me and giving excellent advice. I'm sure it will be useful to others,
Thanks,
Ken