Auto Sleeper Cotswold EB

Hi all
I am new to this forum we have Cotswold EB been motorhoming for 4 years had a Swift 680 FB until Christmas, we love the van but we have just found out that if not on ehu the van runs on diesel but will only run for 6 hours then battery flat although we have 2 100amp batteries and solar panel. This is no good for a weekend away

Is this normal for this van

Thanks


Dianne

Welcome Dianne

I'm not very familiar with your van but I reckon one or even both of your batteries may be faulty. Does your van have a built in battery charger ?If so turn it on and hook up at home (with an adapter) to see if they charge up.

Let us know how you get on

Cheers

Stevo

Welcome to our forum Dianne

If your leisure battery is only giving you power for 6 hrs something is certainly wrong. As Steveo has suggested the battery could be faulty or past it's life? not sure how old your Cotswold motorhome is?, but I wouldn't have thought it was old enough to need the leisure battery replacing.

If I were you, I think the 1st thing I would do is get the battery checked over by your local garage, or a branch of say ATS or Halfords or similar outlet who will tell you instantly if the battery is OK or not.

What is the battery level showing on your control panel, after a run or after being on EHU? Might just be worth putting a battery charger on and do a slow trickle charge overnight and see what happens? Has the motorhome been used much over recent weeks?

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Thanks

Admin

Hello dianne

I dont have an autosleeper (yet) but I do have a van conversion camper, and as such my knowledge is very limited. This may sound silly but have you left anything on that could be pulling power from the leisure battery? You could have left something on without realizing? 6 hours is very little time to run down the battery, so that would indicate either a dead or damaged battery cell (as already suggested) or you have a fault elsewhere in the system perhaps? (possibly even an earthing fault) Firstly check the battery and connections, look at earthing, and maybe put all your 12v items like interior lights, fridge, heater, water pump and anything else on one at a time, checking your control panel to try track down the drain? or you might be better off getting hold of a good auto-electrician (many of these offer a mobile service) they have the gear and experience to quickly track down faults such as these :)

deedwards wrote:we have just found out that if not on ehu the van runs on diesel but will only run for 6 hours then battery flat although we have 2 100amp batteries and solar panel. This is no good for a weekend away.
Is this normal for this van

Just read this post but don't quite understand? ae you saying your heating system runs off diesel? (like a Webasto or Eberspacher heater) not an LPG type like the Truma that we have in our camper? if so.. are you running this constantly? or do you have thermostat set so it cuts in and out rather than staying on all the time? I suppose if you are using other 12v items like fridge, TV, lighting, as well as the heating on pretty much all the time then 6 hours probably is not that bad? but then again having said this you say you have 2x 100amp batteries, which is a heck of alot of power to have available, we only have the one leisure battery on our vehicle and Im pretty sure thats only about 84amps and we have never ran ours flat


Found this information online which might explain better than I can:


Battery power is measured in amp hours. The higher this number is the better as this gives you an idea as to how long it will last. Generally, leisure batteries are available from 75amp hours to 110amp hours. A common question is how long will a leisure battery last for caravanning. The obvious answer, is unhelpfully, depends how you use it and what for. To give you an idea as to consumption of caravan equipment running on battery we have prepared a chart for you to add up how much power you need.



How long will a battery last in reality:

If you followed this consumption pattern and ran a 110 amp hour battery to total discharge it would last just under two days.
However, in reality you would not get this performance for the following reasons:

1. If you run a leisure battery to total discharge it would not be as effective.
2. Amp hour ratings given to batteries are based on new batteries and in ideal conditions

We would never recommend totally discharging a battery ever, ideally you would never let it go below 50%.

Calculating battery requirement
Caravan Equipment Wattage rating
Estimated hours you will use it without a re-charge Total watt hours e.g. Rating x hours
Three 8w lights 24w 10 hours = 240 watt
One 10w spotlight 10w 12 hours = 120 watt
Water pump 50w 30 mins = 25 watts
Colour TV 50w 10 hours = 500 watts

If you add up the total watts used e.g. 240 + 120 + 25 + 500 = 885 watts

To work out the total number of amp hours you divide by the voltage (12v) 885 watts /12 volts = 74 amp hours.


Preserving the life of your battery:

There are a number of ways to keep your battery working longer.

1. Switch off all appliances when they are not being used
2. Avoid using high drain appliances such as televisions etc
3. Keep your battery regularly topped up.
4. Consider a battery charging device (see below)


CC

Did we frighten Deedwards off ?

If you read this Dianne would be interested to know how you got on, any sucess? :coolagree:

Hi All
Still here we went away this weekend only managed about eight hours of heat. We are taking it back to Brownhills on Thursday so will let you know what they have to say.

Thanks

Dianne

Thanks for the update Dianne

Hope you get sorted out with Brownhills, but do pop back and keep us posted on what happens?

It's always helpful to know about these things for our other members!

Hi

Updat we took van to Brownhills yesterday, but was told that 8hrs of heating is all you would we have solar panel and 2 batteries) get when not on hook up, so if we watched TV it would be less, not much good for wild camping or on CL site. Our old van Swift Bolero 680 FB we could run gas heating all weekend and watch TV without batteries going flat.


Dianne

Hi Dianne

Thanks for updating us :D

That is a shame, suppose there isnt much you can do about that then really, in fairness to AS I suppose 8hrs for most is near enough adequate. is this with the heating on permanent or cutting in and out as the temp drops? only other thing I can think is another leisure battery (providing you have space to fit another) or maybe upgrade your current batteries to higher amp hours like 2x 125ah, which would give you a little more power time but by what degree I'm not sure?, probably not enough to be worth the hassle :scratch:

Guessing Brownhills would have (or should have) advised you about anything you could do to improve it anyway?

CC

Just to let you know it is with the heating cutting in and out, has any body had any trouble with central locking as habitation door only locks with key, Brownhills were not much help

thanks for your input

Dianne

Hi Dianne
Our van has diesel heating, an Eberspacher, but it does not cut in and out as you say to keep to the set temperature. What happens is that the fan just gets much slower and so much less hot air is pumped out. When such a heater is first switched on it draws a lot of current and the thing sounds like a jet engine. Once in gets up to temperature that is when the fan slow down. Ours never seemed to actually go off and then re-start. If yours is doing that then it would be caning the leisure battery.

squip

We have a Sigma EK 2007 and we have always had battery problems. I had it checked over at AS and they fitted a new battery but said there was nothing wrong with it. However, we can't last more than 2/3 days on battery. My brother in-law has an older Nuevo and he can easily do a week on his battery. And it's not lifestyle as we have compared usage. (And we don't watch TV - banned in my van, don't even have one...)

Does your van have one of those electronic/digital control units? I reckon that drains the battery but AS say the current it takes is negligable. I also read (it was either in C & C Club mag or the Caravan Club mag) that some people sell leisure batteries that are nothing of the sort but you can't tell unless you saw it half to have a look. Apparently you can get batteries certified (!) to be to a certain standard.

Next time I've got a spare £100+ I'm going to see if I can get a better battery. Maybe you should check out whether the battery you have is a decent one or some dodgy cheap trade job. (I'm not implying that Brownhills would fit such an item knowingly but there are all sorts of counterfeit goods on the market.)

Hi,
When we bought our A/S Windsor in 2008, we got A/S to remove the Eberspacher diesel heater and replace it with the Truma Gas/Mains electric heater, still with blown air. This was an option we used as I had heard about the diesel heaters chewing up batteries.

It might be a worthwile exercise to get a quote from A/S to swop the system.

We have an 85Watt solar panel fitted and I have only switched on the mains charger twice, within the warrenty period, just to make sure that it worked.

If you have to keep swapping leisure batteries at £100 each plus peace of mind, then a one off cost may be worthwhile. Plus the Truma unit can be run on mains elec overnight, with or wothout the blown air fan on, so it is silent running. On Aires/wild camping/ sites without mains electric then running on gas takes pretty much zero electric from the batteries.

Hope the above gives you some food for thought and maybee points you to the right decision for you.

Regards Mike

Like Mike we have a Windsor and had it made with Truma heating, we rally and wont park next to noisey eberspachers, apart from that a friend who was a former paramedic warned me off as the ambulances are fitted with diesel heaters.
However that doesnt help you and a tidy sized solar panel to keep the batteries topped up. I am not familiar with diesel systems but is there something else running that could be draining the system quickly, TV, Microwave & etc? and is the heating on all the time.
I would suggest you talk to Auto Sleepers directly and see what they say

deedwards wrote:Just to let you know it is with the heating cutting in and out, has any body had any trouble with central locking as habitation door only locks with key, Brownhills were not much help

thanks for your input

Dianne

Hi I had a problem with my central locking on the habitation door and also problems with my alarm not setting properly.

In the end, (It TOOK 2 years to find out) I found out that these problems were linked. What happened was that the habitation door only shut to the first click unless it (the door) was pulled firmly shut from the inside. The 3 push pin contacts on the habitation door were not properly touchin/making contact.
You can check this out by:-
1. close the door as normal and from the inside push gently on the top left had part of the door, you should find that there is a small movement, 1/8 inch/1 to 2 mm.
2 then pull the door firmly closed from the inside and make sure that there is no movement, push the same place as before.
3 exit the motorhome via the drivers door and then use the central locking - all should be ok.
PS make sure that the accomodation door contacts are really clean, use glass paper or an abrasive washing up pad, wiping with a cloth will not do.
If you need further clarification PM me and I will send you my mobile

Regards mike

Belated reply but this may help someone. We had this as a fault-when I squirted the chassis box with the three pins with WD40 they popped out and the central locking has been fine since.
This is my 2nd mention of WD40-I'm not on commission honest!