Home / Forums / Vehicle maintenance, suggestions and ideas / Battery charging
Battery charging
I'm new here (see my post in Introduce yourself), new to campervans and having some difficulty understanding the electrical system in my T5 Rainbow conversion. I'm the third owner and the previous owner didn't have much of a clue about the technical side to tell me how it all worked.
The auxiliary battery, which is a new 110Ah leisure battery, charges fine from the inbuilt mains battery charger (CEC/Plug-in Systems CTAMP/12A) but doesn't seem to charge from the alternator whilst driving. The Waeco fridge seems to be the main current hog as it only runs for about a day from a full battery before flashing its error code and shutting down. It doesn't have a gas option.
There is a Zig panel, which is a Marque 1. I have to set the switch to the bottom position (with the caravan symbol) to get the lights, water pump and aux socket to work, but the fridge works regardless of the Zig panel.
I switch to the top position (car symbol) whilst driving. Is this correct? It doesn't seem to make any difference to the auxiliary battery whichever position I switch it to.
Could it be that the charging system isn't designed to charge the auxiliary battery from the alternator, only from the mains hook-up? If so, how easy would it be to modify?
Or is it more likely to be a fault somewhere, and if so, how would I go about tracing it?
In the auxiliary battery compartment are 5 blade fuses, 3 of which are 15amp and connect to Fridge, Charger (mains charger) and Panel (Zig panel?) respectively.
The other 2 are 25amp and 10amp, the 10amp one being in the live of a separate 2-core cable. I don't know what these 2 fuses are for, but when I got the van the 25amp one was blown and the connector was detached from the fuse block. The Zig panel has 3 10amp glass fuses for Pump, Lights and Aux, so I presume the 2 unknown fuses are not for these. Any ideas? There is a Heatsource gas heater which has a fan, so I think the 10amp might be for this, which leaves the largest rated fuse of the lot, which I suspect must be important.
I hope this can be sorted out, because it's a pain having to find a campsite with electrical hook-up every night just to charge the battery.
It depends on the type of fridge, mine uses less than 2 amp/hrs. Have you got a model number for the fridge? If so go to the web site and check out its specifications, it should give you the amp/hr rating.
To check to see if your leisure battery is being charged by the alternator you will need to get a multi meter on it when the engine is running. It should read about 12.7 with engine off, upto maybe 14v with engine on if its being charged by the alternator.
Also if the conversion was done professionally won't rainbow have some infomation on this too?
Give them a call to see what your van had fitted.
KS
Like kitesurfer says, give Rainbow a call.
It seems strange that the leisure battery isn't charging.
I'm not sure what position the switches should be in for battery charging on a Marque 1 Zig unit. Hopefully Rainbow can help you.
I had the car at the local vehicle electrical experts last week, so I asked them to have a look at the campervan charging system as well.
It seems it's got a primitive split-charge system running off the alternator via a tiny 30 Amp relay through two 25 Amp fuses at either end of an undersized cable to the leisure battery. The fuse at the leisure battery end is the one I couldn't identify when I sent the original post. Both fuses were blown and one of the fuse holders had burned out, probably because the leisure battery had died and the alternator had tried to force zillions of amps into it. I've replaced the battery, fuse holder and fuses and it seems to be working now, but the experts suggest running a much thicker cable to the rear of the van, into a modern 70Amp or 120Amp intelligent split-charge relay mounted nearer to the leisure battery than to the starter battery. They'd also install a proper blade fuse box near the mains consumer unit, instead of the fuses on flying leads inside the battery compartment, which I wasn't happy about anyway. Does all this sound right?
The thing that bothers me most about their plan is where this thicker cable is going to run. None of the wiring looms are accessible because of Rainbows furniture, so they suggested running it underneath the van. The trouble is it's all cover panels and heat shields under there on a T5, so I foresee missing bits, loose screws and holes in the floor when they've finished, but maybe that's just my paranoia after many experiences of dodgy "experts" in various trades.
The battery compartment is just in front of the steel-lined gas compartment, which is at the very back of the Rainbow side conversion and has a vent in its floor, but the battery compartment itself is un-ventilated, in spite of containing a flooded-cell battery with vents in the filler plugs. I'm not sure what to do about this, but it doesn't feel right to me. Any thoughts? Would a sealed maintenance-free battery have been a better choice, but don't even these have to have vents to let out gases in the event of over-charging?
The fridge, by the way is a Waeco Coolmatic MDC-50, which draws about 4 Amps, so I realize I'm going to have to drive or hook up to mains every day.
Whoa 4 amps is alot!
Cheap split charge relay systems. there are some who love them and seem to have no problems and then there are people like me who don't think there worth even bothering with.
As for so called intelligent split charge relays again its just a selling term. A relay is still a relay, nothing inteligent about it at all, it switches when it sees a voltage.
If i was you i would ask exactly what charge system then intend to use. Then let us know which one it is, so we can advise. Most modern versions just use a bigger relay, but are basically the same system and you might get charged (if you'll excuse the pun) alot more for it.
They are right about one thing though, cable size, it does need to be heavy duty.
At the end of the day there are many ways to charge your leisure batteries from the cheap relay systems to the more expensive battery to battery and 4 stage voltage regulation systems. You get what you pay for and to get the most out of your batteries you need something better than a cheap relay system.
Whats the most important thing for you? Cost or a well charged battery?
Have a look at the sterling battery charger products, these are easy to self install and will charge your leisure battery to 100% capacity rather than the 70% that your van alternator is capable of.
Myself i went for an adverc system as i have quite high power requirments in my van and i run a bank of batteries totaling 600amp/hrs.
KS
I have a split relay charger from towsure, its a Battery 2 battery one.
have i got this right?
they will only charge the leisure battery to 70% capacity?
and if my fridge pulls 4 amps/hr as stated on the specs does that mean from a 110amp leisure battery at 70% this would roughly last a full day?
and finally i realised that the relay has a specific port for the fridge but obviously thats no good when the engine is off so does anyone know if i can take that wire from that port in the relay and hook it up directly to the leisure battery and that would not affect the operation of the relay charging the leisure battery?
hope i made sense, hope someone can help? :)
The battery charger in our Hobby 750 W reg camper van has worked non stop over the eleven years we have lived in it. (Retired couple) We now find it - a TYP: CH12MC ART.NR: EL110 powering three 110amp batteries - has stopped working. It is not only linked to the batteries but all the electronics in the RV as well; we cannot function without it and any replacement needs to be exactly the same type to match with the multitude of wires connections. The German manufacturer does not make this type any more - any suggestions?
I have a Ford Hobby T600FC Campervan (2006) 2.0ltr TDCi diesel. I bought this vehicle from you in June 2006
Under the driver's seat (L/H drive) are two 12 volt batteries. As one needs replacing, should I replace both batteries?
I believe one is for starting the engine, what is the other one for?
Can you tell me the full specification, i.e. AH, Amperage & dimensions as I want to make sure I buy the correct batteries.
A third battery is located under the passenger's seat, again can you tell me what this is for.
I cannot find any information in the Hobby manual or the Ford Transit handbook. I searched on various Forums but I get very confusing answers.
I would be very grateful if you can reply to this e-mail or guide me to the correct source for the solutions to my query.
Thank you.
Eamon Curran
Camper Van Life is brought to you by Darren Lambert, a big fan of camper vans.
The last time I had a battery not charging it was down to a failed solenoid switch. Your single battery will give you a practical 70-80 amps. Your compressor fridge will use at least 2 amps/hr, maybe more, so your problem is probably that you need a second leisure battery to run that fridge. I prefer a compressor fridge myself as it runs much better than gas in hot weather.