Warwick XL battery drain.

Both my leisure and vehicle batteries are draining over two to three weeks, I have a 80W solar panel fitted but I guess at this time of year there won't be too much output from the panel. To try and conserve the batteries I was going to switch off the main breaker that is located inside the panel under the rear offside seat. Question is will my solar panel continue to charge the batteries ? Also is there any other systems affected by this switch? I would be grateful for some feedback.

Have you done or considered doing a test for a parasitic drain on you battery ? It should not be going down that fast.

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I also have an 80w solar panel and both batteries are kept fully charged. So you do need to check for drain.

Not sure what you mean by "main breaker" - if you mean the combined RCD and mains power switch, this should have no effect at all unless you are on mains hookup.

If instead you mean the main power switch on the power controller, have you checked what it says in the Owner's Manual? I don't know what make/model of power control system is fitted to a 2015 Warwick XL, but in recent years A/S have been pretty good at documenting this. Certainly all of the higher-end Sargent controllers with built-in 2-channel solar controllers have been able to provide solar charging to both batteries with the power control system turned off - indeed in the examples I've looked at recently it is ~recommended~ that it is turned off while the van is in storage.

[Edit: just checked the manual for one of the current models and the power controller on that - an EC500 - will only direct the solar power to the leisure battery while the controller is in Shutdown mode - which does not seem to match your symptoms.]

I have managed to find the info, the solar panel will be directed to the required battery depending on the state of charge. But to work intelligently the shut down button needs to be left on, otherwise only the leisure battery will be charged. So it is recommended that you switch off the power in storage but you should leave it on if you have a solar panel. I have managed to find what was draining my batteries, the heating fan was on (doh).

greycaster wrote:Both my leisure and vehicle batteries are draining over two to three weeks, I have a 80W solar panel fitted but I guess at this time of year there won't be too much output from the panel. To try and conserve the batteries I was going to switch off the main breaker that is located inside the panel under the rear offside seat. Question is will my solar panel continue to charge the batteries ? Also is there any other systems affected by this switch? I would be grateful for some feedback.

Hi just noticed your comments, I had a similar problem with a Warwick Duo which had a reversing camera fitted at time of purchase , this was the problem it was wired wrongly at time of fitting and was causing the battery to drain as camera although showing off when ignition was off it was still drawing excessive curent to drain the batterys over a short period now rectified with a wiring adjustment.

How did you find the cause of your drain and pinpoint it to the camera wiring?