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Leisure Battery Shot or Not ?

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Leisure Battery Shot or Not ? Empty Leisure Battery Shot or Not ?

Post by Rubi's Dad Sun Jun 18, 2017 1:07 pm

II have had my Broadway EK about 9 months and assume the Alphaline plus 105AH (20hr) 700CCA leisure battery in it is the original when m/h was new 3 yrs ago. All has been well until recently of an evening if we have had brand new the Avtex  12v TV on, the battery drops quite quickly down to 9v and I need to switch to vehicle battery. My assumption was the battery at 3 yrs old I had had it. So when the m/ h was going into dealer for something else I asked them to test the leisure battery. They advised ' Battery passed digital and drop test, no drain, solar panel is ok, recommend hook up more often'. 

Whenever we are home the m/h is permanently on mains hook up so I wasn't convinced by their test
result, especially when the very next weekend we had the same issue. So I charged the battery fully ,disconnected it and left it for 36 hours to stop fizzing, I then did a capacity test and it was reading 58 amps so not bad but not as good as a new one.

So the question is - Should I replace the battery ? If so recommendations please. Or is the drain from the Avtex TV the issue and a new battery will not solve that?

Clearly not watching TV is a potential solution but as we are about to go on a 5 week trip, mainly wild camping I don't think 'the management' will accept that!!

Happy Fathers Day to all Dads !!!
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Post by Paramedic Sun Jun 18, 2017 1:27 pm

May I just repeat Gromit's advice on another thread, when considering wild camping you need to be most frugal with your power usage which would not afford the luxury of watching tv that has considerable drain on your leisure battery.

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Post by -mojo- Sun Jun 18, 2017 1:48 pm

There's too little information to say with certainty whether the battery is the problem or not. The main info that's missing is whether the leisure battery is being charged - by the alternator when the engine is running, by the onboard power supply when EHU is connected and by your solar panel if you have one.

If the charging systems are functioning normally but you only get a few hours use from an Avtex TV it is reasonable to assume that the battery needs to be replaced.
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Post by mikethebike Sun Jun 18, 2017 5:03 pm

Hi Assuming the dealer knew what he was doing,i would suspect that your EHU is not charging the leisure battery.
Some voltages would help. On and off charge.
Its always important that your engine battery is charged.
It may be that engine battery charging is the default setting.

regards

Micky
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Post by RML Sun Jun 18, 2017 8:14 pm

IMO it depends what the dealer used to test your battery.  A proper drop test is done with a thick pronged current (shunt) tester direct across the sparking terminals which gives a readout of the amps the battery will provide.  A multi meter with tiny leads will not give the same information.  I had this discussion with Halfords a few years ago, they tested my battery and said it was fine only for it to run down 3 days later and wouldn't charge up.
Rich.
The other answers are viable too..
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Post by Rubi's Dad Sun Jun 18, 2017 10:01 pm

Thanks All.

The EHU charges both batteries just fine and the alternator also charges the leisure battery OK too. It has a smart split charger in so far as it charges whichever battery is low, you can manually select which battery too, all those elements are working as they should as is the solar panel.
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