Symbol Battery Advice

Some advice please.

1) When charging the leisure battery, I presume this does not charge the vehicle battery, but the Control panel does indicate the state of both.
 batteries

2) My vehicle battery does not seem to hold charge over the winter months and requires charging frequently. I have not used the van since September. Is this normal? If so how do you overcome this?

Ray

1) The control panel allows you to switch the onboard charger to either the leisure battery OR the vehicle battery.

2) The chassis manufacturers advice is to disconnect the vehicle battery when the vehicle is not in use as otherwise it will discharge completely.

What Peter said.

If the van is stored at home I'd suggest you plug it into the mains and leave it to charge the vehicle battery for most of the time. You will be well stuffed if that battery goes flat! 

Every fortnight or so, switch over to charge the habitation battery for 24 hours, then back to the vehicle battery of course.

Or get a Battery Master (or similar) and "fit and forget".

Ray 
see this topic for some help

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Martin

Raymond53 wrote:
2) My vehicle battery does not seem to hold charge over the winter months and requires charging frequently. I have not used the van since September. Is this normal? If so how do you overcome this?

Your van is a 2017 model and, like mine, will be factory fitted with a HAL1000 tracker. Do you have the HAL1000 tracker setup?
That is a significant draw on the vehicle battery if you are leaving it for weeks.

AutoSleepy_Don wrote:

Raymond53 wrote:
2) My vehicle battery does not seem to hold charge over the winter months and requires charging frequently. I have not used the van since September. Is this normal? If so how do you overcome this?

Your van is a 2017 model and, like mine, will be factory fitted with a HAL1000 tracker. Do you have the HAL1000 tracker setup?
That is a significant draw on the vehicle battery if you are leaving it for weeks.

Together with auto shut off things like radio and interior light. Manually switch them off to reduce the drain.

Is this van kept at home? 

If so then surely it’s just a matter of plugging the EHU in as Gromit suggested. I’ve also got a Symbol of a similar age and all I do is plug it in for just a day every week. The smart charge on the Sargent seems to keep both batteries topped up over winter when the 80w solar is not up to the job.

Ray, I notice that many of your threads to date have related to battery (or should I say flat battery) issues.
Most of these were last winter and now again this winter. I’m wondering if the solar panel sorted your problems during the summer?

Did the dealer that sold you the van explain what is a very complex vehicle to you properly and (with the greatest respect) did you understand what they were saying?
I’ve had no problems with my similar setup but that wasn’t before a big learning curve!!

What exactly was the outcome to your battery/charging issues from last year as it may help us with this latest problem.

Having a solar panel fitted to our Rienza the leisure battery is charged first then fitting a battery master means the vehicle battery is charged. I wasn’t sure about this system, it is a small plastic box and a couple of wires connecting the two batteries. Even in the winter with limited sun both batteries seem to stay charged. 
If we are not planning to be travelling for a while as suggested we plug the hook up in to put the heating on low and charge the batteries that way. This all depends on were you store the van or how the solar panels are wired to the batteries.

Dave, from what I’ve read a battery master seems a great bit of kit. 
I think it was Greyhound who recently fitted one to his Symbol, bypassed the EC500 with brilliant results and I will definitely be fitting one when my van is out of warranty.
However, I’ve managed to keep both batteries fully charged with the EHU plugged in occasionally just using the EC500, it does take a bit of working out though!

Our Rienza is too old for the clever systems fitted these days. That was one of the reasons apart from cost we bought it. As I said the solar panel is wired direct to the leisure batteries via its control box. The battery master was not much more than about thirty pounds and very easy to fit. The place I bought it from said fit and forget. 
On hook up I put the power switch on leisure relying on the battery master to swap over to vehicle battery. Usually we are usually using things powered off the leisure batteries like the heater fan lights etc.

Note
Battery Master will not be an answer for those with Sargent PSU EC700 as the solar panel defaults to the vehicle battery and not the Leisure battery

Martin

marbarsymbol wrote:Note
Battery Master will not be an answer for those with Sargent PSU EC700 as the solar panel defaults to the vehicle battery and not the Leisure battery

Martin

It will if they bypass the blooming thing completely 

Seriously though, sure you can bypass the EC500 as I mentioned, EC700 will obviously still be in warranty.

Yes, turning off EC500 works with Battery Master and Solar supply to keep all charged.
The more modern and complicated Sargent systems drain more from both batteries and are currently wired to Solar panels so as when EC700 shutdown the leisure battery no longer has a solar input. This means that battery suffers. Rewiring would solve it but may invalidate the warranty.
Martin

Dbvwt wrote:Dave, from what I’ve read a battery master seems a great bit of kit. 
I think it was Greyhound who recently fitted one to his Symbol, bypassed the EC500 with brilliant results and I will definitely be fitting one when my van is out of warranty.

I don't use a battery master, but yeah I recently fitted a dual battery solar controller and bypassed the Sargent completely. I left it in storage just before Christmas and have gone and checked a couple of times since and even with the low winter sun the batteries are being maintained fine (I have a second 80w panel on the roof by the way).

When I used to park on my driveway I found it would last about 2 weeks fine and then start to die. I first noticed it when I came home from work to the alarm going off as it thought the battery had been cut, but it was simply drained really low (luckily I got away without damage to it).  After that I had it on a timer socket on EHU to charge it at night (obviously solar in the day so didn't need it all the time) and it was fine.  This was only in winter by the way, in summer the same can keep up fine during the longer days.

I take my van on a thirty mile run every two weeks, if left any longer it needs a jump start.
Also doing this is better for the tyres and the engine and clutch.
the battery is fine during the summer months.
Pete

Just doing yet another battery advice search when came accross this. Having similar issues with my fairford. Last month it was dead! I stuck it on hookup but only the leisure battery charged. Vehicle battery remained flat and required to be charged with a charger. This worked, went for a good run in it, a week and a half later all dead again. I actually had it on hookup for 24 hours in between !

Today, dead again grrrrrrr. No lights left on, no sat nav or dash cam connected.

Soooo here’s the thing..... I attached a battery charger to charge vehicle battery but the actual charger said battery was fully charged.....clearly it was not! I did leave it 30 mins despite this and voila! Full charge again. I don’t understand this! 

It’s back on hookup just now but I’m concerned that I’m not even getting a fortnight. I don’t think hookup is charging vehicle, unless I’m doing something wrong!

Lorfal wrote:
It’s back on hookup just now but I’m concerned that I’m not even getting a fortnight. I don’t think hookup is charging vehicle, unless I’m doing something wrong!

do you have smart charging enabled?

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Have you checked all of the fuses? Especially fuses 6 and 7 in the EC500 and any inline fuses adjacent to the batteries. It's possible that when you connected the EHU with a completely flat battery, too much current was taken from the charger, momentarily.

If all fuses Ok, you will need more thorough diagnostic work done. One possibility is a failure within the vehicle battery, though generally this doesn't tend to make the battery appear to be charged when it is not. If you are connecting the charger directly to the battery terminals, another possibility is a poor earth connection from the battery negative to the chassis.

I will check the fuses thanks. It’s only been 8 weeks since it’s vehicle service and due for hab anytime. I’ll get it checked.

whilst 'advice' like disconnecting vehicle batteries and just plug it into mains might help resolve the poor solar performance of these vans when not in use, it doesn't allow for any serious off-gridding (eg Temp Holiday Sites) where ehu is not available...
ok, some folk dont use this type of site, but for those that wish to, the 'foibles' of the AS/Sargent 'system' will make this blooming tricky.
its been said many, many times (in the many, many 'flat battery' threads) that a move to good solar performance from basically the same equipment can be acheived by bypassing the complex PSU and fitting a simple dual channel regulator.
some AS owners/contributors have done this with really good results.
this 'topic/subject' must be the most common on this forum yet the 'cure' is pretty straightforward....but, of course, it isn't the AS way which might be a problem for some to get over..
(yet) again, good luck to all those with these issues (heightened by long cold UK winters) but its not luck thats needed.

Agreed Chris...

Although I’ve managed to work out the best way to satisfactorily manage the existing setup (including many 3 day trips off grid during warmer months) as soon as my warranty expires I will be doing exactly as Greyhound has done above.
David

Thankyou autosleepy don, Smart charging has always been activated before and haven’t changed it but I will use your link and go through the motions to double check. I suppose there might have been a change when it was in the body shop for 2 months!

lorfal, you can do a few simple tests with a voltmeter to see if the Sargent unit is passing charge to all batteries via solar and EHU.
ensure your PSU is on (to allow smart charging) but ehu disconnected for at least a few hours, ideally overnight..and next day in daylight/sunshine, place the voltmeter across the leisure battery terminals and, if fully charged should read 12.7 or 12.8 volts.
if not yet full and the panel is charging it, it should show a higher raised charge of upto 14.4v...
i know smart charging switches in and out but if the battery is showing 12.4 or even less, its not being charged and is slipping too low..
this same test can be carried out on the cab battery.
now pull the fuse on the solar input and let the batteries rest say overnight so any drop will be apparent.
test resting voltages of leisure and cab batteries and should be 12.7 or 12.8 if retaining charge and no serious drain...
now plug in the ehu cable and carry out the same tests...
again, you should be able to see the raised charge on the leisure battery which will confirm charge is reaching it..
do same test at the cab battery to see if ehu charge is reaching it.
i know this simple test may be tricky as smart charging moves power about from one to battery another however, if you DO see the raised charge you can confirm that the charging regime for ehu and for solar is working.
youll also be able to confirm what the resting voltages are for all batteries.
good luck.

To make any sense of these test, switch the smart charging off and manually select the battery you want to check otherwise you'll end up chasing your tail - I speak from experience.