Batteries

Whilst our new WXL will be in storage during the coming lockdown, what's the lowest voltage I could let them run down to before it causes them some damage?

Thanks.

does the van have a solar panel?
if so, this should keep your batteries charged.
you can turn off all the habitation systems and the leisure batteries will stay pretty well fully charged for ages with no discharge.
however, its often the vehicle battery (which supports gadgets like alarm, immibiliser and tracker) that will drain.
whether the panel can replenish this continuous discharge is a comstant source of discussion here...
others with similar set ups will be offer more relavant advice to your vehicle.

It has a 80w solar panel and and I gather from Sargents that the tracker draws it power from the leisure battery although the amount is very small.

As you say and Sargents confirm this, if you shut down the system completely all the solar power will run to the engine battery. 

The reason I ask is, the vans been stood there over a week now and with a minimum extra four weeks will this be OK?

It is vital to keep lead acid batteries as full as is possible, they're happiest at 100%!
You have solar, 80w is fine should easily do both batteries and keep them full all winter, my 100w one certainly does

However it seems your solar is going via the dreaded Sargent system.

If it is possible (my Warwick is a duo 2013 so not familiar with yours) get the outputs of the solar controller connected directly to the VB and LB, totally by-passing the Sargent system. It'll then become fully automatic and look after the batteries for you.

I'm sure Glynne will be along soon, he's the guru on this!

i think you will have to wait for a couple of recent AS owners to help as they will understand what impact the latest Sargent PSU will have on any available solar power....which will be very low anyway at this time of year.
without taking some periodic readings from the vehicle battery, its impossible to calculate the rate of decline, and just trying to predict of 'it will be OK' os always going to be tricky.
is there EHU available at the storage facility? if so, perhaps you could utilise this from time to time.

No, there's no power available on site the only other option is to bring it home for the next four weeks and park it on my drive I guess.

Sapper
the first thing is read the post ec700 this will explain what Ian is saying
the ec700 for long time storage you need to turn off the ec700 this will then charge just the vehicle and will HELP keep the vehicle battery charged NOTE with the ec700 system but at the start of this year so many people had batteries go very low in voltage and did not help the battery life .any person putting in long term storage needs to up grade as to the ec700 post

Sapper wrote:what's the lowest voltage I could let them run down to before it causes them some damage?

The generally accepted figure is 50% i.e. don't let it drain more than 50%, that is an open circuit voltage of approx 12.10V (will be some variation depending on battery plate chemistry, temperature etc).
The kindest thing for a lead acid battery is to keep it fully charged as others have said.

Sapper wrote:No, there's no power available on site the only other option is to bring it home for the next four weeks and park it on my drive I guess.

If that really is an option that won't cause huge inconvenience, you could do worse than have it on your drive. Depending on where you live, some extra security precautions might be prudent, but I suspect most thieves won't be too keen to drive stolen motorhomes around during lockdown, so it's probably not a huge risk.

While it's on your driveway you would then have a few weeks to sort out a longer term solution. I suspect that the cheapest/simplest would just be to have a Battery Master (my preference is for something a bit cheaper, such as the Votronic Standby Charger module, which should be less than £30), wired so that all you need to do is fully power down the EC700 and flick a switch to enable the standby charger.

There are more expensive solutions such as upgrading your solar controller to dual-channel, so that it can charge both batteries from the one panel. As IanH says, an 80W panel should be able to keep both batteries charged without the Sargent controller taking power. So if you monitor what's going on carefully you may find that the simpler, cheaper solution works.

More than anything else it will probably depend on how well exposed to the winter sun your panel is when back in storage - if it's surrounded by trees or other obstructions then you may struggle to solve the issue with only 80W of panel.

Thanks for all the good advice but all in all I think I will have it on the drive to be sure and that way I can do a few jobs at the same time and even but a gentle heat on when necessary.

Great forum when looking for advice and help.

Thanks buddies

As I've posted elsewhere on ASOF, have the EC700 PSU system on, and there's an obligatory current drain of 0.2 amps, that's 4.8 amps of discharge in 24 hours, a bit to make up in the dark winter months. If the tracker kicks in there'll be a small blip in the consumption. Turn off the EC700 PSU and you've stopped this drain but apparently your solar panel just charges your vehicle battery. In winter storage conditions If you isolate the vehicle battery using the ignition switch I'm not sure but it probably isolates the vehicle battery from the solar panel too.

For these reasons several on ASOF have fitted their independent solar controller (the original Sargent solar controller is disconnected) so even when the Sargent EC700 PSU is turned off, the solar energy is able to charge both leisure and vehicle batteries, with no 4.8 amps of obligatory current drain. You'll need a solar controller like a Epever DuoRacer MTTP or Votronic Duo MTT that can charge two batteries, otherwise you'll need something like a battery master, but as glyne lock has posted that introduced it’s own current drain too, they're not that cheap either.

Some owners of older A-S motorhomes where solar came as standard, were fitted with PWM solar controllers which have output for the two batteries, not bad.
Even more fortunate ones are those who have even older vans with no Sargent product in them, where simple manual switches and a meter meet the needs.

When we bought our van last year I was a bit surprised during the handover when I heard it advised that I connected the EHU a day a week in the winter months. I thought the solar panel would obviate the need for that. I didn't have to do that in winter with our Duetto where I'd fitted a 69 watt solar panel.

Relaxez 
Thanks for that I did not have time last night had early start so just posted picture
Yes the b to b will also have a drain and to do the job best needs daul mppt controller as Relaxez has said above

glyne lock wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

this was from a dealer web page