EC700 confusion

Looking for some clarification please, as I’ve read the Motorhome manual and the separate Harmony manual and iI’m confused….hopefully the collective experience will be able to tell me what to actually do.

Last night I got an alert on my phone to say that the battery level (leisure) was low. It was dark so I left it until today…

The control panel above the door showed that the leisure battery and vehicle batteries were low, even though the van had been used a couple of weeks before.

The van (a 2021 Kingham) has solar panel and I would have thought there was enough capability in the solar to maintain a reasonable level of charge in the battery.

The EC700 power supply unit had been left in the “on” position, and this is where the confusion starts.

The Harmony handbook suggests it should be “off” when the vehicle is not in use to ensure the leisure battery doesn’t discharge through phantom power use/general leakage.

Later in the same book it says that the solar is controlled through the EC700 power unit, and by having the control panel set to “smart” the solar will charge whichever battery needs to current. But to my mind, if the 700 is off, how can it do this?


So my question is, if the EC700 power supply unit is switched off, will the solar still charge the batteries? 

I am presuming the control panel (in My van located above the sliding door) should be off, and that the “smart” setting will be maintained if that was the last setting set on the panel.


Thoughts awaited please!

I wish I could answer this with confidence, and there are so many postings on this subject that a search will throw up masses of information. No doubt the advice to fit extra solar panels and/or bypass the EC700 and EC500 will arise, but not all of us are able, for various reasons to do this.
To return to your question - I think that if the EC700 is turned off the solar charging defaults to the leisure battery. (I was originally advised that it defaulted to the vehicle battery but there seems to be some debate about this, perhaps the default was changed at some point). Smart charging only functions with the EC700 switched on. I am sure that users of the EC700 will be along soon to help.
The topic "Re: Solar Panels" has 14 pages of discussion. 

If EC700 is switched off, solar only charges the vehicle battery. However, the leisure battery discharges very slowly without the EC700 sucking power, so it’s not the end of the world provided it’s fully charged in the first place.

Thanks guys for the information.

Like @sentinal says, it’s a confusing minefield when you start trying to read the various threads on the subject. My previous 2 MH have just worked, no faffing turning the main unit on or off, and both batteries would charge as needed. Maybe I was hoping for too much that the Kingham would behave the same!

It doesn’t help that the manuals don’t actually reflect the set up that AS installed..the Harmony manual which I looked at today on the AS website still shows the Truama heating system for example

But thanks Sentinal and V8oholic for the clarity, it makes perfect sense that the vehicle battery would take the solar as after all a non starting base unit is worse than a discharged leisure battery..

Once the leisure battery is fully recharged, I’ll switch the EC700 off and not worry about it.

And next year I’ll invest in the van and get the solar sorted so it works as I would like it to

If you have an account for the ASmonitor website you can monitor the leisure battery voltage remotely even when the EC700 is off. It’s shown when you use the “Locate” function. Not sure if that requires you to have an active tracker subscription though (I do).

It’s also worth mentioning that there have been 2021 vans where the solar wasn’t working at all, mine included. Have you ever seen the little sun symbol on the control panel? If not then it may not be working. My panel was faulty.

@v8oholic, I’m pleased to confirm the solar does work, symbol and everything. 

It didn’t, and this was traced to a connection not being connected from the factory. Interestingly when I looked at the PDI sheet it was shown as working and the technician reckoned it must have come undone. Really? This is a snap together block connector

I’m glad you got your solar sorted, I recall at the time you were getting some grief from Marquis getting it fixed…


Edit to addd:

The monitor alert thing was what prompted me to go and have a look:up!:

The confusion arises because it doesn't say anywhere in any manual what happens to either the solar or PX300 charge if the EC700 is shutdown.  The solar charge goes to the vehicle battery and the PX300 charge (if connected to an EHU with the green charger switch on) goes to the leisure battery.  When the earlier EC500 is shutdown, both charges go to the leisure battery with nothing going to the vehicle battery.  For long out of use periods in the Autumn and Winter with no EHU, EC500 owners have little choice but to shut down their vehicle electrics as advised by A-S and Peugeot.  EC700 owners may not need to do this as the vehicle battery will receive some solar charge.  As the OP has discovered, shutting down the EC700 (or EC500) when the van is out of use is essential in the Autumn and Winter.  If not, the EC700's constant drain of about 0.3A will flatten the leisure battery and then flatten the vehicle battery which won't be compensated by the weak solar charge.

With your EC700 you only have "Smart" charging available when the EC700 is powered on. As Caraman posted above the EC700 consumes rather a lot of power over a 24 hour period, I'll be generous and say 5 amps, at 12V that's 60 watts of power. You'll have a 80W solar panel but during the dull short days of winter this is unlikely to match what your EC700 is consuming hence the voltage of your leisure battery will fall day by day. Your Peugeot Boxer parked up will still be consuming some power. Modern vehicles now have immobilisers, trackers and other sundry microprocessor controlled appliances that still consume power when parked. There's also the self-discharge of batteries to account for.

I did a test recently, battery charging from solar here only started at around 11.30am and ended at 2.30pm, that was when my 2 x 80w solar panels were wired in parallel.

v8oholic wrote:If you have an account for the ASmonitor website you can monitor the leisure battery voltage remotely even when the EC700 is off. It’s shown when you use the “Locate” function. Not sure if that requires you to have an active tracker subscription though (I do).
....

AS Monitor is free for the first 3 years.  Thereafter Sargent must be paid £25 per year to maintain the SIM in the communication module.  The Locate function is part of AS Monitor and gives a 6 hourly snapshot of location and leisure battery voltage.  The Levels function is part of AS Monitor and gives immediate read outs of both the leisure battery and vehicle battery voltages but this only works when the EC700 is on.   AS Monitor also includes e-mail/SMS owner alerts which I believe also won't work if the EC700 is shutdown.  So, when the EC700 is shutdown, vehicle battery voltages and alerts cannot be seen or received.

The paid tracking service provided by a manned tracking centre in Bedford is in addition to the above and requires a further £95 to be paid to Sargent by the owner each year.  Separate alerts are sent to the tracking centre who should follow up with a phone call to the owner.  If it transpires that the vehicle has been stolen or is being stolen, the tracking centre take over and actively track the vehicle with the police.  The paid tracking service works whether the EC700 is shutdown or not.

The other confusion that I can't bottom is now that Autosleeper PVC have Lithium Batteries in the habitation and lead-based batteries for the engine, is the Smart setting, smart enough to recognise that in a situation where the lithium is at 13 amps and lead is at 12.8 it is the Lithium that needs the charge?

Kevinktwo wrote:The other confusion that I can't bottom is now that Autosleeper PVC have Lithium Batteries in the habitation and lead-based batteries for the engine, is the Smart setting, smart enough to recognise that in a situation where the lithium is at 13 amps and lead is at 12.8 it is the Lithium that needs the charge?

Good question and I don't know.  A call to Sergent in Beverley might answer it.