Habitat battery charging

Hi there,
I was told when I bought my van that the habitat battery would recharge as I drove the vehicle. After having being parked up for six days the habitat battery got dangerously low. I took it for a drive of 70 miles but it made no difference. It is the first time I have stayed more than two nights without hookup. Has something gone wrong with my van or was I told a porky by the salesman or is there something I am not doing right?
Thanks in advance folks.

It definitely should charge whilst driving. There will be a relay and a fuse somewhere, relay probably under drivers seat, fuse probably in the box behind your drivers seat or under seat by the relay.

When the engine is started a relay connects the leisure battery to the starter battery and thus the alternator. If you leisure battery was heavily discharged there will have been a large surge of current to the leisure battery at the instant the batteries were connected together that could well have blown the fuse located near the positive terminal of the leisure battery. If that fuse is blown none of the 12v habitation circuits will work when not on hook up.

It will take 12 to 14 hours to fully recharge a heavily discharged battery (if it hasn't been permanently damaged that is) so so wouldn't have put much in in the (say) 2 hours it took to cover 70 miles but I would have expected to see some improvement.

See threads 30A fuse holder  on the 30A (green) fuse in the habitation charging circuit. Blown fuse, corroded contacts melted fuse etc could be the causes. As Peter said if the battery is very discharged then the initial load may blow the fuse better to connect a stand a lone directly to the leisure battery in order to get it up to capacity before replacing the in line fuse. 
frederic

Leisure batteries take longer to recharge than starter batteries.  So whilst a 70 mile journey might have been enough to recharge the vehicle battery, it wouldn't have been enough to recharge the habitation battery.  It is also my understanding and experience that the charge the habitation battery receives from the alternator is less effective than the charge it receives from the mains multistage charger.

The highest reading I have ever taken from my leisure cells with the engine running was 13.8v,  at best a high float charge ….




Niall

Suppersready wrote:The highest reading I have ever taken from my leisure cells with the engine running was 13.8v,  at best a high float charge ….

Its got to be 15 years since I had a Peugeot but I think that was the engine charge voltage then whereas the Ford and Mercedes were circa 14.5v

I fined that leisure battery charging from engine  is very poor  , can be improved buy throwing money at it .

Hi Molly
A couple of good battery techie guys on the forum. You should get some info when they get up.
Wide awake Boaby

My Peugeot executive has a switch under the long seat where the water heater is that switches off the battery charger might be your problem

Hi Paulmold,
Just a thought, but you can leave the charging circuit switched on when you are not  using your MH and make sure the battery selector is set to Leisure.
If you are lucky enough to be able to park it up at home and plug a mains cable in, use an intelligent charger direct to the vehicle battery and let the solar take care of the Leisure battery

Boggie wrote:Hi Paulmold,
Just a thought, but you can leave the charging circuit switched on when you are not  using your MH and make sure the battery selector is set to Leisure.
If you are lucky enough to be able to park it up at home and plug a mains cable in, use an intelligent charger direct to the vehicle battery and let the solar take care of the Leisure battery

My solar is through a dual controller so both batteries are kept OK.