Sargent Technical Support

Wow what a joke Sargent technical support is, finally got a very short reply to my ticket posted weeks ago while I was away on holiday despite contacting them at least 3 weeks before going away. They completely skipped past all the issues & questions I had regarding lithium compatibility in our Broadway with the EC700 failing, also despite contacting Auto Sleepers on three separate occasions regarding the same issues have failed to hear anything from them as well so we have our Broadway booked in at Willersey for Monday morning to hopefully get our electrics checked out & find out why the lithium is not compatible as I just can’t get any answers any other way, annoying that I have to make a 4hr journey there to try & get this information. I don’t hold out much hope of getting to the bottom of things, as the people who make these vehicles don’t even seem to be able to answer your queries which I just find astonishing, I’m expecting them to say the replacement EC700 that our dealer fitted is faulty & needs replacing as while away we got a number of low voltage vehicle battery warnings & control panel showing 0volts for vehicle battery despite it being fully charged, also unable to select any of the Smart charging functions & can’t switch between leisure or vehicle battery like you should be able to, concerned that if the EC700 is replaced yet again that it will only be a short time before the same happens again, nothings really been right since we had the lithium battery installed even though it’s been reverted back albeit to AGM not the standard Lead Acid that was originally fitted, just don’t get these issues… fingers crossed Auto Sleepers give me some answers tomorrow although I don’t hold out a great deal of hope.

Not an expert but it could be the interface unit (em40?) as I had a dodgy one and noticed the battery switchover wasn’t always working, but it was the fridge that was my issue that came to light and drew attention to the em40 unit, but don’t quote me. These are notorious for burning out (plugs melting)

Don’t know much about the lithium compatibility, think you need to be careful what battery is selected to work 100% with all the Sargent kit and then it’s a other matter if you have a smart alternator that needs to be factored in

That screen is typical of the sort of things we saw in the early weeks with our van, and that was after the original fault with our EC700 control panel was repaired (which took a month!) Very often current and voltage fields were blank for no apparent reason, and if there was a reading, volts or amps, the actuality when measured using proper meters was very often different to what the panel was trying to tell me. We also soon gave up taking notice of all the low voltage alarms, which were simply incorrect, and gave up on the smart charging and many of the other gizmos that would not work reliably, e.g. autofill/tank gauge. The whole thing seemed to have a mind of its own! That was all on a standard van with LA battery so I am not sure that you have a compatibility issue, just poor electronics.

Best of luck at AS. I was tempted to say you might be better off going to Hull (Sargent) but I guess they designed the electronics in the first place!

Thanks for the replies & advice… Currently at Auto-Sleepers service centre & after a brief diagnosis they seem to think it’s the touch screen control panel, first suggestion was to update the control panel firmware but I had to accept that this runs a risk of bricking the device if the update doesn’t go to plan & we will have to pay for a new panel & they are very expensive, decided to take the risk… however upon looking at it they say it’s an earlier control panel that can’t be updated? So they have suggested replacing the control panel for a newer revision that can accept the latest firmware so that’s what’s now taking place.

There’s also a risk the plastic facia that houses the touch screen control panel will need to be replaced as it’s stuck on rather than screwed on meaning they have to prise it off & as it’s brittle plastic they break, worried pulling it off will also pull off more of the wood grain vinyl, newer surrounds are more sensibly screwed on. 

Personally my feeling is it’s the EC700 but if the control panel does need replacing it just shows how flakey these Sargent components are, either way you wouldn’t expect to replace both the EC700 & the Control panel on a five year vehicle with only 11k on the clock. 

If we still have the same issues after replacing the control panel I won’t be a happy bunny as we are looking at £500+ & will still need to change the EC700 then that money has been paid out unnecessarily, it’s an expensive game this motor homing malarkey 


As for the lithium battery install the service centre have told us it should have been ok so I don’t have a clue as to what’s caused all our issues.

So many people on here having troubles with these hopeless units. I took mine out last year and rewired the van so now everything works as it should and even my fresh water tank gauge is 100% accurate which it never was from new!

Have read of this.....

https://www.apuljackelectronics.co.uk/AE-EM40-High-Current/Upgraded-Control-Module__p-926.aspx

There's mention in it of a recall by Autotrail to check the EM40 and a statement from Autotrail that Lithium should not be fitted with the EM40.

Just to add that Sargent offer a repair service for the control panels and it’s a fixed price, approx £125, you can see this on their website, if that helps.

OldWomble wrote:So many people on here having troubles with these hopeless units. I took mine out last year and rewired the van so now everything works as it should and even my fresh water tank gauge is 100% accurate which it never was from new!

Yes, I too did that. After a total shut down that forced the cancellation of our eagerly awaited first long trip out in the van I lost confidence in the EC700 and, after many more minor issues such as erroneous readings and alarms I then bypassed almost all the Sargent system, but initially left the units in place so they could be restored to use if desired. However ultimately I took the lot out and rewired completely using normal switch panels, breakers etc., both mains and DC. I abandoned a few useless gizmos like the autofill, smart charging and the original tank gauges but now everything works fine, and if anything were to go wrong it is easy to fix and will not take the whole system down. In all it probably took a week of head scratching and patient re-wiring but I now have a van which I understand, works and can be fixed by the roadside.

This may sound odd, but check all your fuses esp in the small unit. I had a similar issue and it turned out to be the 20A fuse had blown. Sargeant asked had I got a lithium leisure battery, which I had. They said in that case change the fuse to a 25a... hope it may help

Nick Marsh wrote:This may sound odd, but check all your fuses esp in the small unit. I had a similar issue and it turned out to be the 20A fuse had blown. Sargeant asked had I got a lithium leisure battery, which I had. They said in that case change the fuse to a 25a... hope it may help

Yes that was one of the first things I did, not had an issue with any of the fuses blowing since replacing for 25amp fuse at the battery.

YorkshaPud wrote:Just to add that Sargent offer a repair service for the control panels and it’s a fixed price, approx £125, you can see this on their website, if that helps.

Yes I’m aware they do a repair service but we’ve made a special four hour journey to AutoSleepers to try & get our issues investigated & hopefully resolved, as the control panel surround is glued on rather than screwed I’m glad someone else has the agro of disassembly, although how good a job will be done I have my doubts, it’s this kind of stuff that drives me crazy.

Paulmold wrote:Have read of this.....

https://www.apuljackelectronics.co.uk/AE-EM40-High-Current/Upgraded-Control-Module__p-926.aspx

There's mention in it of a recall by Autotrail to check the EM40 and a statement from Autotrail that Lithium should not be fitted with the EM40.

Thanks for that info Paul. I know on the Auto Trail group people had no end of issues with the EM40 units burning out, when we had our Auto Trail I checked ours & it was fine, have also removed ours in the Broadway & there’s no sign of heat damage or melting, but am tempted to replace for the Applejack one, might contact Offgrid Power Solutions to see what their thoughts are as to if the EM40 could possibly have been a culprit for all our woes since the Lithium upgrade when everything started going wrong for us. 

It looks easy enough to change but it also says other manufacturers wiring may be different to Auto Trails so not 100% confident of upgrading it myself, although the wago connectors do make connections simple.

By the way what has happened to Auto Sleepers parts, talk about expensive   Purchased 4x Bed feet, 1x Fresh water tap & a length of hose plus 2 jubilee clips came to just under £50 

I can't answer your specific issue but I had an issue recently with my EC700/Lithium battery. I suddenly received a call from Sargent late one evening saying my Leisure battery voltage had dropped (vehicle battery okay). Checked system remotely and yes voltage showing dropped to zero very quickly so I suspected a fuse had blown.
The following day I checked the leisure battery with a multimeter that also showed very low voltage????? Totally unexpected and now really confused (meter probes correctly placed)
I checked selection of fuses and breakers all okay. Nothing made sense. 
Pressed PSU power button on/off and heard slight click from within the unit. As a result all leisure battery readings were re-established and read normal. 
When I rechecked the leisure voltage at the terminals (exactly as I had done before) this time I had a normal reading????

I concluded the problem with the PSU was due to an electrical storm the night before causing some internal circuit to trip although nothing showed externally.
As for the local meter reading of the leisure battery only possible when the PSU was healthy then I really haven't got a clue.
Good luck.

All done at Auto Sleepers & almost £600 out of pocket   

Control panel replaced, firmware updated to latest version on both the panel & EC700, all seems to be as it should again it seems (For now at least) 

Always surprises me that you never get the old parts back, but I guess AS counter that into the price by exchanging your old unit, bearing in mind these are £500 would have sent it off to Sargent had it fixed for £125 then either kept it as a spare or sold it on, oh well it’s the way this industry seems to operate isn’t it…

Have decided to stay overnight at Broadway C&MC site to play around with everything to ensure it’s all ok before returning back home to Norfolk & having to come back at a later date. 

Still a bit miffed about the possibility of refitting the Renogy Pro Series lithium battery I still have sitting in its box, despite Auto Sleepers telling me it should be fine I don’t want to start up a catalogue of errors & issues that we’ve had since it was initially fitted, with AS saying it’s fine, the installer saying it’s fine but our dealer saying it was unsafe & incompatible, forcing us to remove it as they claimed it was not only incompatible but unsafe I just have no idea what to believe, it’s still unclear to me…

Have just been going through the control panel settings & accessed the advanced menu, found lots of additional setting in there that weren’t present on the previous screen that’s been replaced, surprisingly it was set on ‘Lithium’ so as we currently have AGM I have now set it to ‘AGM’ but I also notice  that ‘Split Charge Relay’ is enabled, as I have a Victron 30amp DC to DC charger fitted shouldn’t this setting be disabled? Photos below, not delved any further as wanted to correct these two settings as clearly wrong right? 

Caraman wrote:Your advanced setting pages are different to mine no doubt because you have a later CP.  I would ask the AS Svc Centre as you are so close and check the settings and their meanings on both pages.

Have sent them an email as don’t like to just turn up always feel like I’m bothering people, but yes I agree probably easier to just pop back & see them before we leave, just surprised at the settings set on the panel.

CC wrote:

YorkshaPud wrote:Just to add that Sargent offer a repair service for the control panels and it’s a fixed price, approx £125, you can see this on their website, if that helps.

Yes I’m aware they do a repair service but we’ve made a special four hour journey to AutoSleepers to try & get our issues investigated & hopefully resolved, as the control panel surround is glued on rather than screwed I’m glad someone else has the agro of disassembly, although how good a job will be done I have my doubts, it’s this kind of stuff that drives me crazy.

Yes you’d have to remove and refit and not sure about software upgrades, they may do that for you if you visit them you’d have to enquire. But seems you’re up and running so good news hopefully others can answer your other queries I don’t know about the renogy and I don’t have those options on mine I’m still on lead acid but I’d say that if you have a b2b fitted it makes sense to disable split relay, and also select lithium but I don’t know what that does when you select that. I know that lithium batteries don’t all like a float mode from the chargers and also the alarms for lithium need to be different as to when it’s flat vs lead acid etc, I’d assume it’s not changing the charging profiles for lithium as that is set by the chargers themselves not the ec700 unit or control panels as far as I am aware, but the separate px300 charger and your b2b, unless it can’t do something clever with the split relay charge system to make that more compatible with the leisure battery as believe these aren’t the best thing for lithium but not 100% sure

Paulmold wrote:Have read of this.....

https://www.apuljackelectronics.co.uk/AE-EM40-High-Current/Upgraded-Control-Module__p-926.aspx

There's mention in it of a recall by Autotrail to check the EM40 and a statement from Autotrail that Lithium should not be fitted with the EM40.

It's an interesting link, but I would like to see the contents of the letter, and not just a mention of it from a company that would like to sell you an upgraded one. It seems to me that the issue with lithium would likely be exceeding 20A from the alternator output. But if you are not using split charge relay, and have a DC-DC charger fitted instead (which you definitely need for lithium) then I don't know if that's relevant.

CC wrote:Have just been going through the control panel settings & accessed the advanced menu, found lots of additional setting in there that weren’t present on the previous screen that’s been replaced, surprisingly it was set on ‘Lithium’ so as we currently have AGM I have now set it to ‘AGM’ but I also notice  that ‘Split Charge Relay’ is enabled, as I have a Victron 30amp DC to DC charger fitted shouldn’t this setting be disabled? Photos below, not delved any further as wanted to correct these two settings as clearly wrong right? 

Yes you should disable SCR if you have a DC-DC charger.

The mention of Lithium in the Battery Type setting probably doesn't do what you think. It doesn't affect the charging profile. I believe it simply alters the level at which battery voltage warnings are issued. Nevertheless, it should be set to AGM.

Both of those are new settings, and have been set to the default values. Whoever updated it should have checked the settings afterwards.

Shortly after my last post MrsCC decided she wanted the heating on after setting up at the Broadway C&MC site, but the Truma wasn’t having it, threw up an error to do with the heating sensor obviously due to the control panel all being dismantled, so with that & no response to my email regarding the control panel settings we popped back to Willersey where the technician said he knew what the issue was straight away, it was a case of resetting the Truma combi heater & then it was fine again, makes you wonder if it was tested after the panel was fitted, just glad we didn’t go straight home as I would have been really annoyed to find this at home or on our next trip away! 

Mentioned about the Lithium setting & Split charge relay, technician who was a really nice guy claimed he was unaware it was an AGM setup & it wasn’t fitted with a lithium battery & hadn’t noticed the B2B charger when setting it up, this is despite me creating a bullet point list noting all this so they knew exactly what was what & what to check on the van, I’m just left puzzled at times… 

Anyway all appears to now be ok but despite being tempted to reinstate the Lithium battery I’m just to scared incase it triggers all the problems we’ve had since we last went down that route, it’s interesting that this control panel unlike the previous one does give you the option to select AGM or Lithium what do others think? The technician at Auto Sleepers said it should be absolutely fine, but I’ve had all kinds of conflicting advice so I just don’t know, AGM is ok but it’ll never come close enough for me to compare to our last setup running Lithium, the reserve power & speed of replenishing the battery is just way superior, it’s one of those cases of once you have lithium it’s difficult going back for me…

Just a thought on the sergeant control panel ,I believe there is a small key fob type battery inside the panel.this could  be on the way out