Symphony twin tube fluorescent light 16 watt

My leisure battery discharged to 8.7volts in 24 hours . as it is new, last may,i was told you can have a fault on a light that can discharge a battery without being on.
After a run ,battery is fully charged and no problem to be seen at present. I only used the lights.usually one or two at a time for short periods.Never happened before .
I have 6 of these lights.
Mike

Mike
I think this is pretty unlikely.
If your battery has been trully dischared, it will take many hours to completely charge it back to full capacity. Assuming its approx 80A/hr, it will take approx 8hrs with a charging rate of 10A/hr to fully recharge. Taking the van for a run may initially increase the voltage but it won't charge it significantly.

If you have a battery charger (other than the one in the van), I would take out the battery and put it on charge. If the battery is flat and charges back very quickly I would suspect a cell has gone down. If it takes a considerable time to charge then this is good news.

If you do not have a separate charger, then charge the battery in situ say for 2hrs at a time, allowing the charger 30mins to cool between charges. A fully charged battery will show approx 13.6 ish volts.

Hope this is of some use.

John

Hi there,

If your battery is an ordinary lead/acid type then dropping the voltage below 10.4 volts for any length of time will almost certainly have caused damage (buckling) to the plates.

If this has occurred then the battery will never hold a charge for very long.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I think a new battery is on the cards!!

Best regards,

Thanks Hoopman and Dutto.
Maybe i was not clear. I am looking for a reason why the battery went down.
its fully charged off load at 12.87. thats about what it was new. its under warranty so i can see what happens.
When on charge its up in the 13.5 +area.
Its had a 4 hour run Sunday and its at 12.87 now.
When it was flat it was still able to run the water pump and the lights, so it was maybe 40 amps available.
My Haynes motorcaravan manual quotes 12.7volts and over is 100% charged.
12 volt and under Discharged.
Obviously the starting battery needs high voltage and high current to start the engine, not the same requirement for a leisure battery.
regards
Mike

mikethebike wrote:
Maybe i was not clear. I am looking for a reason why the battery went down.

Do you have access to a multimeter? An adequate one for this purpose can be bought very cheaply, and will serve as a good diagnostic tool for other things.

Turn everything off, disconnect the battery, insert the meter between battery terminal and lead with it on a high current reading, then steadily switch to more sensitive ranges. This will show you if there is any significant current leaking and discharging the battery. If not, it's a dud battery.

Sorry Mojo, i have a multimeter as can be seen by my readings in my thread. The battery is ok.
What i want to know is there any one out there that can confirm that lights can discharge a battery by being faulty , basically thats all i had on on for a few hours and would normally make very little difference to the battery.I had been told these 16watt tubes are able to do this some times.
regards

Mike

mikethebike wrote:i have a multimeter as can be seen by my readings in my thread.

Ok Mike, but to be pedantic, your previous posts only show that you have a voltmeter.

I am suggesting that you use the ammeter function, because if something (e.g. a light) is discharging the battery, then it ~must~ be taking current even when switched off. If you insert the multimeter as an ammeter in the lead from the battery you will see ~immediately~ whether there is a current drain and, if so, how much current is being taken.

If you then disconnect the lead on each light that you suspect, you will instantly see whether you have found the culprit.

Similarly you can turn on any lamp that you suspect and see immediately whether it is taking excessive current. I doubt you will, because generally if that were happening, something would be getting very hot and would burn out pretty quickly.

I personally have never seen a fluorescent light leak current when switched off or take excessive current when turned on, and I have owned or used at least 6 vans with that type of lighting.

Hi Mojo, Yes what you say makes sense. However the fault is not there at present. It only happened once.I drove home from site and all is ok.I was told by 2 different persons this can happen with the lights. Not only on our vehicles. I left the country the next day and all was well.Battery voltage was perfect.When i come back for Christmas i will check again.
I will try the web to see if its been noticed on any site.
regards
Mike USA

Ok Mike - hope it turns out to be a one-off!

Just to be clear: If the flourescent is the type normally used by AS with an On/Off rocker switch on the front, then there is nothing about it that could discharge the battery when turned off (unless being used in exceptionally damp conditions). I'm not sure why 2 people told you that it could, but under any normal circumstances they are simply wrong.

Also bear in mind (if you're not already aware) that lead-acid batteries self-discharge at a higher than usual rate in cold conditions, so don't be surprised if the battery state is low when you get back in 3 months time!

hi Mojo.
i could not believe a light could discharge a battery that much for a few hours use as well.
However i used the water pump a few times and it was a new pump for this trip.
Neither of these should have discharged the battery over one night.
Maybe the battery is faulty. i will see when i return and check.
My USA car started first turn of the starter after 6 months waiting for me.No trickle charger used ,left in the open. :allthumbz
regards
Mike

Back home for christmas and the leisure battery is flat.Main battery is OK. Nothing has been used but nothing has been charged.
Taking the battery to the dealer under warranty.
However another fault has developed.
Will start a new thread if necessary.
regards
Mike

Hi Mike,
I have never heard of this happening, but as those flourecent lights have an inverter to boost the voltage from 12 v to 110v to start the tubes, this would normally have a very heavy load for a very short period but it would seem feasable that if it went faulty it could flatten the battery.
If you convert to LED as I have done, you must remove the electronic inverter first and connect direct to the switch. If you need an inverter I have 3 of them somewhere.


Brian2

murph wrote: I have never heard of this happening, but as those flourecent lights have an inverter to boost the voltage from 12 v to 110v to start the tubes, this would normally have a very heavy load for a very short period but it would seem feasable that if it went faulty it could flatten the battery.

Possible if unlikely, but the light would still have to have been left switched on.

-mojo- wrote: Just to be clear: If the flourescent is the type normally used by AS with an On/Off rocker switch on the front, then there is nothing about it that could discharge the battery when turned off (unless being used in exceptionally damp conditions). I'm not sure why 2 people told you that it could, but under any normal circumstances they are simply wrong.

Exactly! When the lamp is switched off it’s totally disconnected from the battery so a faulty inverter wouldn’t have any effect (until you turned the light on). For the lamp to cause the problem both the switch and the inverter – or something else inside the lamp – would have to fail at the same time. I’d say the chances of that happening are vanishingly small.

I’d say the light theory is almost certainly the proverbial red herring.

Brod.

Have the new battery. Further diagnosed that current is being drawn with nothing switched on.
It may be a small drain under 50 millamps but where from? That was not the original problem.
The battery was U/S it appears i did not get a new one when i bought the van. Comms problem.
New thread coming up.
Mike

I believe the control panel draws a minute amount.

mikethebike wrote:
It may be a small drain under 50 millamps but where from?

In the circumstances, 50mA is not that small! It will be dragging more than 1Ah out of the battery every day.

If it were mine, I would be methodically disconnecting wires from the battery positive and pulling fuses out to see if I could narrow it down to a smaller number of possibilities.

The culprit could be something like an alarm or radio (though the latter seem to be pretty good these days), or a previous owner may have done something silly and connected something (like a TV aerial amp, for example) to a permanently-on circuit when they should have used a controlled circuit.

the control panel Zig ? Maybe ,waiting for a circuit diagram. Pretty sure my radio and alarm are not on the Service battery..
there,s one 30 amp fuse on my model for the battery,next to the battery under the drivers seat.
3 relays there as well.
regards
Mike

One of the problems with the AS wiring diagrams and electrical systems description is that they only seem to have a very loose relationship to what is actually there! So for example the manual for my Flair decribes the leisure battery and all associated relays as being under the drivers seat, when actually they were fitted from new in the engine compartment!

There are also things on the generic wiring diagram which are not labeled or explained in any way. They no doubt meant something to whoever drew up the diagram, but they don't to me...

I'm fairly sure that the older control panels like mine (and probably yours) should not take any current themselves when everything is turned off.

yes thats my thoughts. When i can find just what is supplied from the leisure battery,and where they are located ,i can track down the faulty party, one by one by a process of ellimination. That's if i can see what i am doing in the darkness we call daylight.
Mike

Sucess. i checked all services from the leisure battery and they were all OK.
Looks like the problem was that battery that i was led to believe was new.It appears it was only checked before sale!
I have got the charger working which was a another problem,but i cannot say why it was not working.
i found two hidden compartment in the van with the help of Boxerman.
regards

Mike

Hi Mike,
Glad to hear you have got it sorted, typical lack of proper PDI by your dealer. Since I have been on the forum I am convinced that many dealers do not do a PDI at all or at least the very minimum, they then wait for customers to find faults themselves and bring the vehicle back to be fixed. Fine if you are close to the dealer, but for me or anyone else on an Island with at least 100 miles including a ferry journey to get there this just doesnt wash.

Brian2

it could be another thread.Yes these warranties for most vehicles are very limited by small print.
As you say you need to be close to use them.
regards

Mike