Symphony twin tube fluorescent light 16 watt

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,

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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