Battery charger not working?

Symbol 2008. I suspect the battery charger is not working as it failed to put any charge in both vehicle and leisure batteries whereas a 20 mile drive did. Nor did the voltage across the batteries change when the charger was switched on.
Qu.1 Is there an inline fuse between charger and batteries I could check?
Qu.2 How could I check the output at the charger end of the line - can't see where to put the probes. And would I check for volts or amps?

Written on the charger is 'Volta 3-stage Mode CTSAN 18 amp'

If there is no voltage showing at the battery terminals then either the charger has failed or the fuse has blown. You should find a fuse for the charger but a quick check is to put your meter on the output from the charger. If you have power at the outlet but not at the battery then its a fuse. If there is no output then its the charger.

Thank you for your reply, confirming my thoughts. The problem is: a cable comes out from underneath the charger (it plugs in, I think) and goes down for a couple of inches and straight through a hole in the floor. No signs of a fuse in this short length of visible wire. Where would I look for a fuse, then? Would it be near to the MES control unit on the back wall of the van above the rear doors? Do you know how this control unit is removed?

I would prefer to test the fuse before removing the charger and poking around inside its socket - this would seem to be a very fiddly procedure

Can you pull the outlet plug out a few millimeters and put a multimeter across the output? This would be the normal way of doing it. Otherwise - multimeters come with insulation piercing probes to let you test without removing things. In my experience its almost always the charger that fails.

Thanks again. I bit the bullet and removed the charger from the bulkhead so as to access the output leads. (Back-destrying to get to one of the screws). Lo and behold, no output voltage whatsoever. Now to get a replacement before we are off next weekend - not many suppliers up here in Cumbria!

Have you got a picture, I might have one in stock!!!

Hi,
Some (but not all) chargers need to be connected to a battery to produce a charging current, I would be inclined to connect your charger to a battery and see if the voltage rises when switched on,
Regards,
Chris

In this case it should be giving 13.4 volts without any load.

Thanks so ,much for the offer, ubuntu 1, but I did order one this morning. Wish I had known!!
I did, in fact, try your suggestion, chrisvey, and there was absolutely no change in voltage.

ubuntu1 wrote:In this case it should be giving 13.4 volts without any load.

Hi,
The type of chargers I used to come across required sufficient voltage in the battery to actually activate a charging mode, mostly fitted to access machines so to get them to cut in we had to fool them by applying booster batteries. I think the idea was to prevent customers running machines with flat batteries and the charger plugged in and damaging the charger,
Regards,
Chris

Chris, your right that many modern chargers operate in this way and some motorhome chargers do in fact operate like this. However in this case its designed to keep the 12v system working should the battery fail completely.