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leisure battery recharge time

chris70

Active member
Messages
158
Location
herts
thinking of fitting pump/meter to my tank just wondering how much work will get done before having to recharge the leisure battery is it a daily thing or longer also which would be a good batt to go for cheers

 
Its got to depend on what size the leisure battery is.

During normal cleaning our Shurflo pumps draws between 4 and 4.5 amps per hour with a controller.

If you are working for 8 hours, we estimate that the pump will be running/working about 4 hours during residential. (Industrial will usually be higher.)

If this is correct then your pump will use between 16 and 18 amps that day.

An 85 amph leisure battery would in theory run that pump for 4.5 days before going flat. However, you don't want to drain a leisure battery like that so I would recharge that every other day.

If you have a 110 amph leisure battery then you could go for 3 or 4 days before recharging it. I would recharge it every 3rd day as the battery will perform best if it isn't allowed to drop below 50% charged.

I have a 110 amp on my van operating 2 pumps. It gets charged every second night in summer and every night in winter. I put a heater in the van in winter so its no bother plugging the charger in as well.

On a leisure battery you need to use the correct intelligent battery charger for the battery size you have.

I also have a split charge relay (vsr) but don't do enough mileage for it to impact on my bench charging routine.

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I've only had my system running for a week now, I have a split charge relay, I was hoping I wouldn't need to charge it as well but after reading this I'm not so sure... I do have to do a 22 mile round trip to get my pure water every 350 litres , would that not be enough charge to keep it topped up?

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I've only had my system running for a week now, I have a split charge relay, I was hoping I wouldn't need to charge it as well but after reading this I'm not so sure... I do have to do a 22 mile round trip to get my pure water every 350 litres , would that not be enough charge to keep it topped up?

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I've posted this before so have copied and pasted it with a couple of edits:

As I've mentioned before I have a 110 amp h leisure battery on a split charge relay. Our pumps on the van draw around 4 to 4.5 amp an hour each.

If I manage a 6 hour day on my own and my pump actually works for 3 hours of that day actually on the glass then I can presume I have used 12+ amps from my battery. If my battery was fully charged the previous night, then at the end of the day I would estimate that I have approx 98 amps left in the battery.

On my way home I see that my alternator is charging the battery by about 6 amps. At that rate I would theoretically need to drive for 2 hours to replace the charge I had used that day. However if it only takes 15 minutes to get home, then I have only replenished the charge in the battery by 1.5 amps. If I drove back to the same area the following morning I would put a further 1.5 amps into the battery. So I took 12 amps but only replaced 3 amps.

I know its a lot more complicated than that as a discharged battery will accept a higher charge rate. As the charged battery gets 'fuller' then the rate it will accept a charge reduces. My battery when nearly fully charged on my intelligent battery charger will only accept about 0.5 amps from the alternator.

It was once stated in an Australian Motor Home magazine that it would take a journey of 750km to fully recharge a discharged (flat) leisure battery. I can vouch for that on a trip I did in my van to London. I started off with a 75% charged battery and it was fully charged by the time I got to London - a distance of 250 miles. It took that distance, around 5 hours driving time, to put back about 35 amps.

My van alternator will supply the leisure battery with exactly the same charge rate, whether its traveling down the motorway or idling at traffic lights. So taking it slowly saves fuel and gives your battery a longer charge, but the results aren't big numbers.

Remember, alternators don't make efficient battery chargers. They just barely do the job. They are there to power all the accessories in the vehicle and whilst doing so also replenish the little power taken by the starter motor from the starter battery. (The latest generation of smart alternators controlled by the ecu are a little different now. The starter battery is also used to power accessories.)

So you may rightly ask why I bother with a split charge relay or a VSR as they now refer to it as.

It just gives a bit of peace of mind. On both occasions the leisure battery had failed we were able to let the engine of the van run on idle which provided sufficient current to power both pumps to finish the job. Without a VSR we wouldn't have been able to do that.

When I had the wfp trailer often the battery would end up flat during the working day. My little Suzuki used to idle in the street quite often whilst I finished the last couple of houses to keep the pump going.

When son in law did window cleaning he had a round trip of 18 miles and then whatever running around he did. I estimate it would have been another 10 to 12 miles.

He also used his van as everyday transport. He has an 85amp leisure battery in his van and he had to charge it about every 3 weeks or so. A couple of times he couldn't work as his battery was flat - he calls himself laid back - I called him lazy when it came to window cleaning as he didn't have any interest in doing it and just couldn't be asked.

 
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