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Leisure Battery Help, does it have to be manually charged?

Sam Hodgson

Member
Messages
96
Location
Buckinghamshire
Hi all,

After about 20mins of Work this morning my water shut off and the pump was saying the leisure battery was flat.

i have the battery on a relay to the van battery and I had to finish the rest of the day with my van idling so I could work.

i have read another forum on here and it seems like it’s normal for everyone to have to charge their leisure battery every few nights?

I wasn’t told this when I bought the system, I’ve been using it for 8weeks with no issues so far other than it did this a few weeks back and I tightened up the battery connections and it seemed to resolve the issue.

Any help with what is happening would be appreciated as I don’t have a clue about battery’s, relays or alternators!

my colleague has also been having this same issue but after the alternator went he had it replaced and he’s had no issues since.

 
Hi all,

After about 20mins of Work this morning my water shut off and the pump was saying the leisure battery was flat.

i have the battery on a relay to the van battery and I had to finish the rest of the day with my van idling so I could work.

i have read another forum on here and it seems like it’s normal for everyone to have to charge their leisure battery every few nights?

I wasn’t told this when I bought the system, I’ve been using it for 8weeks with no issues so far other than it did this a few weeks back and I tightened up the battery connections and it seemed to resolve the issue.

Any help with what is happening would be appreciated as I don’t have a clue about battery’s, relays or alternators!

my colleague has also been having this same issue but after the alternator went he had it replaced and he’s had no issues since.


Its the same question that keeps getting asked in various forms.

If you do a search for 'split charge relay' there are dozens of threads with info for you to look at.

Here's just one example

https://windowcleaningforums.co.uk/topic/24302-problem-with-leisure-battery/?tab=comments#comment-358996

 
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If you don't do enough mileage @Sam Hodgson(or engine running time stuck in traffic) then you are going to be taking more out of your leisure battery than you are returning. That 'glass of water' is eventually going to become empty.

I personally can't see how a leisure battery is fully charged using a SCR or a VSR only. This is probably why, as an industry, we have been labelled as battery abusers. We also have so many windies with battery longevity problems, all because we, as an industry, don't look after our batteries the way we should.

We've tried SCR charging only and it doesn't work. When son in law worked for us he had a 20 mile round trip to work and then another 5 on the round. He used his van for personal use as well which also added charge to the battery. His battery went flat often and his day was cut short as he couldn't work.

Its a big risk running your vans engine whilst you are cleaning windows. Its also illegal to let your van's engine idle in the street unattended. The risk you take of someone stealing your van and kit isn't worth the risk of earning a few quid imho.

Yes, we have been in the predicament where a battery failed half way through a big job miles from base. We had to run the engine to finish the job, but one of us had to sit in the van.

Now if you have one of these new battery to battery chargers that use fancy charging algorithms then this could be different story if you do more mileage. I haven't got one or had personal experience with anyone using one. I've never bothered as I don't believe we do enough mileage to fully recharge our batteries, even with these sophisticated charging patterns.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sterling-Power-12v-30amp-Battery-to-Battery-Charger-BB1230/252410937461?hash=item3ac4dd4075:g:iUoAAOSwyltZTR4-

.

 
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Through the winter you need to bench charge your battery every night then through the summer you can get away with charging once every 2 nights a Halfords smart charger will do the job. The battery voltage really shoudn't be allowed to drop below 12.5v 

 
I had a Grippatank system fitted in March they said the SCR should happily charge the battery and i haven't yet bench charged it, it is a Numax 115 ,after driving home after a busy day at work and letting it rest for four hours or so it is usually around the 12.6v. mark. I also use it privately and it will average around 150 miles per week, I note this time of year they can take a hammering and I let the engine run when possible (lunchtime etc)..it is located in a Peugeot Partner and is a bit tricky to get at so it's made me a bit lazy, it got me thinking this morning after a cold night and after disconnecting my oil filled radiator in the van, I could have also charged the battery.

Also I think Spruce said a bit back that you would have to travel 750 kilometres to recharge a dead battery, I would disagree, after a recent return trip to Devon and 600 miles it was showing 12.9v (I believe a full charge is 13.2).

What I now intend doing as an experiment is carry on doing what I am and see how long I can get out of it if I get two years out of it happy days, if it dies on me next week I'll have to up my game and bench charge every couple of days and stop being a battery abuser!



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I’ve got a tech 3m split charger and 115 ah battery that’s been been in van over a year and never ran out or charged it 

I do only short journeys 

 
I had a Grippatank system fitted in March they said the SCR should happily charge the battery and i haven't yet bench charged it, it is a Numax 115 ,after driving home after a busy day at work and letting it rest for four hours or so it is usually around the 12.6v. mark. I also use it privately and it will average around 150 miles per week, I note this time of year they can take a hammering and I let the engine run when possible (lunchtime etc)..it is located in a Peugeot Partner and is a bit tricky to get at so it's made me a bit lazy, it got me thinking this morning after a cold night and after disconnecting my oil filled radiator in the van, I could have also charged the battery.

Also I think Spruce said a bit back that you would have to travel 750 kilometres to recharge a dead battery, I would disagree, after a recent return trip to Devon and 600 miles it was showing 12.9v (I believe a full charge is 13.2).

What I now intend doing as an experiment is carry on doing what I am and see how long I can get out of it if I get two years out of it happy days, if it dies on me next week I'll have to up my game and bench charge every couple of days and stop being a battery abuser!



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12.6 is nearly 50% depleted so I would guess your battery is constantly hovering between 50% or so, And 12.9 ain't fully charged so I would be inclined to agree with Spruce as it would surely take that extra mileage to reach a full charge.

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12.6 is nearly 50% depleted so I would guess your battery is constantly hovering between 50% or so, And 12.9 ain't fully charged so I would be inclined to agree with Spruce as it would surely take that extra mileage to reach a full charge.

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Don’t forget batteries work under load so reading off 12.9 is pretty much fully charged

 
I had a Grippatank system fitted in March they said the SCR should happily charge the battery and i haven't yet bench charged it, it is a Numax 115 ,after driving home after a busy day at work and letting it rest for four hours or so it is usually around the 12.6v. mark. I also use it privately and it will average around 150 miles per week, I note this time of year they can take a hammering and I let the engine run when possible (lunchtime etc)..it is located in a Peugeot Partner and is a bit tricky to get at so it's made me a bit lazy, it got me thinking this morning after a cold night and after disconnecting my oil filled radiator in the van, I could have also charged the battery.

Also I think Spruce said a bit back that you would have to travel 750 kilometres to recharge a dead battery, I would disagree, after a recent return trip to Devon and 600 miles it was showing 12.9v (I believe a full charge is 13.2).

What I now intend doing as an experiment is carry on doing what I am and see how long I can get out of it if I get two years out of it happy days, if it dies on me next week I'll have to up my game and bench charge every couple of days and stop being a battery abuser!



Sent using the http://Window Cleaning Forums mobile app
 


This is what I picked up from a RV magazine.

In my experience I once did a long trip from the North East to the south coast. My leisure battery was at around 75% charged when I started off. After 250 miles (5 hours travelling) the vans alternator was still charging the battery by just over an amp. It was only on the way home where the amp meter gauge was flickering between 0 and 0.2 amps input into the battery. At this point I called it fully charged; about 350 miles on the road, or around 9 hours including stop start London traffic on the M25.

 
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It just shows what an immense amount of mileage or I should say time it takes to fully charge a battery
But I find it odd that some people get different results for roughly the same procedures and conditions regarding battery life.

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SOrry for bringing this up when there are other threads and thanks for the replies. Is it fair to say the. That the relay is pretty pointless having if I’m doing local lists within a 5 mile radius? 

 
SOrry for bringing this up when there are other threads and thanks for the replies. Is it fair to say the. That the relay is pretty pointless having if I’m doing local lists within a 5 mile radius? 
I wouldn’t say so,none off my Custys are more than 4 mile radius of my house and I’m yet to barge my leisure battery in over a year and I run 2 pumps off it all day

 
SOrry for bringing this up when there are other threads and thanks for the replies. Is it fair to say the. That the relay is pretty pointless having if I’m doing local lists within a 5 mile radius? 


I hear what you are saying; unfortunately I don't have an answer for you. To me it just doesn't make sense. But I do realise that the flatter a battery is the faster it will accept a charge, but 36 amps in an hour? Please understand that I don't disbelieve @Eviestevie. He has been on the forum a long time and as far as I'm concerned is a genuine guy who knows what he is talking about - someone who doesn't say something to create attention for himself. :1f44d:

Prehaps we could ask @Eviestevie to do us a favour. Please can you leave your van overnight so the leisure battery has remained idle for at least 4 hours and then can we ask you to put a multimeter across the terminals and tell us what the standing voltage is. We will then be able to see how much charge the battery has.

What I can't understand is that each of @Eviestevie 's pumps will be drawing at 4.5amps a working hour each. If they work for 4 hours his battery has used 36 amps. How does he put 36 amps back into his battery in 60 minutes tops of travelling/engine running time a day?

When I built a system into my son's first Peugeot Partner Hdi van I also incorporated a change over switch so he could change from his leisure battery to his van battery to finish off if his leisure battery went flat.

The switch got knocked and he was unknowingly running his pump off his van's starter battery. At the end of the 4th day he had to bump start his van as his battery was flat. At the time there was another cleaner who had the same van successfully using his starter battery to run his pump and never had a problem in 2 years of doing it and never bench charged his battery either. Why?

A year or so later son had to replace his starter battery. Unbeknown to him, I switched the pump back onto his starter battery and again it went flat in 4 days.

When son in law joined us I kitted out a Ford Transit Connect T220lwb for him. Even although he did more daily mileage, his starter battery was flat in 5 days. I added a leisure battery to his system and again he had to bench his leisure battery every couple of weeks when it went flat on him. (We later found he had an issue with his controller draining power even when it was switched off. Once we stopped the 'leak' by fitting an isolator switch, his battery held its charge longer. So the longer travelling time did mean his battery got a better charge. )

.

.

 
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I've had the same 2 leisure batteries in my van with a split relay charge and they have never been charged any other way for 7 years. I do from time to time have to run the engine, especially on big commercials. 

 
I’m not that up on electrics to be honest 

But the Pumps only draw when running so using a univalve even tho the pumps are powered there only drawing when running 

I must admit that most nights when I load van the pumps have been left on but still never had a flat leisure battery 

Also depending on your controller setting would this affect the draw?i work on full because I use a rinse bar and don’t rinse but lad works on half flow and rinses off

I think other things effect maybe how quick your split charge kicks in like,lights on van,air con etc

ill do my best to get a vid spruce but I’ve definitely never had my battery out back it’s bolted in a battery box 

I do have a genius charger by Norco so I’ll plug that in first thing in morning and see what power I have in battery

 
Morning all,

its pretty crazy how everyone seems to get such different results. The fact that some people struggle to do a full 2 days without bench charging and other people managing to rely solely on the relay.

 
So many things I think could affect this that’s why it differs

The power output etc of the alternator 

The condition off the van battery if it’s old it could be the split relay doesn’t switch quickly as the van battery is taking longer to charge etc

Then if your using univalves pump setttings so so and so on 

 
I know nothing lol seriously the only stuff I have learned and that's from this forum with regards battery, split relays etc,, what Eviestevie says with regards to a knackered van battery could be true as I have recently changed my van battery now my leisure battery seems to charge a lot quicker when I connect the battery charger to it most nights now winter is here.

 
One last question, I'm looking at a leisure battery charger and wondering whether to get a 5, 10 or 20A one.

I have a Numax 105AH leisure battery.

I want to look after the battery but I also don't want it to take 20hours to charge.

 
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