Charging issue & intermittiant pressure

Evening all.

Having a couple of issues with me pump pressure and charging the battery. I'll list them separately.

Currently I have installed a Shurflo 8000-946-138 100psi pump along with the WFP Pro Digital pump controller with charging facility.

- I have finally just attached all the charging points as per the diagram supplied. Have been using the system without connecting up the charging facility for a few months. I have the controller and fuse box on my bulkhead in the cabin. With regards to charging the battery it works fine as it flashes CHG. My issue is when I go to use the pump it fails to engage and no water is pumped through the hose. To fix this I disconnect the fuse from the charging circuit and it works normally. Not sure why this is.

- My next issue is that I sometimes lose pressure and a small amount of water comes out but then within 10-15 seconds it goes back to normal. This happens every couple of minutes. I think I might have just worked this one out. Recently replaced my flexible hose from tank to pump and hose reel with plastic pipes and JG connectors. Might be a small leak in one of the corners. Would this cause this decrease in pressure? Bearing in mind it is a minor leak and not gushing out.

Might be simple fixes or something stupid that I've not done. Hopefully this makes sense. Any help appreciated.

Cheers

Why have you been using the controller without the charging facility? You have a leisure battery? I'm not 100% sure but your system sounds like it could be running off your vehicle battery.

Your second question, have you tried recalibrating the controller?

tjcgti said:

Evening all.

Having a couple of issues with me pump pressure and charging the battery. I'll list them separately.

Currently I have installed a Shurflo 8000-946-138 100psi pump along with the WFP Pro Digital pump controller with charging facility.

- I have finally just attached all the charging points as per the diagram supplied. Have been using the system without connecting up the charging facility for a few months. I have the controller and fuse box on my bulkhead in the cabin. With regards to charging the battery it works fine as it flashes CHG. My issue is when I go to use the pump it fails to engage and no water is pumped through the hose. To fix this I disconnect the fuse from the charging circuit and it works normally. Not sure why this is.

- My next issue is that I sometimes lose pressure and a small amount of water comes out but then within 10-15 seconds it goes back to normal. This happens every couple of minutes. I think I might have just worked this one out. Recently replaced my flexible hose from tank to pump and hose reel with plastic pipes and JG connectors. Might be a small leak in one of the corners. Would this cause this decrease in pressure? Bearing in mind it is a minor leak and not gushing out.

Might be simple fixes or something stupid that I've not done. Hopefully this makes sense. Any help appreciated.

Cheers

Click to expand...

Suggest you charge up you leisure battery as its probably flat. Spring controllers have a cut out which is set at 10.5v to stop a flat battery being 'killed'.

I guess the reason why the pump works fine when you run the pump from the charge circuit is that its drawing current from the starter battery rather than the leisure battery. he starter battery will be reasonably well charged as it doesn't do much work.

The unit (controller) appears to be charging the leisure battery when the engine is running due to CHR being shown. I'm pretty certain the pump and controller will run fine when the vehicle's engine is running.

We have had all our vans on split charge relays and we haven't succeeded in running one without having to supplementary charge the leisure battery every few days. We don't do enough daily mileage to replenish the power we take out of the battery that day. If we didn't supplementary charge our batteries eventually the proverbial glass would be empty.

Do you have one of those new vans with regenerative braking?

Have a look at this link for more info on split charge relays. Yours will be a VSR (voltage sensing relay.)

https://windowcleaningforums.co.uk/topic/22375-split-charge-relay/

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Tuffers said:

Why have you been using the controller without the charging facility? You have a leisure battery? I'm not 100% sure but your system sounds like it could be running off your vehicle battery.

Your second question, have you tried recalibrating the controller?

Click to expand...

Good point. I read the initial question as a setup which had been going for a while. My feeling is that if the setup runs on the charge circuit then the problem is with the leisure battery side of equation.

I hadn't been using the charge function because I just hadn't got round to wiring it all up to the car battery. I have been using a leisure battery yes and charging that up separately for the time being.

And no I haven't tried recalibrating actually. Will give that a go.

My leisure battery has been in good charge and rarely goes below 12.0v.

Again I'll try and have the engine running and connect up the charge function (orange wire) and see if that works.

My van older so no it doesn't have regenerative braking.

Cheers for the info, I'll have a read.

tjcgti said:

I hadn't been using the charge function because I just hadn't got round to wiring it all up to the car battery. I have been using a leisure battery yes and charging that up separately for the time being.

And no I haven't tried recalibrating actually. Will give that a go.

My leisure battery has been in good charge and rarely goes below 12.0v.

Again I'll try and have the engine running and connect up the charge function (orange wire) and see if that works.

My van older so no it doesn't have regenerative braking.

Cheers for the info, I'll have a read.

Click to expand...

To get an accurate state of charge with a leisure battery you need to leave it at rest for 4 hours before taking a reading across the terminals with a multimeter or your Spring controller if it has the function.

A fully charged leisure battery should read 12.7 volts or higher. A battery showing 12.0 volts after rest for those 4 hours is discharged. (75% charged - 12.5v, 50% charged 12.4v and 25% charged is 12.2v.)

There is another chart going around that advises much lower battery voltage figures. I believe that they represent battery voltages under load.

 So a full charged battery (12.7v) could show a voltage of 11.8v under a heavy load. On the other end of the spectrum a battery which is discharged will still try to deliver a current and in doing so the voltage will drop. Under load 10.4v is considered a point when a battery is discharged. Trying to drain anything more with damage the battery permanently. Many electronic devices will cut the battery current at this voltage. Examples are our controllers, Webasto diesel engine preheaters, Eberspacher air heaters and 12v to 230v invertors.

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