# Battery Charger



## biggirafe (Oct 21, 2009)

What a day, I replaced the fire today in our Swift Kontiki, its been at ARCSYSTEMS being serviced. All works ok now....

BUT when I plugged the 240 power in today the flippin battery charger has packed up. I've had 2 garages look at it and its definatley the smart charger, I have 240 volts going in all the way to the PCB but nothing at the 12v end 

OK the question is, can we get spares for a 17 year old Power Management System  PMS4 battery charger.


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## Firefox (Oct 21, 2009)

Maybe you can, but why bother. By the time you've sourced them, bought them, and messed around fitting them them you can buy new, one of those all singing all dancing modern electronic smart chargers from Halfords. They are about £45, but you can leave them on all the time and they monitor, trickle or boost depending on what's needed. Also settings/switches for gel batteries, sealed/unsealed, motorcycle etc.


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## biggirafe (Oct 21, 2009)

Firefox said:


> Maybe you can, but why bother. By the time you've sourced them, bought them, and messed around fitting them them you can buy new, one of those all singing all dancing modern electronic smart chargers from Halfords. They are about £45, but you can leave them on all the time and they monitor, trickle or boost depending on what's needed. Also settings/switches for gel batteries, sealed/unsealed, motorcycle etc.



yeah I got one plugged in at the moment. I'd like to fix the original if the parts are still available.


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## biggirafe (Oct 21, 2009)

Well O'learys have the part its from CEC/Plug in systems and will cost me £92. 
https://sslrelay.com/s113419701.one...66014408/shopdata/product_overview.shopscript

I would rather have something that puts the 12v through the fuses in the control panel. I'm sure looking inside the panel I can pass the 12v feed from a decent battery charger into the supply panel, does anyone know a supplier of decent motorhome / caravan chargers? something that can be screwed inside the cupboard next to the old supply and connected to the existing 240 supply.


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## biggirafe (Oct 22, 2009)

Fixed myself up Firefox. 

A local garage had a look at it. Turns out he has his own motorhome. From new the battery charger had interfered with the telly so he complained to the maker who sent him a replacement charger to try which did not fix the problem. They never asked for it back so he sold it to me for £30. Its a decent smart charger priced at £85 from sargent electrical
Sargents PSU shop
I've wired it back into the original unit so that the 12v enters the system in the same place as the old unit and thus I can run 12v without charging the battery if I want and I have 5 fused 12v loops as before.

He is a true gent he also gave me another charger at no cost to use for the weekend if I could not get it fitted in time. Wish the whole world was full of nice people like him. 

Because he has had 5 Motorhomes he is also a good authority on fixing, servicing and doing habitation checks. He certainly gets my vote

Martin Clack Motor Engineers
Old Airfield Farm
GL2 7NG  Gloucester  (Gloucestershire)

Garages (repair, Modification)
Phone:  01452722996


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## Firefox (Oct 22, 2009)

Glad you got fixed up. I've just wired the Halfords smart charger straight on the batteries on mine. It's all fused internally and got a few safety cut out features so who knows if it will work properly in the long run, but I know some units are wired up like this.


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## biggirafe (Oct 22, 2009)

Firefox said:


> Glad you got fixed up. I've just wired the Halfords smart charger straight on the batteries on mine. It's all fused internally and got a few safety cut out features so who knows if it will work properly in the long run, but I know some units are wired up like this.



Thanks Firefox, I recon thats fine, I would have gone this way if he had not offered me the unit. Mainly I like the fact it will charge between 1amp (trickle) all the way to 20amps if needed. The Kontiki comes with a 3 way switch. 

Cab battery (never ever used)
Direct from charger, battery not charging
From battery only, if charger is on battery is charging

So using the centre position, the battery is not in use and is also not being charged all the power is coming from the charger, well they call them power supplys. If I had gone the way of using a standard battery charger I'm not sure I could have done this as few seem to be able to supply the required amps unless you pays big bucks.

I'm going to get in touch with Gary at ARCSYSTEMS as I hear he might be able to fix the original unit. I'd like to get it fixed as it will help keep the value of the vehicle up.

BTW I enjoy watching your vids, keep it up, pity you can't get someone to hold the camera for you as you are 'a man of mystery, never seen'


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