12v charge problem on site hook up.

[shawbags]

Hi all, i recently bought a citroen C15 romahome and on checking the 12v battery charge on the site hook up there is only 3.4 volts running to my leisure battery, is this a trickle charge or should there be a constant 13-14 volts charging my battery all of the time.The split charge when running the engine is giving out about 14.2 volts so thats ok,any help would be greatfully received,cheers Chris.

 

[Firefox]

Measure the voltage across your battery terminals when on charge. It must be 14 to 14.5v to be doing any good.

3-4 volts will do nothing ... are you confusing charging current (amps) with volts? A typical charging current could be 3-5 amps

The voltage will never be 3-4 volts even when the battery is flat it will be 9-10 volts or so

 

[Deleted member 3011]

Many chargers will only put out a couple of volts unless they are connected to a load - so your situation could be due to a faulty connection to the battery or perhaps a blown fuse external to the charger. Even with the mains charger switched off, you should read the actual battery voltage at the charger terminals

 

[shawbags]

hi both,i tested strait to the live and negative battery connectors without the battery connected,the battery i have is no good its not holding charge the battery is at about 8v and it was on charge for 18 hours using my seperate charger,i will be ordering a new battery monday,are you saying it will only show the the correct charging voltage if it is connected to the battery.
To the other answer my meter was set to volts not amps as i checked the split charger at the same time and that was fine,cheers Chris.

 

[shawbags]

Thanks all for trying to help.
I've traced the problem to a bad connection on the switch panel,there was a very bad soldering repair that some dim wit had tried to carry out so i will repair it properly and it should sort it out,cheers Chris.