Bessacar E495 Battery charging

stirlingb

Guest
Hi everyone, I have the following problem.
The Battery charger (the one in use when maines plugged in is bust. It has been checked out so I know it is really bust.
I then (after driving a fair distance and getting my two 110 A batteries charged to over 12 volts and parked up for the night) had my 12v system cut out in the mid evening due to the batteries being too low. I was only using lights (dont have telly or lap top with me) when I would expect to get a couple of nights from batteries with no problem at all).

I drove home again so the batteries were again charged up to over 12v and bought a trickle charger (the kind you can leave on all the time as it turns itself off when batteries fully charged), left it on for nearly week and when I went into motorhome the battery charge had dropped to 9.6v with nothing turned on with the 12v system and the trickle charger still connected....... One of my two batteries is 2.5yrs old, the other is 3.5 yrs old........oh and I took the fuse out of the onboard battery charger before plugging in trickle charger (don't know if I needed to).....any ides guys
 
Sounds like either the batteries have expired or they need a good charge, an alty only really replaces what is being used to maintain the charge, it will charge as well so I would get them charged and try again.

Daz
 
Yep, go the cheap option first and give the existing ones a good charge. Mine fully charged read between 12.85-13ish volts on a multimeter. A reading of just 12V is actually quite low.

If a full charge off the mains doesn't do the trick it sounds like your batteries are shot!
 
If you have been putting a multimeter across the battery terminals, 12.1 volts is only a 50% charge. Whatever you do, do not rely on any built in voltmeter on a van. Mine reads high, yours could read low. None of them are accurate.

Put your charger directly on to the battery terminals. Do not plug it in to a socket in the van. You really need an ammeter to tell you how many amps the batteries are taking.

Ask around and see if anyone has an old battery charger with an ammeter built in. My reason is twofold. First, you can see how many amps are going in and you can watch the needle drop back as the battery gets charged. If the needle does not drop back after a few hours, at least one of your batteries is Donald Ducked (technical term). Secondly, an old fashioned charger will put up to 15 volts into your battery. It is not a good thing to do all the time but does a battery good once in a while. Modern chargers often peak at 13.7 or 13.8 volts.

If your battery was not fully charged during the very cold weather last winter, the cold could have caused damage, leading to failure quickly.

Best of luck.
 
Thanks for the advice gents.
Not sur what 'donald ducked' means :), I will look it up
 
At home, disconnect both batteries completely - from the MH and from each other. (record cable positions to make sure you can reconnect them correctly later)

Connect the charger to one battery and monitor the voltage every 2 hours during the day and leave it on overnight. Measure the voltage next morning with the charger running. Disconnect the charger and measure the battery voltage 4 hours later.

Do the same with the other one.

Write down all the readings and report them back to us in three days time.
 
Elcky

stirlingb said:
Hi everyone, I have the following problem.
The Battery charger (the one in use when maines plugged in is bust. It has been checked out so I know it is really bust.
I then (after driving a fair distance and getting my two 110 A batteries charged to over 12 volts and parked up for the night) had my 12v system cut out in the mid evening due to the batteries being too low. I was only using lights (dont have telly or lap top with me) when I would expect to get a couple of nights from batteries with no problem at all).

I drove home again so the batteries were again charged up to over 12v and bought a trickle charger (the kind you can leave on all the time as it turns itself off when batteries fully charged), left it on for nearly week and when I went into motorhome the battery charge had dropped to 9.6v with nothing turned on with the 12v system and the trickle charger still connected....... One of my two batteries is 2.5yrs old, the other is 3.5 yrs old........oh and I took the fuse out of the onboard battery charger before plugging in trickle charger (don't know if I needed to).....any ides guys
Click to expand...

Your battery charger is made by Seargent and can be repaired for a fixed price

It may be that when your Seargent unit failed it cooked your batteries. Check them carefully to make sure that they are correctly filled with acid by looking in each cell and if low fill with distilled water to just above the lead plates.

Your batteries should be of the same age, make and capacity. Mixing is not a good idea as the best will loose out to the worst.

There is a constant 0.2 amp drain on the batteries as a consequence of the current used by the panel and your radio on stand by if it runs off the leisure battery.

As has already been said battery voltage should only be measured 4 hrs after the charging has been completed. See this chart for more info.

As to how long a battery should last will depend on how many and what wattage the lights used are on for. Try and survive on the least amount and use the new LED lights.

Regards,
Wanderer
 
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