do EHU's charge your battery ??

james pond

Guest
having recently acquired an elderley talbot and being new to MH'ing i'd like to pick the brains of some more experienced folk if you dont mind; firstly when on EHU does the leasure battery get charged or the engine one or both ; or perhaps neither, just a 240v supply ?
second, just bought an inverter to plug into giggie lighter so i can charge wifes scooter battery, but small print says not to be used while driving. does this apply to all inverters ? if so, seems a pretty useless device, no doubt it would suck the leasure battery dry pronto. we will be wilding most of the time so wont be able to charge her scooter if thats the case. real bad news, and me in the do-do as i persuaded her into mH'ing. we are not solar either yet. thanks in advance for any and all advice.
 
Hello James

Welcome to the forum, someone with more experience will be along to answer it, i think i know but it will only be a guess, i'm not very techinal :dance:
 
Depends on the van...

Not all vans charge the batteries on hook up. My old Autosleeper did not so I fitted my own charger.
 
Mine is just a 240v supply. Others may be different. No doubt someone else who is a bit geeky about these things. will be along in a mo >>>> FIREFOX Yooo Hooo:D As a matter of interest, what voltage is the scooter?
 
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hi. a very hard question to answer , unless we /you know what sort of gadgetery you have in the van i would say it gives 240 v power .there may be a battery charger .possibly not . i think i would say not. plus if you are wilding its really of no use to you at all. i use a inverter hard wired to the leisure batteries . dont like cigar lighter uses only for very light use . the wiring to many is only thin. if wilding in open spaces solar is the way .buy a small tree over you and its no good . have a good look at your van possibly visit a m,home place or a auto electrician find out what you have . i also use a battery to battery charger . (24v to 12v )you could get away with a switch or relay system . but you may have it all . best luck yoiu may be covered in all angles or have nothing at all.
cheers alan.
 
Most vans when on EHU, the batteries charge, some vans have Auto battery charging some don't , check for a switch to turn charger on if there is one, as I say it may be auto, some charging systems only charge the leisure batteries on EHU some charge all the batteries, put a voltage tester on your batteries and see what is happening on and off EHU to be sure, Make sure the Inverter is not drawing too many Amps via a Cigar lighter, when charging the Scooter, you may overload the cigar socket, best scenario is just a blown fuse, the worst is fire, sorry not much help , if the instructions for the Inverter tell you not to use it when on the move, Don't, Simples. Battery Charging from the Alternator will charge the Engine Battery first and a Relay will allow power to your Leisure Batteries secondary, if this is how it is wired, [ Common Way.]
 
vindiboy said:
Most vans when on EHU, the batteries charge, some vans have Auto battery charging some don't , check for a switch to turn charger on if there is one, as I say it may be auto, some charging systems only charge the leisure batteries on EHU some charge all the batteries, put a voltage tester on your batteries and see what is happening on and off EHU to be sure, Make sure the Inverter is not drawing too many Amps via a Cigar lighter, when charging the Scooter, you may overload the cigar socket, best scenario is just a blown fuse, the worst is fire, sorry not much help , if the instructions for the Inverter tell you not to use it when on the move, Don't, Simples. Battery Charging from the Alternator will charge the Engine Battery first and a Relay will allow power to your Leisure Batteries secondary, if this is how it is wired, [ Common Way.]
Click to expand...
There is no link vindiboy Oh OK read it again Sorry
 
easy way to check put it on electrical hook up disconnect lesuire battery and measure to see if you have voltage comming into battery through one of the connections what control panel do you have and is there a switch on there
 
thanks everyone

cheers for all the replies, think i will have to get an auto electrician to take a look, talk of hard wiring, voltage testing and fires makes me think twice about fiddling myself. when it comes to electrics i'm englands number one dumbo ; blew an entire dashboard once fitting a radio !.
oldish hippy ; the control panel says Zig CF8 Peter Everard, and switchwise has a row of 3 at the top, can gues at touring and on site ones but gawd knows what the orange one with a squiggle is for. there is also a big white rocker switch at the bottom i havent a clue what its for.
 
Many vans charge from the EHU.

Buy a multimeter from maplins or ebay, it should cost less than a tenner. Stick it on the dc volts scale and put it across the positve and neagtive terminals of leisue battery. You should get a reading of 12.5 to 12.9 v if your battery is reaonably charged. Now plug in your EHU lead. If you have a working charger fitted you should see the reading jump up to 14.0 to 14.5 v.

I would be careful of what you plug in to a cigar lighter inverter. They are only usually suitable for appliances up to 100w. Some only 75w. The usual type of usage is powering a small lap top or charge your phone/camera battery. You may blow the fuse in the cig lighter socket which is only usually 8 or 10A if you connect a big load. Check the wattage of your scooter battery charger, but like you say it is likely to drain your leisure battery quite quick. Maybe better to plug into a 240v socket fed from the hook up. I do use my 1000w inverter whlie driving for small loads like a fridge sometimes. But this inverter is connected direct on the leisure batteries by thick cables and can be used like this.
 
Firefox said:
Many vans charge from the EHU.

Buy a multimeter from maplins or ebay, it should cost less than a tenner. Stick it on the dc volts scale and put it across the positve and neagtive terminals of leisue battery. You should get a reading of 12.5 to 12.9 v if your battery is reaonably charged. Now plug in your EHU lead. If you have a working charger fitted you should see the reading jump up to 14.0 to 14.5 v.

I would be careful of what you plug in to a cigar lighter inverter. They are only usually suitable for appliances up to 100w. Some only 75w. The usual type of usage is powering a small lap top or charge your phone/camera battery. You may blow the fuse in the cig lighter socket which is only usually 8 or 10A if you connect a big load. Check the wattage of your scooter battery charger, but like you say it is likely to drain your leisure battery quite quick. Maybe better to plug into a 240v socket fed from the hook up. I do use my 1000w inverter whlie driving for small loads like a fridge sometimes. But this inverter is connected direct on the leisure batteries by thick cables and can be used like this.
Click to expand...

just thought on this vernon could you not runn the scooter battery as a second lesuire battery and charge it up when driving
 
thank for that it was just a thought and did not see any reason why not as a lot of wheelchairs use 12 volt batterys and the other thought would be to connect to solar charger when not using just to trickle charge it up through a controller with set of jump leads ok would have figure out the wiring but should not be to difficult as the battery charge prob just plugs in ok also relise that the alternator will have to be up to it as wel l charging three battery
 
Could also do solar trickle charge but I don't know if it would be up to things like scooter batteries cos you never know much you are going to get.
I remember offering Donkey Too my genny for his power wheelchair batteries but he said it would need to be wheeling away all night :scared:

I charge 3 batteries off my alternator. It's not a high power one, just the standard Renault Master diesel alternator. I have 2x110Ah leisure ones and the starter battery. It does work but one needs a good long run and I don't get as good a charge as I do off the hook up or the solar panels.
 
having recently acquired an elderley talbot and being new to MH'ing i'd like to pick the brains of some more experienced folk if you dont mind; firstly when on EHU does the leasure battery get charged or the engine one or both ; or perhaps neither, just a 240v supply ?
second, just bought an inverter to plug into giggie lighter so i can charge wifes scooter battery, but small print says not to be used while driving. does this apply to all inverters ? if so, seems a pretty useless device, no doubt it would suck the leasure battery dry pronto. we will be wilding most of the time so wont be able to charge her scooter if thats the case. real bad news, and me in the do-do as i persuaded her into mH'ing. we are not solar either yet. thanks in advance for any and all advice.[/QUOTE]
http://www.club80-90.co.uk/pages/downloads/docs/zig-cf8.pdf this may help you i had a talbot auto sleeper with a zig cf8 fitted and yes it charged the leasure battery .but it all depends if the zig unit is working correctly ,if not they are not too dear second hand on good ole ebay and are easy to replace
 
I understood that once the alternator charges the starter battery it virtually shuts down to a trickle charge. How do you manage to charge your leisure batteries Firefox?
 
hi you hard wire them to the engine battery pos to pos .neg to neg .that tricks the alternator .or you use a relay .
or a battery to battery charger . these charge the engine battery then the leisure .engine battery always takes priority .when both are full they float charge between the two. durite do some nice ones .
i use a 24v to 12v system . ideal works a treat . mines a 20amp but thet do a 30amp if required.
 
I should have read Firefox's posting as the answer is there "a good long run" I have fitted a B2B charger and have been very impressed
 
Yes it's not very efficient charging leisure batteries direct off the alternator. But electrically it shouldn't know the difference between the leisure batteries and the starter battery as they are connected by a 100A cable on mine when charging. I just find the alternator is blunderbuss approach as it charges at constant voltage whereas you need a box of tricks to give sequences of constant voltage and constant current charging to build up the leisure battery charge to optimum levels. The starter battery doesn't matter as 80-90% charge is fine for starting, but with a leisure battery you want to maximise the charge to use that extra 10-20% capacity.
 
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