leisure battery

helen.dipn

Guest
Hi there,

Can anyone tell me how long a leisure battery should last for wild camping assuming its fully charged to start with and it runs an average domestic supply such as lights, water pump, fridge ignition and heater fan??

I have a newish lunar champ motorhome and have two leisure batteries now as the first one only lasted one night and im only just getting a second night on 2 batgteries and am wonderin if this is the best it can do??

Thanks

Hel
 
helen.dipn said:
Hi there,

Can anyone tell me how long a leisure battery should last for wild camping assuming its fully charged to start with and it runs an average domestic supply such as lights, water pump, fridge ignition and heater fan??

I have a newish lunar champ motorhome and have two leisure batteries now as the first one only lasted one night and im only just getting a second night on 2 batgteries and am wonderin if this is the best it can do??

Thanks

Hel
Click to expand...

Hello Helen and welcome to the site, You should be getting more than 2 nights from 2 leisure batteries, so something isn't right. What are the leisure batteries ratings? were they fitted at the same time? If you just added a new battery to one that was already goosed then the good battery just discharges into the old one. What are your charging methods? do you hook up at home or just rely on your journey? a short journey will not sufficiently charge 2 leisure batteries. I have a Lunar Premier, made in the same factory as your Champ and mine is fitted with a 90 amp battery, so I assume yours is too, this lasts 3 nights without excessive heater use. To extend the battery life I have had a 43 watt solar panel fitted and have just changed all my bulbs to l.e.d's (Incidentally I have a source for these at £4.50 each, I am picking up 20 tomorrow, 10 of which are for forum members, so I do have spares, .50p from each order goes to ADMIN) advert over.The draw from these is a tenth that of halogens and they are very easy to change, I hope these together with my panel will enable me to get 4/5 nights out of a fully charged battery. I think you should take your van to your dealer or a motor accessory shop and have your batteries tested as something is definitely wrong. Some dealers just try and fob you off so insist on them checking and insist on a report and if they connected a new battery to a duff one then insist on 2 new ones as they will both now be duff.
 
Hi Helen,

more information would help

What capacity are the battery - should be a figure on the label saying something like 100Amp-hours at 20 hour rate. What type are they - lead acid, AGM, so-called "hybrid", deep cycle.
Was the original battery left uncharged for months and so irreparably damaged and maybe "holding back" the newer battery

If your major load is the heater, how many amps does it draw. Something like 5Amps. How many hours a day is it running

Lighting - halogen, fluorescent - rating 8W, 20W??

Fridge ignition and water pump not so important.

TV or computer or sound system would be significant if you use them for several hours.

Then need to know how you charge the battery up - good quality 3-stage charger, cheap auto parts taper charger or just charging from the engine when you are driving. Problem is that "fully charged" has several meanings. Obviously 100% charged is the only correct meaning but some methods of charging can be as bad as only getting to 70% so you would be losing a lot in that case.

How are you determining when the battery is flat? Flat means different things to different people.

Sorry, but these are important if you need an considered answer instead of a wild guess.

Obviously if someone has exactly your setup and the same motorhome and also uses it for winter camping, they may be able to give you a better idea without all the figures. Here's hoping.
=============================
I suspect Rick is a slow typist like me as there was no reply when I started. - similar thoughts
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi Helen

Does your van have a Traffic light meter for the battery? or a gauge with numbers? Please post the reading here

Next when the engine is running does the gauge show an increase in power?

Next does the gauge show an increase in power when hooked up?

Do the batteries look like a pair? is same make model and look the same age?

Did you personally have the second battery added?

You say you get second night out of the second battery are they switched, ie only one used at a time?


George
 
Hi Helen

Two things I would suggestyou do.
1 :Make a list of what you use and what Wattage, add the total Wattage, and multiply by the hours. That will give you the Daily Wattage use.

2 : Both battery's should be same ie 2x110 or whatever. Multiply the Ah of battery capacity by 12 (volts) divide by 2 ( only half discharge your battery)
this will give you a rough idea of what your battery should provide you with.

Divide 2: Battery capacity by 1: van usage, should give you a rough idea of how long your battery should last.

hope that helps.

Don
 
battery

Thanks for all your replies I am very grateful but not very technically minded I'm afraid!!

I have two 85 batteries I original and one added by the dealer when I complained. He checked the original battery with some kind of meter thing and said it was ok but fitted another one as 'a favour' and now I think he thinks I shoudl be eternally grateful!! However it doesnt seemed to have solved my problem. I do have the traffic light system and after the second night this goes into the amber and my heater light flashes suggestin theres not enough voltage to run my blown air heater stystem. When I return from my weekends I always mains charge the batteries and they show full immediately that I plug in. Also if I drive they show full. I am using tea lights in my van to conserve battery which seems a bit ridiculous but nevertheless atmospheric!!

Do you think I should insist on a new 1st battery as my van is still under warrenty??

Thanks

Hel
 
helen.dipn said:
Thanks for all your replies I am very grateful but not very technically minded I'm afraid!!

I have two 85 batteries I original and one added by the dealer when I complained. He checked the original battery with some kind of meter thing and said it was ok but fitted another one as 'a favour' and now I think he thinks I shoudl be eternally grateful!! However it doesnt seemed to have solved my problem. I do have the traffic light system and after the second night this goes into the amber and my heater light flashes suggestin theres not enough voltage to run my blown air heater stystem. When I return from my weekends I always mains charge the batteries and they show full immediately that I plug in. Also if I drive they show full. I am using tea lights in my van to conserve battery which seems a bit ridiculous but nevertheless atmospheric!!

Do you think I should insist on a new 1st battery as my van is still under warrenty??

Thanks

Hel
Click to expand...

Get it straight back to the dealer and tell him you are not taking it back until its sorted. Meanwhile ring up Lunar in Preston and explain the situation and ask for their opinion and armed with that, inform the dealer that you have been in touch with Lunar. The dealer is responsible to you for providing a vehicle that is usable and yours is clearly faulty and under the terms of a warranty they must put it right. the problem may be the charger unit which is expensive. So as I said you must get it back to the dealer.
 
Traffic lights are good for traffic control, but unfortunately fairly useless for determining the state of charge of a battery. An accurate digital multimeter in the hands of an "expert" is a bit better provided approximate current draw and charge history are known.

Technically minded or not, maybe the dealers assume that people don't go wild-camping in the middle of winter so have trouble comprehending the problem.

With a couple of small batteries and constant (unknown) draw of a fan for an unknown number of hours per day, I wouldn't be all that surprised if you are having problems - especially if your battery charger is incapable of fully charging the battery before you head out. Having 50% of your battery capacity to play with is a lot different to having only 20% and the difference between the two can be just the type of charger you have.

Taking it back to the dealer is probably the best option, but you still need to sit down and write down what appliances you use and how long you use them for, and how long you charge the battery before you leave and whether you drive in between the first and second nights.
 
Hi

They dont show that the battery is full when driving or when charging at home at this point they are only showing the charging sources voltage.

If the vehicle is only fitted with the usual standard charging system, then it will not be fully charged even after a week at home. They are not good chargers in fact they were only ever intended to be power supplies when hooked up on site.

The second and probably worse problem is that it is then using a split charge relay when driving, this will actually bring the charge level down, an alternator is not a good charger it merely keeps the battery at a charge level where it can fullfill its only job (to start the vehicle)

Read the free chapter at the bottom of this page http://www.caravanandmotorhomebooks.com/books/motorhome_electrics_caravans_too.htm

This problem is compounded by having two mismatched batteries.
 
Traffic lights are not much good for determining actual charge. They work on discrete voltages so with a three light system you might get the same display for almost fully charged and half charged.

If you don't go mad on power draining items like heating eg A couple of lights, fridge, and a bit of TV, you should get 3-4 nights use from a 85 amp hour battery.
 
HI Helen.

Reading through your posts I suspect that you do not have a fault as such but meerly reaching the limitations to your system.

It is a unfortunate fact that modern Motorhomes are designed to be opporated on "Hook up" and many of the devices fitted are really too power hungery to opporate for any length of time directly from the batteries, I suspect your problem has been running your heating which probably draws in exess of 10A, if you consider the useable output from a battery is about half of its rated value, ie. 110AH gives approx 55AH useable the heater alone would run your battery down in a little over 5hrs. Add on the other usage and a battery "life" of 3-4hrs each is all you could reasonably expect.

Although thier has on here and on other threads a lot of talk about inefficient charging and low battery power much of this is irrelevent and often inaccurate. It is true that vehicle and the on board charging systems do not achieve 100% battery charge it is in real terms better than the 65-70% quoted and has proved itself over many years to be cost effective and above all reliable, there are plenty of people who will part you from a great deal of money to supply you with uprated alternator regulators and multi stage battery chargers, however I doubt very much if they, in real terms, give anywhere near the extra power they claim. Quite simply if you wish to increase the available power you have the best method is to add greater battery power, weight and space permiting.

I suspect that if you restricted the time that you run the heater as much as possible and conserved power elsewhere, provided that you don't stay put for more than 2-3 days at a time you should not have a problem.

Finaly having checked out the link given in a previous post I would like to point out that the source seems to be from Australia, and not only is much of the information about 20yrs out of date but does not apply to systems used in Europe. ie. Use of blocking diodes to isolate batteries went out of use about 25 years ago.
 
In the past when I have had only one leisure battery say 85 amp it has lasted a week-end at least.

I used:

lights in evening
TV maybe 3 or 4 hours, less if need be.
water heater but only on for an hour in morning mostly.
blow air heating takes a lot of battery juice and in those days I only had a gas fire heater not blow air heating.
water pump
Toilet flush

Nowadays I have two leisure batteries currently 110 amps
but if I think of last year I had 2 x 85 amps

However I had a 75w solar panel and battery master

Toured France for 2-3 months and mostly on 12V and could spend even a week with no problems. Obviously if I used the Satellite TV a lot then the batteries wouldn't last as long but then they would top up during the day via solar panel.

So as you see it all depends on the power you a drawing during the day/night.
 
Do you happen to know the tel no for lunar in preston?

Thanks
 
Thanks Geoff will check how much battery juice the blown heating uses i suspect thats the culprit then.

Can you advise on solar panel as a back up and how exactly it works? how does it actually charge the leisure battery??

hel
 
Solar panels usually produce a trickle charges (depending on size). They are very good at keeping the battery topped up through long periods of inactivity, but not much good at charging during relatively heavy use. It could take many days to charge the battery via the solar panel especially if it was cloudy.

If you have sunny weather during the day and are not using the van in the day, they can provide a significant boost though.

Think of turning on tap to fill a kettle, and then filling up your tank with a thimble of water every 10 minutes. Over a day, your tank will get filled back up with the thimble, but it takes time.
 
lunar

Helen

Try this number 01772 337628, that is the number I have for Lunar in my mobile phone. They will probably give you another number for aftersales. I found them very helpful the other week, might have something to do with having a new aftersales manager....

Jon
 
helen.dipn said:
Hi there,

Can anyone tell me how long a leisure battery should last for wild camping assuming its fully charged to start with and it runs an average domestic supply such as lights, water pump, fridge ignition and heater fan??

I have a newish lunar champ motorhome and have two leisure batteries now as the first one only lasted one night and im only just getting a second night on 2 batgteries and am wonderin if this is the best it can do??

Thanks

Hel
Click to expand...

Hi Helen check out SEARCH mode above put in battery problems has been a good subject with loads of info:D
 
Hi Helen

A Gas blown air system doesnt use anything like 10 Amps as claimed, I left mine on unattended for 4 days by accident once, without flattening the battery, the distribution fan doesnt use much power at all.


Geoff

That information and the technology mentioned are not out of date at all and electricity obey's the same laws in australia as it does in europe, modern split charge diodes are alive and well and being sold currently by Sterling power amongst many others.

Collyn Rivers would be amazed to be told that he is 20 yrs out of date in his recently published and updated books......
 
Firefox said:
Solar panels usually produce a trickle charges (depending on size). They are very good at keeping the battery topped up through long periods of inactivity, but not much good at charging during relatively heavy use. It could take many days to charge the battery via the solar panel especially if it was cloudy.
Click to expand...
Firefox said:
Well all I can say is , I have just installed a 130 Watt panel, will charge on cloudy days (not black storm clouds) and has been the answer to my problems. I sat there last night and watched tv for 4 Hrs (4x40Watts) two lights (2ox4) and tinkered on the old laptop.

The morning dawned with the control panel showing partial depletion of Battery and by 11 am (same day) control panel had switched off solar panel and battery was fully charged.

That will do for me.

Don
Click to expand...
 
Sensible use

Hello and welcome to Wildcamping.:cool:
We have never had battery problems and have gone for several days without hook up and without moving or starting the engine, however that is summer use.
We have gone for several weekends ( Fri eve to sun afternoon) during the winter and again we have not started the engine and have had no problems.:)
We only have one 85 amp leisure battery and we use all our appliances sensibly,:D by that I mean that we don't use unnecessary lights, :eek:but we also don't sit in the dark :eek: and will use the heater blower as required and we do like to keep warm:D
We also have the TV on for about 3 hours per night:D
I think it is just a case of not leaving all the lights on all night and not having the TV on day & night!;)
I carry a geny for emergencies, but have never had to use it for such!
Touch wood!:rolleyes:
 
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