Message Forums

I'm new to this caravan lark (but we're loving it - looking at upgrading to a newer van already!)

Just a quick couple of questions about battery charging.  Our van doesn't have a built-in battery charger.  But I do have a "normal" battery charger - the type you use for car batteries and the like.  So, my questions are...

1) Is a car battery charger up to the job?  Or does it need a "special" charger?

2) Do I have to take the battery out of the van to charge it, or can I leave the battery in the van and charge it up on the campsite by plugging the charger in in the caravan?

3) If the battery can be charged up in the van, do I have to disconnect the battery from the vans 12v leads, or can I just clip the charger onto the battery why it's still connected?

Your help/advice on this would be greatly appreciated! :-)

Hello Pieeater,

Glad you asked these questions 'coz I logged on to ask pretty much the same! I would additionally ask whether you can charge a battery from a generator? (useful to know if, whilst on a non-ehu site your battery fades and a helpful 'neighbour' offers to help out)

Is there any easy way of removing a 110amp battery from its tight compartment. Bearing in mind its weight, is it recommended to keep the battery in-situ for charging or must it be removed from the caravan?

Pieeater, sorry for hijacking your thread. I can at least answer your first point re chargers. A 'normal' car charger is not designed for charging a leisure or 'deep cycle' battery. I'm sure that people use a car charger but my understanding is that you should use a charger specifically designed for slow or trickle charging. Some are even marketed especially for leisure batteries.

Regards

Defender

No worries Defender - share and share alike, that's what I say!

Sounds like bad news on the charger front - looks like I'll be dipping me paw in me pocket yet again...!

Hi guys.

A battery should be disconnected for charging. It doesnt necessarily have to be removed for its housing, just disconnect the leads. Leisure batteries seem to work best when trickle charged, most chargers over say £10 will have a trickle charge setting.

hope this helps

It's recommended that you use a charger specifically designed to charge leisure batteries. Having said that, I never knew that until I came on this wonderful website and we always used a Halfords car charger and our batteries always lasted at least 6 years which is pretty good so it must have been ok.

When our vans were in storage we brought the batteries home to charge but if on the drive we just unclipped the connections and connected the charger where it was in the bed box, but left the bed box open and the cushion well away from it while it was charging. If it went low on site and we were on EHU we used this method to re-charge.

Re gennies, AFAIK they normally kick out 230v ac so you'd probably have to use a battery charger to "convert" it to 12v dc.

Thanks for that folks - defo some food for thought there!