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Hello: has anybody had experience with a Diamond Leisure 85AH battery, which we use to run the Whale water pump in our Pennine Fiesta folding camper.

I am currently charging it with a Linwood 4 amp car charger, the indicator is showing green (fully charged?) but is currently (no pun intended..) discharging around 3 amps.

Do I need a more powerful charger or keep on charging until it gets down to around 1 amp?

Can anyone offer any advice please?

Thanks

Richard Vernon,

Alvechurch, Worcs.

I have got a 110 ah Diamond Leisure battery but you should never use a car battery charger to force charge a leisure battery. They require a different type of charging unit because the batteries are constructed differently. A car battery has less internal lead plates but much thicker whereas a leisure battery has more plates but a lot thinner. With the plates being thinner they are likely to warp due to the excessive amperage input from a car battery charger therefore you need what they call a smart charger which charges in 4 stages at different levels rather than one constant 4 amp charge. You may well have now have a defective battery so you need to consult an auto technician to check to see how far the Diamond leisure battery has sulphated to a degree that it fails to hold a charge. You can read more about it in the link below.

http://www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/helpandadvice/technicalhelp/power/your-leisure-battery/

Cheers folks, thanks for your reply, taken your comments on board and will be assessing the situation. Hopefully I haven't damaged it!! I have a local outdoor shop near to me and will probably take it down for them to check it out.

Thanks again, this is always a very good site, as usual...

Richard