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 Topic: Dead leisure battery revival
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25/5/2022 at 12:14pm
Location: Staffs
Outfit: Elddis
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Hi all
Got my caravan out of storage to prepare for our holiday. The battery was dead showing about 5volts (left a light on), from past experience this meant a trip to the battery shop for a new battery. I tried my charger (Aldi Special) and wouldn't charge. A friend suggested I borrow his Ctek charger. So after reading the instructions I connected it up and after 48hours the charger went through an 8 point charging cycle and now seems to hold its charge of 13.4v
Brilliant.
I thought i would share that with you all.
Regards
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if your car could travel at the speed of light and you turned on your lights what would happen?
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25/5/2022 at 11:48pm
Location: S Wales The Badland
Outfit: Swift Challenger 530
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I use an 'Intelligent' charger most of the time. but I still keep an old-school dumb charger for exactly that sort of situation.
When the fancy charger rejects a battery as dead, I put it on the old charger (at a low charge rate) for a few hours. After that the new charger can and will take over.
The battery won't be as good as new, but it's still of some use.
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SamP
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26/5/2022 at 9:41am
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Depends on how long it sat at the extreme discharge voltage, but every chance even though you've revived the voltage/charge level it's severely damaged and has very little capacity left! It may be a chocolate teapot, all the outward appearance, but no practical use.
Failing a proper battery condition tester, try turning on as many 12v devices as possible (lights, heater fan, water pump etc.) and watch the voltage, if you can see it reducing significantly before your very eyes it's buggered, if it holds fairly steady for half an hour, you've still got some useful life in it. But don't expect it to be as good as it was before.
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26/5/2022 at 4:57pm
Location: Sussex
Outfit: 2007 Eriba Triton 430GT
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Absolutely right Monty15.
charging and holding at 13.7V or whatever does not tell you how much capacity you have. I have experience of that by recovering a battery with a dumb charger first and then a smart. Thought I had cracked it. 2 days in to off grid the battery was flat again, normally lasts 7 days.
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27/5/2022 at 4:56pm
Location: Hampshire
Outfit: Hymer Nova S
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Using the mover or quite probably not able to for very long, is another pretty effective and searching test of the battery's state of health. ie not holding the volts up under a decent load.
As said, simply statically holding 13 odd volts is no indicator of energy storage capacity, just it is holding all the energy it, now, can, which could be precious little compared to what the label might imply.
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11/7/2022 at 4:01pm
Location: Staffs
Outfit: Elddis
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Well I used a smart charger and was really chuffed it was holding 13.5v.
I took the van to Dover and by the time I got there the battery was as flat as a witches boob. I was going to use it on a couple of Aires on my way down to Aveyron, but this did not happen and we stopped at a couple of sites with hook up's. It was inconvenient but didn't let it worry us.
I just thought I would clear up from my initial message.
Chris
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if your car could travel at the speed of light and you turned on your lights what would happen?
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25/10/2022 at 9:38am
Location: Bolton Lancs
Outfit: Bailey Orion 430-4 & Mitsubishi PHEV
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I always fit a 2 way battery isolator switch. Common to the battery, one way to the van and the other to the motor mover.
This gives me choice of power to the van, power to the mover, power to both or completely off.
Van chargers and motor mover controllers have slight parasitic losses that can flatten a battery over time, turn the isolator to OFF and the battery will retain a high charge when left for weeks
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29/10/2022 at 2:54pm
Location: Staffs
Outfit: Elddis
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Thanks for your updates.
I have now bought a new van and it has a motor mover and a solar panel so hopefully with the panel I won't need to take the battery out and charge.
Or will I.
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if your car could travel at the speed of light and you turned on your lights what would happen?
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29/10/2022 at 8:15pm
Location: West country
Outfit: Mondeo
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If it's a properly installed system, you should be able to rely on the solar keeping the battery in good condition. I've got a Truma controller plus 100watt panel and this is all I need. Can use mover a fair bit in winter and a couple of days later its fully charged. The controller works like a smart charger and the battery is now over 6 years old and still going strong.
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30/10/2022 at 8:32am
Location: Yorkshire
Outfit: Car & Caravan
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I would still check the battery even with solar, some find its ok, however when the sun is low my caravan is in the shadow from houses add to that cloudy days and I find that the battery needs charging even with my 100w panel.
It'll not be long before I plug the caravan in so it takes care of itself and the controller will be able to do its thing.
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30/10/2022 at 7:31pm
Location: West country
Outfit: Mondeo
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Ahh, mine faces south so your shadow is probably the difference.
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via mobile 15/7/2022 at 5:06pm
