[dazmond]

trickle charged it all night last night showing a full charge this morning.(12.7 volts)

worked 7 hours with pump flat out at full flow.battery reading when i got home of 12.2 volts!!

no problems whatsover!!

i went and bought a brand new 75 ah car battery for £60 this morning as well.think ill fit this in my van as ive had problems starting it on cold mornings!


happy days! ;Dback to smileys for me!!good days work done as well in good sunny weather!!


cheers guys!


dazmond

[andyM]

You shouldn't really let your battery run lower than 12 volts Dazmond.
A good battery should charge up to at least 12.8 volts or above.
To put it into perspective you said you started the day with a 12.7 volt charge and ended with 12.2 volts.
That means that you are only getting 1 day and a bit out of your battery.
I don't know what size (AH) your battery is but if it is 75 AH or above you should at least be getting 2-3 days out of it I reckon.  

[dazmond]

andy its a 75 ah battery.gonna leave it on trickle charge every night from now on and see how i go.

ive always got the new car battery as back up if i dont fit it in my van.

the next few weeks work will tell me if i need to dump the leisure battery!!


best wishes



dazmond

[home6442]

You shouldn't really let your battery run lower than 12 volts Dazmond.
A good battery should charge up to at least 12.8 volts or above.
To put it into perspective you said you started the day with a 12.7 volt charge and ended with 12.2 volts.
That means that you are only getting 1 day and a bit out of your battery.
I don't know what size (AH) your battery is but if it is 75 AH or above you should at least be getting 2-3 days out of it I reckon.  

Depends on the amount of water pumped if you get a 1000 litres on a full charge that's 2 days at 500

[dazmond]

i used around 350L today.some ground floor windows were done trad.

[dazmond]

i think the issue was that i didnt charge it on sunday night after a week off even though when i put it on charge it showed a full charge.

trickle charging it all night seems to have done the trick!!

[Mike #1]

Dazmond in my experience you should not charge your leisure battery every night you will be knacking the battery . Mike

[dazmond]

Mike i charged my last leisure battery every night and it lasted 2 and a half years!!

[Small but perfectley formed]

All lead acid type batteries should be kept charged its when they are allowed to fully dicharge that causes sulphurisation of the plates.

[dave f]

why dont you get a split charger fitted ive had my battery over 2yrs never had to charge it yet

[Fin Clearview]

So much confusion here over battery maintenance, been reading here with interest as my 85ah new from PF last aug, with relay needs trickling every night! Does my head right in!

When I spoke to Grippatank last week they said some problems with new vans are the icu not sending enough charge to the relay? (Not sure if this is right when the relay comes straight off the batt?) also that the wire from the relay to the batt is generally around 15amp but should be around 80amp to charge quicker.

Whatever this to me has been the biggest headache of the system by far. When I had the relay fitted around 3 months ago I was trickling once a week, doing 500L daily. Now, due to the batt dying twice, once after 2 days and then after 1.5 days, I charge every night all night.

I'm going to buy a bigger batt next week for a start - has anyone bought bigger than 110ah as I've seen some at 140 and above?

[steven ainger]

Dazmond in my experience you should not charge your leisure battery every night you will be knacking the battery . Mike

 i charge my 85ah leisure battery every night, my last one lasted 4 years

[Oliver @ GrippaTank]

The most common issue is that many of the split relays on the market are designed to trickle charge the system battery.

Now with any charger that is on a 'trickle charge' setting, its going to take a while to charge a 110ah battery, especially if your work is very local to you!

Now, the split relay kicks into life once it reads a certain voltage from the vehicle battery, thus slowly filtering charge through to the system. Of course, the less you drive, the less the trickle of charge to the battery!

On top of this, many new vehicles have smart ECU's which will essentially turn the alternator off when its not needed. This clearly gives an issue when it comes to a split relay - as this means the split relay will hardly ever kick into life, as it will never read enough voltage.

Thats where the SmartRelay split relays come into play - as they are not set at one particular voltage reading to charge, and work with the ECU to ensure your system gets charged when required. It always puts the vehicle battery first, so you don't have to worry about a vehicle battery failure due to the system drawing all the juice!

The other thing to mention is these systems are rapid charge - we have not yet had a SmartRelay customer who has had to charge his system battery!

[GB Window Cleaning]

Good to see your row of smiley faces again daz  glad ya sorted mate