[Clever Forum Name]

Third new battery in 2 years.

The battery is fine for 6 -12 months then they just die.

They are all deep cycle and leisure batteries.

I am tempted to disconnect the SCR and just bench charge it a couple of times a week. I have hard wired in battery charger anyway, so i dont even have to remove the battery.

I am just wondering if the trickle charge a counts for a "cycle"

Spruce

Other vans no issue, but different set ups (longer journeys)

[Spruce]

Hi Pure,

A battery "cycle" is one complete discharge and recharge cycle. It is usually considered to be discharging from 100% to 20%, and then back to 100%.

However, some of the leisure battery manufacturers cheat and quote a large number of discharge/recharge cycles, but the small print will tell you that they only get that number of cycles discharging the battery to 50% of its capacity and then recharging it to 100%.

A leisure battery will also fail prematurely if it’s just discharged by 5% (95% charge) and then recharged to 100%. I doubt any of us will use so little power, especially if we recharge our batteries every couple of days.

I don't know why you are having battery failures TBH.

When I had a trailer setup, the leisure battery was on the front drawbar and they didn't last long at all.

I went van mount about 6 years ago and bought a 110 amp leisure battery from a local caravan supplier. It was called an Orange battery and was orange in colour. I added a split charge relay and supplementary recharged it every couple of days as we also don't do much mileage. I used an ordinary car battery recharger. It lasted me near on 3 years.

I replaced it when it failed with a Numax 110 amp and that is still going strong. I still have the same SCR (although the van was replaced with a newer model) and the charger was replaced with a Numax intelligent battery charger.

When we did a Peugeot Partner van for my son, I also bought him an Orange leisure battery, but an 85 amp as his would only ever be a single operator van where mine is twin operator.

http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=41726.0

His battery lasted just over 3 years and I again replaced it with a Numax 85 amp battery which is still going strong. We have replaced his SCR with an intelligent Brocott one as his burnt a track on its circuit board. Other than that, he has the same setup apart from his Teleplus poles were replaced with an SLX25.

Son in law came on the scene part time in October 2011 and we put a van together for him.

http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=139067.0

We started off by trying to run the system from his van battery but the van battery was flat after 4 days. We put in another Numax 85 amp leisure battery and fitted another Brocott intelligent SCR.
We had battery issues within a few days and eventually found that the latest Varistream controllers were consuming battery charge whilst his van was standing idle during those days he wasn't working. We fitted an isolator switch between the battery and the Varistream which gets switched off every night.
He does more mileage than we do (18 miles round trip to work) and he has now found that he rarely has to recharge his battery as the van alternator just manages to keep up.

We were out the other day on my van so plugged the charger into his and it was reasonably fully charged.  It is still the same battery as we fitted just over 2 years ago.

The problem with SCR and leisure batteries is that leisure batteries will only accept a trickle charge, whether it’s via the SCR or the battery charger. I did a rare long distance drive with my van a couple of months ago. My leisure battery was discharged to about 75% of charge registering a voltage of 12.6v.
I know my battery is fully charged when the volt meter is reading 14.4v and input is less than half an amp with the engine running. It took near on 250 miles to reach that point.

David Kent on here uses a quality car battery (Banner) and he swears by that. His is wired direct to the starter battery without a SCR.

http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=179578.0

http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=184534.0

I know of another cleaner locally who alternates between a car battery and a leisure battery. (Uses leisure one day whilst the car battery is on charge and swops them over the following day.) Both batteries are over 2 years old and he has just replaced the car battery with a new one. He doesn’t have a SCR.  

I emailed Numax about a month ago asking them if there was a way of recharging leisure batteries quicker and that said no using ordinary equipment. They also said that the average life expectancy of a leisure battery in the WFP world was around 6 months – the reason why they won’t entertain a warranty claim for batteries used in our industry.

I doubt that the SCR is killing your batteries as it puts so little charge back into them running a low mileage. I would certainly try to bench charge your battery every couple of days though.

[Clever Forum Name]

Thanks for the massive reply spruce. I think it's
Possible I may have something draining the battery. So I am
Going to look into that.

I have fitted an isolation switch in front of controller though.

[Spruce]

Thanks for the massive reply spruce. I think it's
Possible I may have something draining the battery. So I am
Going to look into that.

I have fitted an isolation switch in front of controller though.

Numax did tell me to stick with the way I'm doing things as it obviously working. I have never seen the battery charge drop to 50% yet as I try to keep it around 75% before recharging. If it has had a really hard day then it gets recharged at night even if it had been recharged the night before.

I have wired in a charging point so I just have to plug the charger in. I found the crocodile clamps I had on the ordinary car charger were unreliable when charging the trailer's battery so disguarded them.

I have also placed a 1/2" thick piece of rubber between the battery and the van floor to stop the cold from the van floor getting to the battery. The van is kept frost free in the winter.

We have also done the same with Son in Law's van although his is left to freeze up in winter. He drains the pump and outlet lines and the journey through in the morning is usually enough to get him working. (We only ever had to warm the outlet of his tank once the winter before last to get water flowing.)

[SherwoodCleaningSe]

You may find that is something as simple as your pump killing the batteries.  What is the current draw on the pump, how many do you have, how long do they pump for until they detect a dead end and stop.  I have a friend who had a couple of shurflow wired into digital varistreams and 2 big leisure batteries connected in parallel. He said the Amp draw was well over 30Amps, in melted the fuse holder.

You don't need a massive pump for water fed pole and the longer they pump for whilst dead ended the more they kill your battery.  I now use mine on pressure switches as they are more reliable.

Simon.