I am a bit of a novice and I will be buying my first campervan in the next few weeks. I would preferably like one with what I have heard is a 'leisure' battery. I assume this is a battery that is completely independent from the engine, housed somewhere in the back of the van. I am interested in knowing how these batteries get charged up? Are they connected to the engine, so get charged whilst driving? Or do you need a seperate charger and if so how does this work?
Any help much appreciated, as you can see I am a total novice!!
Follow the link Daniel, split charge relay, you just have a leisure battery in a suitable vented locker, it is charged by your engine alternator through a relay, simply put, your engine charges it's own battery and when fully charged the relay switches over to charge the leisure battery, 'course if your buying a 'posh' camper you'll have an on board 'ZIG' unit that will be able to charge via a relay or your mains hook up.
When the engine is running they will charge the batter up and when plugged into the mains it will charge your leisure battery and privide 12Volts for internal 12 appliances.
The unit I fitted into my van was a Zig Unit but there are different makes but all do the same thing
apologies for hijacking your thread but its on the same topic so hopefully you will find the replies useful as well.
I have a leisure battery in the back of my van and of course it discharged completely as the van has been standing for a few weeks. Following advice in the "equipment" forum I bought a Ring Smart Charge and can thoroughly recommend them. It recovered my battery completely despite it being 100% discharged ( took about 24 hours).
I now want to keep on top of things by giving it a quick boost once a month. If I plug my van into the mains and then use a 13 amp socket in the van for the charger, can I charge it without disconnecting all the leads etc or will this risk shorting out the ZIG unit or blow fuses or something?
thanks
John
PS Daniel I have been at this a year but the electric and gas circuits still get me confused !!!!!
Say instance I am parked up for a few days without electric hook-up is there no way the battery would get charged?
How long should I expect the battery to last without being charged?
No it wont get charged unless you have a solar panel connected up or run the engine to recharge it, or plug into the mains.
How long? Depends on how much you use. In Scotland, just using the battery for internal lights my leisure battery was still OK after 4 days of non charging.
I now want to keep on top of things by giving it a quick boost once a month. If I plug my van into the mains and then use a 13 amp socket in the van for the charger, can I charge it without disconnecting all the leads etc or will this risk shorting out the ZIG unit or blow fuses or something?
Yes you can charge it as the battery should only take the charge it needs and the charger should also sense charge.
my battery used to last a couple of days with heavy use, and not moving at all, and over a week with using just the pump and nipping to the shops every other day.
Firruk, am I reading your question as to charging the leisure battery using a plug in Ring Smart Charger, plugged into the van while the van on a hook up? If you do the Zig unit will be trying to charge at the same time, in theory the zig unit will be ok, (bit like running the engine while still on a hook up) as it should switch off, then again, if the plug in charger sees the zig unit charging it should turn off, or it could be damaged, so I'd use one or the other, and either just the hook up, or disconnect the battery and use the Ring Smart Charger.
Thanks Mikey72 thats exactly what i was asking. I think using the ring smart charge is a good idea as it does something fancy to stop Sulphate adhering to the plates which is what kills batteries I understand?
yes, it's more intelligent than the zig unit but I'd disconnect the battery from the van before using it. Also worth charging the van battery occasionally as well.
Say instance I am parked up for a few days without electric hook-up is there no way the battery would get charged?
How long should I expect the battery to last without being charged?
No it wont get charged unless you have a solar panel connected up or run the engine to recharge it, or plug into the mains.
How long? Depends on how much you use. In Scotland, just using the battery for internal lights my leisure battery was still OK after 4 days of non charging.
It also depends on the leisure battery itself.
A 270Ah battery will last considerably longer than a 110Ah battery, but then a 110Ah battery will last longer than an 85Ah battery.
We use a pair of 110Ah batteries and have never ran out of power despite using an inverter to power our laptop.
My advice is... get the highest Ah rating that you can afford/fit into your vehicle.
------------- Our motorhome loves Rock'n'Roll... it rolls all day and rocks all night ;0)
sixwheels - I would be planning to use an inverter myself to watch DVD's on my laptop. If we are stopped for a few days hopefully we will have hook-up so there won't be a problem and we are out and about I assume the driving will charge both batteries anyway. I just like to know what I am dealing with.
Driving will charge both batteries, but an alternator can be anything from 30Ah output to around 80Ah, so it will take a few hours to put charge back in. Also as the battery becomes charged, the current can fall to less than 10A, particuarly if there is a long cable run to the leisure battery. If you can use a hook up occasionally it'll help.
sixwheels - I would be planning to use an inverter myself to watch DVD's on my laptop. If we are stopped for a few days hopefully we will have hook-up so there won't be a problem and we are out and about I assume the driving will charge both batteries anyway. I just like to know what I am dealing with.
Well to be fair, my pair of batteries are almost brand new and 110Ah each, but wild-camping for three days is no problem even when using the laptop via the inverter for several hours each day.
May I suggest you purchase a 'plug-in mains power & energy monitor'. You will be able to test various electrical items at home to determine precisely how much power they consume in amps, watts, hertz and kilo-watt hours. If you then divide the amp-hour rating of your battery by the known consumption of your laptop you'll know roughly how long a fully charged battery in good condition will last when using the laptop.
Of course you'll also be using lights and a water pump, and then there are the losses involved in turning 12v into 240v (obviously the inverter sucks up some power) but you will at least have an indication.
I can't remember precisely how many amps my laptop uses, or should I say "my laptop's power supply uses" but suffice to say - I've never ran out of power.
------------- Our motorhome loves Rock'n'Roll... it rolls all day and rocks all night ;0)
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Topic: LEISURE BATTERIES
