Hello,
I have one of the NE143-P failed chargers in my 2008 Swift motorhome and have been using a car charger to keep me going which is a bit faffy with wires all over the place.
There are lots of fit and forget chargers available from mainstream manufacturers, eg. Numax and Optimate, at half the price of a repaired NE unit.
None of these have the NE connectors - does anyone know if it is OK to simply cut the charger cables and connect, with decent strip connectors, plus an independent wired in connection to the battery terminals? Alternatively, I could possibly utilise the existing motorhome cables ie. mains in and 12v cabling out - but then again there is a small cable into the NE unit which I know not the purpose of.
Appreciate a soonish response please - big holiday coming up and want to be sorted asap.
thanks
Svenno
The OE onboard chargers are also designed as a power supply, so will give sufficient power without a battery at all.
the chargers you speak about are just that chargers, and would only be able to be used with a battery.
OE chargers only charge at about 13.8W, so only charge the battery to 85%ish to avoid gassing, a full charger would fully charge the batter (14.4V charge rate) but small amounts of gassing would occur, this would be minimal with a smart charger like a CTEK, but still present.
be aware a lot of chargers have a charge indicator built in to tell you when its charged, but does not stop charging, in this case the battery will happily gas away and overcharge damaging the battery, if you want to do it, use a smart charger such as the CTek (others are now available)
I had failure of charger on site some time back. Bought a separate charger and modified the wiring from the back of old charger to fit new one which is external to the control box. Also wired in a switch so I could switch it off If I needed to. the new one was made for caravan use .
I use a Ctek charger in combination with the onboard charger in my caravan. If the battery shows signs of low charge I put the Ctek on. It has wiring that is permanently attached, but is unpluggable, same as you would use for a motorbike etc. I tend to charge with the Ctek and use the onboard more as a power supply as it is a very weak charger. I may have to use the Ctek less since converting all the fluorescent tube lights to LED strips. 46 watts down to 2.1 watts.
I honestly believe you would be better off overall getting the NE repaired.
Point being it is not just a repair but a permanent fix so the same problem does not recur, the charger itself is a full blown 18A battery charger so as good as any that might replace it and also eliminates your current urgent wiring dilemma.
Last but far from least, it also keeps the control panel 'standard', so cannot detract perhaps considerably more than any saving today from resale values tomorrow!
Both Apuljack Engineering, or, Leisure Electronic Repairs fully understand the problem and offer this modification service.
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Topic: non-OE battery chargers??
