I am very new to caravanning and have just bought an ABI Award Nightstar (about 20 years old). It had a new battery which was fine for a few weeks until I got a mains lead and plugged it into the mains at home and within days it is dead. I am not very cluey when it comes to electrics anyway so would appreciate any wisdom here. Nothing was left switched on so I am puzzled.
Any assistance greatly appreciated!
ADDENDUM:
Thanks for your replies. I must add to what I said first off: Yes, the van does have a charger and the battery was working fine for the three weeks or so before I plugged the mains in, then it was dead within a few days.
It may well not have a charger fitted or charger may not be working. If you are not using battery it should be fully charged up about every month or it will eventually go flat & this could be the case with yours.
Lets start at the beginning When you connect the 240volt mains lead is there power at the sockets and charger?
Next stage you will need a multimeter to measure the voltage across the battery With the charger connected and switched on the voltage will read approx 13+volts DC this means the charger is working, below 11.5volts I suspect the charger is faulty.
To check the charger disconnect one side of battery and measure output from charger. Again this will read in excess of 12volts
After these test you will have a good idea as to which is faulty battery or charger.
a cheap multimeter will cost about £5-6 and is very useful for checking fuses ect.
we got a c tek charger after good advice from someone on here we had an automatic charger from halfords dont know what went wrong whether the charger was at fault or the battery but we took charger back and got the c tek one the guy fron t ms motor spares checked our battery on a machine and said it was over charged which had damaged it. So if you have a car spares shop might be worth ringing them to test battery at least you will know if its ok ours was saying 100% charged but had another reading saying battery health/state bad needs replacing.Worth getiing it checked it dosent usually cost anything
here is an update: The battery is fine. I just got the secondary electrics put on the tow bar, When I plug the caravan in to that and switch over to 'car', everything 12v works fine. Then, when I put the ignition on the car and switch over to 'caravan' it works fine also. Puzzled. Have resorted to a local guy who repairs caravans to have a look. According to the documentation which came with the caravan, we have a 'Logic' unit which clearly says that it should charge the caravan battery.
Hi. we have an old ABI, is the charger a big square one under the seat next to the water heater? If so does it have a small rocker switch on the top of it with a red light? if so make sure that its switched on & the light is on when hooked up to the mains, the switch is in a daft place if you ask me & ours is a bugger for something under the seat hitting it & turning it off when we are in transit. Also does your lighting run off 12v, it usually does, if so do the lights work when you are hooked up to the mains without the battery being connected? if they do & they are 12v then the charger is working & should be ok to charge the battery
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Topic: Electric problem
