Leisure battery charger supply

[abindai]

Hi

I am hoping someone can help me with the problem we are having charging our leisure battery.

We have a Mazda Bongo conversion with a Power Management System 3. The LED on the charger supply switch has never come on. At first we thought this was normal but now it is evident that we have not charged the battery. We have read the instructions carefully and tried all the switch positions. We have also checked the fuses on the PMS front pannel but no problems there!

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks for your help.

Abi

[g8dhe]

Are you getting power from the 230 volts sockets OK to start with ?
If so are both Miniature Circuit Breakers (MCB) in the on position, its normal for the second MCB to feed the charger.
After that it could be a problem with the charger itself.
Presumably the leisure battery circuits are all working OK when the battery is charged or the engine is running ?

[madmile]

Hi Abi
On the PMS units, the charger (red rocker switch) will only work when:
1. you are on electric hook up.
2. the 1st switch under the smoked cover (RCD) is switched on
3. the 3rd mcb is switched on (ie the last on the right).
4. then switch on the red charger switch.

If no battery is selected ie car/ van then the led's will go straight to max.
if either car or van battery is selected then the led's will indicate a higher state of charge than before, but may not go to max straight away.

Even without the mains connected or the charger switched on, the led's should show a state of charge provided the switch for the battery is on either car or van.

If you have a PMS unit fitted, I would assume you have a fusebox fitted somewhere that feeds power to it from both batteries. It may be worth checking these as well.

[abindai]

Hi,

Thanks very much for your comments. It sounds like we have to have the electric hook-up plugged in in order to charge the Leisure Battery? We've not tried this yet. We were told when we bought the van that we could charge the Leisure battery from the car battery while the car was running. Are you saying that we would not be able to do this with the PMS system that we have?

I'm guessing this is therefore the problem but to respond to the other comments just in case:

Yes the mcb switches are all on and we've had no problems with the electrics working through the Leisure battery when it's charged.

LED's which indicate the amount of charge are showing that there is some charge on the Leisure Battery, it's just the LED on the red charger supply switch that's not coming on (obviously as it's not charging).

We've checked some of the fuses but wouldn't be certain which one is feeding power to the charger from both batteries. Will look into this further unless you have any suggestions...

Thanks very much for your help. Would appreciate confirmation of my understanding with regards to having to use the elcetric hook-up to charge the battery.


Dave & Abi

[g8dhe]

With leisure batteries there are normally TWO different ways of charging them;

• Via the Electrical Hook Up (EHU), when plugged into the mains, the charger will supply 12 volts to either one of the two batteries depending on the switch positions, the LED on the Charger power switch will show that you are getting power to the Charger itself, if you haven't plugged in to the mains then this won't be lighting!
• From the alternator when driving, there should be a Split Charge relay that detects when the alternator is providing power and this relay will then connect the two batteries in parallel to charge, you will be able to see the state of charge from the display. If this is not happening then look first at the fuses, normally there will be a fuse close to each battery, and those two fuses are connected via the relay, its not uncommon for one of these fuses to blow if the leisure battery has been allowed to run totally flat, if this has happened, try first charging the battery from the EHU charger or a separate charger, and then replace the fuse.

[madmile]

In order to charge from the PMS unit, you do need to be on electric hook up - only then will you be able to use the built in battery charger as it is mains operated.

However, your van should (in an ideal world) be equiped with a split charge relay which will probably be located under the bonnet. This should charge the leisure battery once your engine is running. The simple way to check if you have such relay if you dont know what to look for is as follows.

1. with the engine off, turn the switch on the PMS to 'van', and note the led indicator on the light bar (1 red and 4 greens).

2. Now turn on the engine. You should see the led display at or near the maximum level all the time the engine is running. If this happens, then I would say your relay is present and working correctly.

Hope this helps to start with.

[abindai]

Thank you again for your comments.

When the switch is on 'Van' position and the engine is off I have one red LED indicating low battery and it stays the same when I turn the engine on. In fact when the switch is in 'car' position and the engine is running I still only have 1 red LED indicating low battery... I'm hoping that doesn't mean that the car battery isn't charging either! I'm pretty certain that since we've had the vehicle (only a couple of months) turning the engine on with the switch on 'Van' position has had no effect on these LEDs.

I haven't managed to try and charge via the hook-up yet as we need to get an adaptor to charge from the house. Will hopefully pick one up in the next couple of days.

With regards to the fuses we did try changing 3 fuses (under the bonnet - two next to the Leisure Battery & one next to the Car Battery). These were green 30 amp fuses. However, still no joy.

Massively appreciate all your help but any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[g8dhe]

Do you have any information on where or who did the conversion ? Some times that may give a clue as to what may or may not have been fitted.
At the moment it could be that there is only the EHU Charger fitted and that no Split Charge relay has been fitted.
It might also help if you could indicate where abouts you are in the country, if you click The User Control Panel in the top right and choose Profile, you can then enter some information about yourself, it could be that we are close to you or someone on the forum is who could take a physical look at your vehicle and advise just what has been fitted.

[abindai]

Thanks. I had no idea people on this forum would be so helpful and respond so quickly!

We're based in Hemel Hempstead. The conversion was done Nottingham way by a family run business though I'm not sure if I should post their name on this forum in case it gives them a bad name and they are entirely innocent! We are currently trying to get back in touch with them also to try and get to the bottom of what's happening though as of yet have had no response. We were definitely told that the Leisure battery would charge off the car battery when the engine was running so it looks like they may have made some kind of error, be it innocent or not.... I don't want to jump to conclusions though!

If anyone's reading this in the Hemel Hempstead area who wouldn't mind having a quick look we'd be very greatful!

[dandemann8]

You could try one of these units http://www.towsure.com/product/543-13_A ... tor/Socket to hook up at home then use a multimeter accross the leisure battery to see if it's charging. Should be about 14v when charging.

[madmile]

Its odd that you get the red led on both batteries, as I would expect that if the red light was showing on the 'car ' battery, then you would probably not have enough power to start the car.
If you were closer I would have a look at it for you, but it sounds like the best course of action is to go back to the converter and let them sort it out for you.

[abindai]

Yes. Planning on trying to get one of those adapters today thanks.

Could the red light being on when the switch is on 'car' (exactly the same as on 'van') indicate that it is not measuring the car battery and there is no connection between car battery and the PMS?.... just guessing here, as you've probably guessed I don't have a technical background! Electrics do run off the car battery though when the switch is on 'car' and the engine is on.

Anyone have a rough idea how much it would be to get a relay fitted if one hasn't already and where might be a good place to get it done?

[g8dhe]

For a suitable relay the best source both for quality and ease of fitting is Willinton on Ebay, he will put together those parts that you need. Its best to have a look a his shop and then mail him via Ebay http://shop.ebay.co.uk/willinton/m.html

[abindai]

Thanks. I'll give it a try if it turns out we don't have one!

[abindai]

Right. One final post on this... I hope! I have bought an adaptor and connected the hook-up to the house to try and charge the Leisure Battery this way. It looks like it's charging though after two hours of charge the Leisure Battery had only charged up to the first green LED (the second green LED flicked on first then went back to the first green LED).

Is this normal? Roughly how long should it take to fully charge? I'm sure I read somewhere that it should only take 15 minutes to fully charge the Leisure Battery?

Thanks yet again!