PMS / Willington Kit Problems

[MountainGoat]

This must be one for Geoff (g8dhe). I posted this on someone elses topic last week but got no response:

I had a bit of a problem with my leisure battery on my holiday in the IOM last week. My Bongo has long been fitted with a willinton kit. But recently while the leisure battery has been charging up fine from the alternator via the starter battery when on the move, nothing seems to be getting to the leisure battery via the PMS unit while the Bongo is on a hookup, looking at the voltmeter which DBO fitted for me you can see the voltage dropping slowly.
I have checked all the fuses on the PMS unit and those of the Bongo in the cab and engine bay, not to mention those on the willington kit but all seem to be ok. Seems to me that it must be a duff relay somewhere but I am dammed if I can find it.
Before I left for my holiday I got the local auto electrician to test both my batteries, he said that the leisure battery was fine but the starter battery was on the way out so I got a new one. Could the power that taken by the fridge (if directly connected to the leisure battery), the clock, blinds and radio etc be more than the PMS is producing or is it just that the impossible to find relay has gone kaput.

Tony

After swapping PM's with Dave-Aber I did some investigations. All Willington fuses appeared to be intact and on unscrewing the PMS3V unit (serial number 58982) I found that everything was wired up but could not find any relays. Similarly I could not find any at the Leisure Battery end either, just after passing through the bulkhead the cable splits into 5 with one not being carried on and the others protected by 3@15a fuses and 1@10a fuse (all ok). The PMS3V is wired up as DC+ve (pumps, lights, Aux1 and Aux2), Fused 15a (fridge in and fridge out) and DC-ve (Car+ and Van+). No idea idf this is right as I am no electriciain.

Putting everything back again I checked that the fridge was off/lowest setting on the dial inside it. Hooked up the Bongo to the house supply, switched on (up) the far left and far right MCB's, switched on the supply then chose van to charge up the leisure battery. ( only the clock and the radio should be drawing power from the leisure battery now). The reading on the Leisure battery (via DBO's voltmeter) was now 11.18v at 23.00 hrs on Saturday night. Checked the reading again at 9.30hrs this morning, the reading had gone down to 8.60v rather than up???. Immediately disconnected everything and put the Elecsol Leisure battery on charge with the CETK trickle charger to try to save it.

CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON.

Tony

[g8dhe]

Hi Tony must have missed the other post, anyway..
Lets see the first thing will be to check the output voltage from the PMS3 Charger on the +Van and DC -VE connections on the rear of the unit, that should be showing at least 13.8V and more likely 14+ volts when its switched on. If that is OK, then move down that cable to the fuse by the battery, again it should be as above maybe a fraction less if its working, then finally check the other side of the fuse, if its again as above then all is OK, if not then suspect the fuse. If the voltage on the rear of the unit is lower than above then suspect the charger - it will, somewhere, have a fuse in the 12 volt output (most likely) and it will certainly have a mains fuse on the 230 volt side - they need to be checked. Finally if they are all ok then its back to the 6A MCB that provides power to the Fridge and Charger, ha sit tripped failed ?

By the way there are no relays associated with the PMS3. The only relay wil be the Willinton VSR, you might have another if you have an S rather than N towbar connector for a caravan.

[MountainGoat]

Thanks Geoff I will get on to your suggestions when my leisure battery is back up to strength. As for the fridge tripping this has never happened on my PMS3, I have used the test button on the PMS turning off (down) MCB's on the far left and far right and both of them have jumped back up into the on position so I assume that they are ok. We use a 1.8kw Bionaire compact ceramic heater plugged into the mains outlets so I assume that using this has no bearing on my charging problems. I do not tow a caravan so my Bongo is fitted with single electrics for my back box.

And err! just how do I set the multimeter to take these measurements? It is so long since I used one that I have fogotten exactly what to do - it is an age thing.

Tony

[g8dhe]

Yup OK, setting the meter;
Set the switch to DC Volts 20 (or maybe 25) volts,
Black lead into the COM or -ve socket,
Red lead into the +volts/ma, there maybe a third socket for the red lead marked for high Amps 10 or 20 Amps you don't want to use that at the moment.
To make the measurements, Black lead to the DC -ve on the back of the PMS3, red lead to the +Van connection.
Moving to the battery end then Black to battery -ve terminal itself, and Red lead to the fuse connections.
If the PMS Charger doesn't have any output, then visual inspection of the fuses, after that I would suggest a local electrician to check out the mains side, or someone who is used to using meters on the mains supply.

If none of the above makes much sense regarding the meter setting, tell me what meter it is, where it came from or better still a photo of it, and I'll talk you thru the settings.

[MountainGoat]

Well everything appears to be hunky dorry again but no thanks to me. Having failed to find the problem myself I left it to my mechanic, he found that a 20 amp fuse at the rear of the PMS had blown. How did I miss it, must need a new pair of glasses again. No other damage found so apparently it must have been just a faulty fuse.

While sorting out my PMS unit I had my mechanic look into the reason why my comparatively new leisure battery kept going flat. He found that the problem was with the patched over no.8 fuse. Solved the problem by returning no.8 fuse to its original state to be patched over only when using the Bongo on a campsite etc. Not sure if I missed some instructions when the patch over was done for me so is this the way it is supposed to be or is there something missing from my setup? Mine is an early Willinton Kit and the patching over was done some months later with wiring that was not supplied by Willinton.

Tony

[missfixit70]

glad you found the issues, re fuse 8, that would suggest to me that the issue is possibly your stereo as it takes its feed from no 8, can't see how the fuse itself is at fault, early or later Willinton kits all use the prinicipal of removing the fuse & then using the Willinton "patch" wires to supply that circuit. So I'd say you haven't found the fault, just moved it onto your starter battery.

[MountainGoat]

Looks like I need an on/off switch on my radio like Dave-aber and some others have installed on their's then. Any other solutions

Tony

[missfixit70]

At least it shouldn't drain the SB as I think no 8 should be ignition switched, ie switched off when ignition is switched off.

[westonwarrior]

correct, fuse 8 is switched before the fuse I took that (with an inline) fuse to power the Radio for my relay setup, ignition side

http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... =3&t=50175