Bongo Fury

Hello guys,

I have a question on electrics / leisure batteries.
Francophile has been of great help via a separate topic .
I have also read the forum in depth.

However I have read something which I can't find now.

The Main battery connected to leisure battery via split charger relay. The Leisure Battery needs to be disconnected when the engine is turned off.

What system is there for disconnecting the leisure battery that doesn't require using spanners?
It is mentioned somewhere!

Also, if I park up, don't turn any electrical stuff on when engine is off, do I need to disconnect the leisure battery?
If I leave the leisure battery connected, how long could I leave the internal lights on before I risked running the main one flat? Or how long could I leave the radio on ? (assuming all is routed through the leisure battery).

Thankyou!
Spent the day searching info and pulling van apart.
Feel like I need to go and do this or this !

Have a look at this on Ebay - item number 260080039631

Righto Maglett, get your head round this..........

The main battery (on the driver's side is linked to the leisure battery (passenger's side) via an split charge relay.
The split charge relay ensures that both batteries get charged by the alternator whenever they need it by the running engine.
The split charge relay ensures that as long as the engine is off, the leisure battery (which is wired to feed the interior lights, radio and accessory plugs) never allows the main battery to drain - even if the leisure battery is totally drained, the main one will still be kept fully charged to enable the engine to startup.
When the engine is started, the alternator charges both batteries (cos the main battery is partially discharged during cranking the engine over)

I hope that makes sense. The time taken to discharge the leisure battery is entirely dependant on what you have draining it. A 95 A/h battery will supply 95 amps (approx 850 watts) over a 1 hour period. Equally it will supply 9.5 amps (approx 85 watts) over 10 hours. The interior lights and radio will drain about 20 watts. So in theory, the lights and radio will last about 40 hours on a good battery.

Hi maglett,

I think the confusion may have come from an earlier posting of mine when I was discussing with another member about connecting two batteries on a temporary basis without using a split charge relay. Then you would have to disconnect the leisure battery when stopped to prevent draining the main battery. I suggested using a switch fitted to the battery post for this purpose.

If you have a split charge relay you don't have to disconnect anything as that is the reason for having the relay. When the engine is running, both batteries are connected together for charging purposes by the relay, but when the engine stops the batteries are automatically disconnected (electrically) from each other, via the relay.

Hope that clears up your confusion.

Just got my bongo back from the 'auto-electrician'!!! Hmmm...

His brief was to: move leisure battery from kitchen to space of spare battery, connect leisure to main with Split-charge relay, wire up cigarette lighter, lights and radio to run off leisure battery.
Kitchen removed, I would replace with original internal panel.

so...

The leisure battery was dead apparently.
He removed the kitchen wiring, left some live wiring taped together, re-charged the spare battery and said to use that as the leisure one.
He decided to save me some money by NOT using a split-charge relay, so that I can manually disconnect the main instead!

The radio, cigarette lighter, and internal lights seem to come off the main battery... they worked when the spare was removed.
I'm assuming that the taped up live wiring is for the cigarette lighter.
The lights work.
The radio works.

Overall I'm a bit p****d off.

Now I'm thinking of finishing it myself.

Am kinda happy to do the split-charge relay myself using the info on KampenWagen.
I can wire the cigarette socket once I find out how!
Only thing is it seems that the electrics are all running off the main battery - don't know how to change this to the spare! Can anyone enlighten me?

Alternatively I buy the split-charge relay, take it down to him and get him to fit it and switch the power to come off the spare.

Courtesy of Pippin..............all you need to do is search using "and" between the words maglett

OK, here is the answer to your problem.
I give the information on the strict understanding that I accept NO LIABILITY for it as I have no control over the way you use the information.

Look at the fusebox by the driver's right knee.

You will see on the top row at the right hand side there are three blue 15A fuses. From the left the first feeds the L curtains, the next the R curtains and the right hand one feeds the cigar lighter and mirrors.

These three fuses are fed by a thick red/black striped wire that is controlled by the ignition key in the accessory position.

You could cut that wire and feed it from a permanent source.

A possibility could be to connect it to the feed to the other five fuses on the top row. This is a thick white/red striped wire that actually is fed from fuse BTN 40A under the bonnet.

I assume that you are a member of the club (not just of the forum), in which case you can find the fuses factsheet for more information on fuse locations.

If you are not competant to tackle this job safely (and a couple of car batteries in parallel are dangerous beasts) then present an auto-electrician with this info and get him to do it.

Thanks Dandy

that lot seems a bit out of my comfort zone!

These three fuses are fed by a thick red/black striped wire that is controlled by the ignition key in the accessory position.

You could cut that wire and feed it from a permanent source.

what is the permanent source - is that the second battery?

and...

A possibility could be to connect it to the feed to the other five fuses on the top row. This is a thick white/red striped wire that actually is fed from fuse BTN 40A under the bonnet.

What are these five fuses and are these connected to the second battery already? What is fuse BTN 40A?

I let my bongo membership lapse!!! Though will re-start it again me thinks

Hi maglett
The permanent source would be a wire from the positive terminal of your leisure battery.
Don't worry about the other five fuses - you are only trying to run your lights and cigar lighter from the leisure battery.
Everything is connected to your main battery until you run the cable to the fusebox as mentioned by Dandy.
The BTN40A is just a fuse to protect the fusebox by the driver's knee - don't worry about it.
Definitely rejoin Bongofury - it's well worth it for the factsheets alone.

Dude,

Lets get back to basics the simple way to do it is,

1. Get a leisure battery fitted under the bonet
2. Get some heavy duty cable ( i have 70+amps) and run that from your battery positive to an inline fuse, mine is 60 amps, from the fuse run the cable to a 70 amp make break relay then run it to the positive of your leisure battery, you should have 2 spade connectors left on the relay one for the earth (neutral) and one for a feed (for now mine runs of the altenator cable and yes the light does come on dimley when the engine is running) but am designing a simple circuit board to sort that out,

3. I have ran 2 cables (29 amp) from the positive side of the leisure battery into the inside of the bongo via the small breakable gromet next to where the main loom comes out of, near the main battery, each one of these cables then goes to a 15amp circuit breaker mounted on the dash board, from the other side of the circuit breaker one goes under the centre coloum to a 3 way 12 cigarette socket i got from lidl for a couple of pounds, the neutral for this connects to anyone of the bolts under the coloum, ( i have added extra cable and connected with bullet nose crimps so when i need to check the oil or remove the centre coloum there is plenty of cable and its easy to do, the other cable from the circuit breaker goes to the passenger footwell where there is a mounting stud and a 150watt invertor, the earth (neutral) on this connects to the stud, again this is conected with bullet nose connectors incase of removal,

4. Take a cable from the negative side of your leisure battery to the chassie

Remember to disconnect your main battery negative before carring out any work like this

Hope this helps

Don't worry about the other five fuses - you are only trying to run your lights and cigar lighter from the leisure battery.

Have been scouring the forum - not a good idea cos it only leads to more questions!!!

On another post Pippin says that if using a secondary battery then NOT to connect the red/black into the white/red, but to run the red/black via an appropriate fuse to the secondary battery.
And while I'm at it, run Fuse 1 to it too (lights!).

That all makes sense. Fuse 1 is lights, 6 and 7 are electric blinds (don't have any), and 8 is cigarette lighter and mirrors.
What are the others? (can't find the info).

I'll ask another question later on!

Why worry what they are maglett - just keep it simple and connect numbers 1 & 8.

OK, so connect 1 and 8.

Then split charge relay the batteries together. So that's connecting Main battery, secondary(leisure) battery, Earth this to van, and then a 4th connection? Threads about this going to the radio. Not fully understanding that bit!
Does that mean that the radio can't be run off the secondary battery? (if I worked out how!)

Hi Maglett
I've never connected a relay so you'll have to wait for someone else to reply. I'm getting one myself so will watch with interest.
You can run the radio off the leisure battery, and I'm searching for that info myself.

Francophile, you are my source of information!

You've let me down

I may just have to get it done and let you know what to do!!!

Boy do we need someone to write that Beginners Guide to Wiring A Leisure Battery