B
basejumper31
Hi all,
I am posting because I have a problem with my leisure battery. It is losing charge. It is a 230AH 12V lead acid Varta leisure battery, I bought it in December 2015 so it is hardly old. I took it to the French Alps for a month in February, where, admittedly, it got quite cold, and was fully drained (i.e. to the point where my 300 watt inverter started beeping) at least once. But I also have a volt-sensing split charge relay, and I charged it (at least a bit) every time I drove the van, which was most days. It got a good re-charge on the 800 mile journey back to the UK too. Once back in the UK I charged it fully back up (well, until the Halfords car battery charger I'm using to charge it showed a green light for 'full' which took about 30 hours) Am wondering if the France trip was enough to 'damage' it somehow, such that it now loses charge.
For example, The past couple of weeks I have noticed it losing charge (it could have been losing charge a lot longer, I haven't really checked it much prior to this), i.e. I've been charging it with the Halfords car battery charger from the mains at my dad's house, for hours at a time. After charging it in this way I've checked it with a multimeter, then re-checked it say a few hours later, and sure enough, it's dropped by up to 0.4 volts on each occasion.
Concerned that somehow there was a draw on it from somewhere, today I disconnected all wires from the terminals (except a single wire from the -ive terminal going directly to the van chassis, but since nothing at all is connected to the +ive terminal I don't see how this can make a blind bit of difference) I then charged it for about 6 hours, when I stopped charging it, it was at 12.80 volts. I checked it again about 3 hours later, and sure enough, it was down to 12.43 volts! So annoying. I'll be gutted if it is broken/unfixable because it cost me a couple of hundred quid (more than) which is a quite a bit of money to me.
I have heard someone (vandog traveller in his E-book) say that "smart chargers" are the best way to charge a leisure battery, and that they can also recondition a battery (by breaking down sodium deposits or something like this) and am wondering whether I should invest in one of those, and whether it would be able to stop my battery from losing charge. But the smart chargers I've seen are also a couple hundred quid, so it's not something I want to do unless I'm fairly sure it's going to help.
Any and all comments welcome and appreciated. Thanks for reading.
I am posting because I have a problem with my leisure battery. It is losing charge. It is a 230AH 12V lead acid Varta leisure battery, I bought it in December 2015 so it is hardly old. I took it to the French Alps for a month in February, where, admittedly, it got quite cold, and was fully drained (i.e. to the point where my 300 watt inverter started beeping) at least once. But I also have a volt-sensing split charge relay, and I charged it (at least a bit) every time I drove the van, which was most days. It got a good re-charge on the 800 mile journey back to the UK too. Once back in the UK I charged it fully back up (well, until the Halfords car battery charger I'm using to charge it showed a green light for 'full' which took about 30 hours) Am wondering if the France trip was enough to 'damage' it somehow, such that it now loses charge.
For example, The past couple of weeks I have noticed it losing charge (it could have been losing charge a lot longer, I haven't really checked it much prior to this), i.e. I've been charging it with the Halfords car battery charger from the mains at my dad's house, for hours at a time. After charging it in this way I've checked it with a multimeter, then re-checked it say a few hours later, and sure enough, it's dropped by up to 0.4 volts on each occasion.
Concerned that somehow there was a draw on it from somewhere, today I disconnected all wires from the terminals (except a single wire from the -ive terminal going directly to the van chassis, but since nothing at all is connected to the +ive terminal I don't see how this can make a blind bit of difference) I then charged it for about 6 hours, when I stopped charging it, it was at 12.80 volts. I checked it again about 3 hours later, and sure enough, it was down to 12.43 volts! So annoying. I'll be gutted if it is broken/unfixable because it cost me a couple of hundred quid (more than) which is a quite a bit of money to me.
I have heard someone (vandog traveller in his E-book) say that "smart chargers" are the best way to charge a leisure battery, and that they can also recondition a battery (by breaking down sodium deposits or something like this) and am wondering whether I should invest in one of those, and whether it would be able to stop my battery from losing charge. But the smart chargers I've seen are also a couple hundred quid, so it's not something I want to do unless I'm fairly sure it's going to help.
Any and all comments welcome and appreciated. Thanks for reading.