Battery saga continues!

15/05/22

Seems the liesure battery is on its way out! Dropped several volts overnight yesterday even to solar panel all ok and it was sunny! 

More copious reading of tinternet beginning to look like knackered leisure battery after all! 

Seems the battery only good for around 4/5 yrs, this ones 6! 

We had a VW T2.5 for 8 yrs leisure battery was fine when it was sold! 

So never crossed my.mind that it would fail this soon! 

On hindsight, we've not used this van much over the last couple of years due to covid and ill health on my part. So didn't occur to me that the battery wasn't getting maintained. 

Now that for the time being anyway, I've just wired it to the solar panel via mppt unit. So that will keep it topped up in future.

We've mains hookup for when we're parked up for a week. So no worries regarding charge etc. 

When I refitted the battery it was fully charged at 12.8 today no load and disconnected 12.2! 

propex heating

Heater control flashing red X3

10 mins on YouTube

Easy fix, cause low voltage surprise surprise! 

Turn heater control to right to heat 1 second intervals and back on 3rd time turn to heat and stop within few seconds it will clear and heater will fire up

Link below highlight and hit open!

https://youtu.be/qBEjaWIYxPo

solar/ liesure battery

06/05/2022

Something is not right still! 

Liesure battery loosing power again. 

All connections checked.

Time to Google 😂

After around an hour of reading checking this and that came across a campervan electrics blog, several ways of working were shown one had the same mppt controller as I have, but 2 ways of wiring it! 

The controller came without instructions 3 sets of 2 connections, solar panel ( tiny picture of what is a solar panel ) battery again small black embossed picture of a battery last one just a light bulb above connection. 

When I got the van it was pre wired to solar panel with the " bulb" connection wired to the interior led lights. Made sense to me lol. 

BUT the digram I found called that connection "load" which means all 12v accessories ! I knew that 😂 

So stating the bleeding obvious, it makes sense that ALL 12v accessories needed to go thru that terminal !

Could this be why I've been having liesure battery issues ? Sounds likely enough. But only since swapping to solar only! So I guess SP unit took care of it all mostly as once or twice liesure battery was lower voltage than it should be but not drained and when we're parked up we use mains electricity. 

So put the liesure battery on charge.

And moved all 12v accessories over to the  "lightbulb terminal" easy enough by using the busbar. 

Tidied up the HT leads going into solar charger and re run 2 new HT leads + & - to the "lightbulb" connection. 

With fingers crossed fired up the propex tick! Fridge..... Bugger! Nowt, slightly loose connection to fuse box sorted tick, oven tick ,

Cold water supply tick! 

Great sunny day so solar panel doing its job. 

Just remembered there was an issue with the liesure battery cut off switch! Faulty So removed when sorting ! 

Damn 12 v voodoo !

So will monitor daily to see how things progress!

11/05/22

Quick check of in & out terminals, I heard the propex " clicking" turns out a slightly dodgy earth cable. 

"Q" re route and tighten of spade connection seems to have done the job.

Leisure batter V reading 12.4 

Will still monitor for a while just incase it's also the leisure battery starting to fail (6yrs old) 

Independent Solar Power

I've fully removed the Sterling Power unit and now just use a 5 amp solar dash panel to keep the main battery topped up as I'm not using the van much so can sit for a couple of weeks etc. This seems to work ok now I've unlinked the liesure battery from the main. 

The liesure battery is now topped up by my 160 amp solar panel on the roof. Using a basic MPPT charge controller. On a sunny day it'll pump 13 + volts to the liesure battery as needed. 

Already in last 24 hrs the main battery has gone up to 13.5 v from 13.1.using just the 5amp solar panel. Bearing in mind I've smart alternator regen breaks and switch off the stop start and battery is only 2 months old!  I just don't think the SP unit is coping as it should for some reason. 

Wired as per SP's diagram. 

There's also a lot going on in modern car electronics, as instructions for the dash top solar panel state best connection is to use the DIN socket ( mines just under dash easy to access) yet over a 24 hrs period the battery lost nearly .50 volts causing the monitor to send me warnings! 

I moved the charge cable to direct connection to main battery. And top up is as expected! Warnings have stopped and over the next day battery should be topped up as per needed!

Minor hassle I will need to disconnect the dash solar under the bonnet before using van 2 min job! There's plenty of cable so I've drapped it over steering wheel so not to forget! 🥴

01/05/22

Back from a week away ( not in van) to come back to a depleted liesure battery again!!!

Solar control ok 

Liesure battery 7.8 volts!!!

Tested all supplies

Tested all negatives

Whilst checking the cut off switch couldn't make my mind up all seems ok but controller saying no charge in battery! At fuse end shows 7.8v .

It's a long shot but I've removed the cut off switch wired battery input live direct to busbar, solar controller live re tightened to busbar. 

By the time I'd tightened nuts and tidied away liesure battery etc it reads 7.9 v !

So it's raining and a 160 amp solar panel will take forever to re charge from 7+ volts I've set a timer for an hour to see what if any charge the liesure battery has! Even it's it's just .1 or .2 more then the problem is the cut off switch! 🤞🤞

Them there doors!

Google have finally excepted that there's nothing " wrong" with Tambour doors 😂🥳🙄

Here is the offending picture! 

The kitchen unit in my VW T6 😂

I'd said previously these doors are the white plastic roller doors used in many a camper conversion they are light weight and easy to fit or be fitted. These are 6 yrs old as this is a rebuild. Phew 😂 

There's a small one below the oven for pots n pans but basically it's about weight saving! 

All that's left is finding my screw caps to cover the 2 screws on the vented panel above oven! 

The unit is an IKEA basic unit cut down as required  ( wheel arch / wiring / fresh water inlet- outlet/ gas piping) . 

Those doors !

This is the 3rd time I've tried to post this! If I don't mention the white plastic sliding doors that begin with T a brand name I wonder if that this will stay posted? 

I'll wait and see before I continue post! 🙄

Rethink kitchen unit

The kitchen unit has 2 cupboard doors below the drawer, and in the scheme of things they weigh a lot! So had a rumage and remembered I'd got some tambour doors that might be long enough. I did, they do! 

I've two that are long enough infact a little to long but you can remove slats easily. 

So, removed the cupboard doors and hinges (amazed how weighty they are!) 

To allow space for the opening spirals and then access to top shelf, I need to drop the shelf to midway, but the fresh water supply and LPG filler hose as usual are in the way so will need to cut corresponding holes in the shelf on left side. No big deal just cut a little and check etc to keep holes as small as possible! Marked the shelf from underneath but will cut about half away to start as there is some flex in the LPG pipe.

Once that's in, need to fit a central pillar to fix the runners onto, with width allowance for the spiral at the top below the drawer. 

Nowt happening today as it's raining and no where else to use the jigsaw in the dry! 

On a weight saving issue, I was amazed just how heavy the doors actually are compared to the lack of weight of the Tambour ones! Despite the obvious that is 😂