Batteries- my nemesis!

[Ruby2]

Ok, Good Morning all

I am writing this in frustration/despair and what the heck- again!
We are on our third MH/Van. Fairly new to the gang (2019).
Every van we've had, we have had issue with Vehicle battery and had to replace on two previous vans. We now have a Auto Sleeper Kemerton XL which we bought in Sept and have enjoyed a few escapes last year and very happy, until.... we went to check the van which is in storage just before Xmas after a max of three weeks not taking her out for a drive. Got to van and first thing we noticed was our windscreen cover is missing apart from the drivers door, this is after the major storm darragh, searched the secure storage side we are on and can see it amongst a very deep ditch filled with brambles and not accessible, ok so nothing much we can do there. Went to open van, remote not working vehicle battery flat as a pancake. Also checking the hab, the leisure battery also flat? Grrr, took both batteries home, charged them up over a few days and bought a basic multimeter to read voltage. Refitted battery bought van home to put on EHU. Leisure battery says 12.8 but not displaying on control panel. Long story short, new vehicle battery arrived yesterday, hubby gone to fit this morning but we also have zero life in the hab or control panel or EC500 unit. I despair. We have checked fuses spoken to our brilliant hab man who is checking the vehicle over next week so if there is major fault we can take it back to dealers to fix before warranty runs out. Just don't get it, never had any issue with leisure battery before and the fact it shows it had charge but nothing is happening in the van looks a bit ominous. Sorry for rant but needed to voice my anxiety somewhere so thanks for reading ( if you did)
I'll update your all next Wednesday after our man has been to give Ruby some TLC.
Trying to stay positive

 

[GeoffnDee]

Ruby2 ,Have you tried re-setting the black power shut down button on the EC500 PSU ?

 

[pappajohn]

If the battery was totally flat IE: no dash lights etc it will be knacked. It will charge and show fully charged but won't have any capacity.
Once something is turned on it will rapidly flatten again.
Same applies to the hab battery

 

[68c]

Do you have solar?
Is it parked up outside where it can see the sun?
If no to the above and you want to leave the van for a long time it may be wise to disconnect the batteries. Of course that means no burglar alarm and may lead to losing the radio memory. If it is in a secure location would anyone react to the alarm anyways?

 

[Ruby2]

Ruby2 ,Have you tried re-setting the black power shut down button on the EC500 PSU ?

We were advised to turn the unit off once back in storage which is what we've done but when we turned it back on there was no power anywhere not even on the unit. We're bringing it back home on Sat and will hook up to mains, we will try the reset as suggested as see what happens. Thank you

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[Ruby2]

If the battery was totally flat IE: no dash lights etc it will be knacked. It will charge and show fully charged but won't have any capacity.
Once something is turned on it will rapidly flatten again.
Same applies to the hab battery

We have fitted a new vehicle battery so the engine is running now. It's the hab now we need to conquer as no power anywhere.

 

[Ruby2]

Do you have solar?
Is it parked up outside where it can see the sun?
If no to the above and you want to leave the van for a long time it may be wise to disconnect the batteries. Of course that means no burglar alarm and may lead to losing the radio memory. If it is in a secure location would anyone react to the alarm anyways?

We do have solar, but we have no life in the hab, not even the EC500 unit or control panel. Will see what happens when we bring it home on Sat when its on hook up. New vehicle battery fitted today so that one is sorted

 

[poppycamper]

If the battery was totally flat IE: no dash lights etc it will be knacked. It will charge and show fully charged but won't have any capacity.
Once something is turned on it will rapidly flatten again.

Not necessarily... when we took our recenently converted 3 yr old van out on one of our first trip we were still in tugger mode and spent two weeks on a site without moving..
Anyway I very foolishly managed to completely flatten the starter battery stone dead...oh dear I said.. never mind BIL will jump start me..
That was 7yrs ago and battery is still in perfect working order.... started van last week after sitting for two weeks in minus 2 and down to minus 10 first twist of key...

 

[Just smiffy]

We do have solar, but we have no life in the hab, not even the EC500 unit or control panel. Will see what happens when we bring it home on Sat when it’s on hook up. New vehicle battery fitted today so that one is sorted

Why can’t you store it at home..?

I would always try and give van a good run every two weeks..

 

[68c]

If you have enough solar it should keep the leisure battery charged. Even a 100Watt panel should be able to do that assuming there are a couple of sunny days over winter.
I know nothing about the EC500 unit, perhaps it has its own inbuilt solar controller which also turns off with the EC500, thus stopping any solar charging.
Many vans have a separate solar controller which takes power from the solar panel directly to the leisure battery to keep it topped up.
As for the vehicle battery, perhaps the EC500 can also use solar power to keep it trickle charged and has now been turned off.
There are 'battery master' devices that connect the leisure battery to the vehicle to keep it topped up a volt of so lower than the leisure battery, like a dam that spills spare power from a charged leisure battery to the vehicle one.

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[GeoffnDee]

We were advised to turn the unit off once back in storage which is what we've done but when we turned it back on there was no power anywhere not even on the unit. We're bringing it back home on Sat and will hook up to mains, we will try the reset as suggested as see what happens. Thank you

It could also be worth checking the leisure battery fuse (20a) on the EC500 again , I think there may also be another fuse (40a ? ) near the leisure battery positive terminal.

 

[Ruby2]

Why can’t you store it at home..?

I would always try and give van a good run every two weeks..

Our driveway isn't big enough. Site is only 20 mins away and very secure

 

[Ruby2]

If you have enough solar it should keep the leisure battery charged. Even a 100Watt panel should be able to do that assuming there are a couple of sunny days over winter.
I know nothing about the EC500 unit, perhaps it has its own inbuilt solar controller which also turns off with the EC500, thus stopping any solar charging.
Many vans have a separate solar controller which takes power from the solar panel directly to the leisure battery to keep it topped up.
As for the vehicle battery, perhaps the EC500 can also use solar power to keep it trickle charged and has now been turned off.
There are 'battery master' devices that connect the leisure battery to the vehicle to keep it topped up a volt of so lower than the leisure battery, like a dam that spills spare power from a charged leisure battery to the vehicle one.

Our solar feeds the vehicle battery as priority then switches to leisure. That's in normal circumstances obviously. Our current situation has blindsided us, we're not automotive electricians but learn by every experience we've had whilst owning a MH. As I said before, we've never had any problems with leisure battery or control panel prior to this. Hoping it's an easy fix to an expert eye which obviously we're not, unfortunately

 

[GeoffnDee]

When the Sargent EC500 black system shut down button is OFF the solar only charges the leisure battery (normally).