Charging your leisure battery

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Time needed depends on your relay/charger system and what rate it can charge at.

If for example your 100Ah lead acid battery is at 50% you need 50Ah. My van's pathetic charger max is 12A. So I need some 5 hours to refill, even if driving.

But idling a diesel, especially if from cold, can cause problems for the engine. Modern diesel dpf filters will bung up. You can "glaze" piston bores. Bottom line recharge by idling on a site us emergency only.
 
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Probably, but it depends upon how the system is set up. I'm not familiar with the Pilote 12v systems.
How long it would take depends upon a). how discharged is the battery at the beginning and b). to what level you want/need to charge it. As a wild approximation you wouldn't get much useable charge in under an hour (other opinions, discharge levels and charging rates are available).
It's generally not considered good for the engine to leave it idling for any length of time.
 
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Your engine alternator will normally charge both cab and leisure batteries.
But
How long it takes depends on how discharged the battery is.
It’s not a good idea to just idle the engine to charge the leisure battery
 
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Kannon Fodda said:
Time needed depends on your relay/charger system and what rate it can charge at.

If for example your 100Ah lead acid battery is at 50% you need 50Ah. My van's pathetic charger max is 12A. So I need some 5 hours to refill, even if driving.

But idling a diesel, especially if from cold, can cause problems for the engine. Modern diesel dpf filters will bung up. You can "glaze" piston bores. Bottom line recharge by idling on a site us emergency only.
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Ohgood job I checked someone on site suggested I could!!!!!

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It's leisure new battery but no sun so power gone down to 12.75? Is that okay? What's the lowest it can go safely?
 
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12.7 is normal fully charged voltage of a lead acid battery so as a result it is likely that your solar controller has reduced the charge accordingly.
Have a look at this chart

IMG_0599.png
 
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Sue coulson said:
It's leisure new battery but no sun so power gone down to 12.75? Is that okay? What's the lowest it can go safely?
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If the battery is a lead acid then 12.75v is about 90% charged.
You can discharge the battery to 50% which is about 12.2v.
I suspect however that the12.75v you are seeing is because your solar is putting some voltage in.
For example I am away with no hook up, there is no sun, it's misty and drizzling.
My solar is producing 23 Watts, my batteries voltage is showing 13.3v but if I disconnected the solar and left the batteries rest for a while they would show their true voltage which would be about 12.65v as they are not fully charged from last night's use yet.
 
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Sue coulson said:
Brilliant thank you have screen shot !!
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Fully charged voltage depends on what type of lead acid battery you have but if you used electric yesterday and your solar isn't producing anything today and you're not on hook up then how has your battery re-charged ?

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I think you could benefit from a soc ( state of charge) battery monitor eg

T16 Battery Monitor for sale | eBay

Find great deals on eBay for T16 Battery Monitor. Shop with confidence.
www.ebay.co.uk

There is a more expensive version from victron smartshunt or bmv712
 
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