Flat battery solution please

Scattycat said:
If we leave our van with the imobiliser and alarm on they soon flatten the battery
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As a test I have purposely not connected Mo up to EHU and went out to her this afternoon after two weeks sat still and she fired up straight away.

This is a post from a very happy Badknee :xThumb:
 
lorger said:
Don't know what year your is so might be different ours is 2010.
If you lift the bonnet and while facing the windscreen on the right hand side there is a small bolt sticking out at the front with a wee sticker this is the negative point, again on the right hand side in the engine compartment you will see a fuse box at the left of it is a small flap that opens up to expose a piece of metal this is the positive. If you can't find them I will take pics tomorrow.
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Year is 2005 engine starter battery located on left in engine bay as you look towards windscreen. Above wheel arch.
 
Badknee said:
As a test I have purposely not connected Mo up to EHU and went out to her this afternoon after two weeks sat still and she fired up straight away.

This is a post from a very happy Badknee :xThumb:
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With or without solar panel??
 
buffallobill said:
Year is 2005 engine starter battery located on left in engine bay as you look towards windscreen. Above wheel arch.
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As difficult as it may be the builders are not likely to put jump point in there as well, what's your skinned knuckles to them. :xrofl:
 
Jaws said:
Really ? Sorry me old mucker
Unless the battery a close friend removed from his 6 month old Yamaha in late October was a bit of a throw back, it is as true today as it ever was !
Got a call out a couple of days before Krimble to get him started.. Battery was flatter than a witches t!t !!!!
His spare ( which he took out of his old bike and left on the bench when the poor thing was mowed down while parked up ) was perfectly usable still and started the bike no problem
Less than two months on the concrete garage floor 'did' for the new one !
OK, it came back to life but the quiescent voltage had dropped to just over 9v so do not think it will ever be as good as it should be now
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Yuasa know a bit about batteries, and sell a "few" batteries a year. They supply our smaller UPS batteries (up to 480Ah) . They also make motorcycle batteries.
A few links for you "me old mucker".
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Thanks again for all the replies. We are going to have an auto electrician look at it when we return home and ask him to put isolator on for us.
 
Gizmouk said:
Yuasa know a bit about batteries, and sell a "few" batteries a year. They supply our smaller UPS batteries (up to 480Ah) . They also make motorcycle batteries.
A few links for you "me old mucker".
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Quite frankly after working in one field or another involving batteries and chargers since 1982 I would not trust a word any manufacturer says
Yuasa are only popular nowadays with punters.. not with the trade.. And the reason ? Because people are still equating damned expensive with high quality.. Of course in many cases that is true.. but guess where the components are made for the smaller bike batteries flying that particular flag ! :xwink:

As a by the by, if you are using any RD Chargers on any systems chances are high part of the control circuit will have the initials J.A.W.S embossed on the board .. guess whose foldback circuit design it is :xwink::xThumb:
 
I've read through all of this thread with interest ... at 5 years old your battery will be more than likely totally inefficient ... ie stuffed ... regardless of what the testers say, they are NOT doing the test properly (which has been explained by others) so are not giving the true condition of the battery.

Any battery which is 'failing' and not holding a charge for any period of time is going to need replacing and if this has only become an issue in more recent months then my first port of call would be to replace it with a good quality one which you know is fully charged and see what happens ... my bet is that this will solve your problem!

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Oh, just remembered ... if you ever want to jump start using a modern car be VERY VERY VERY careful - our neighbour had a problem with her car as her battery had gone totally flat, she had already called the AA man out before telling us who arrived shortly afterwards. The AA man out who found out that the battery wasn't being charged at all but used a portable power pack to get her car going ... hubby said he would have jump started it if he'd know but the AA man said that wasn't a good idea as it can 'fry' the ECU of the car giving the jump start! He said he'd had many call outs due to this very problem ... it proved to be a very expensive 'helping hand'!
 
When we collected our new MH we were told the same by the walk around guy - never to jump start the van as it can fry the ECU !
 
Minx said:
hubby said he would have jump started it if he'd know but the AA man said that wasn't a good idea as it can 'fry' the ECU of the car giving the jump start! He said he'd had many call outs due to this very problem ... it proved to be a very expensive 'helping hand'!
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Oh I hope this isnt the case why our control panel is flashing red at cab battery icon.
The AA never advised us he could potentially damage our system.
 
The manufactures of our MH provide details of how to jump start the vehicle and remote points to connects the jump leads to, so whether to jump start or not must be down to specific vehicles and manufacture's .
 
So I'm worrying about mine now as it has been Sat since 7th Dec. It's a mark 5 transit so don't expect much drain, just the stereo and imobiliser and it was a brand new battery that had run about 1200 miles just before it was left .. might go and give her a run today..

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mjltigger said:
So I'm worrying about mine now as it has been Sat since 7th Dec. It's a mark 5 transit so don't expect much drain, just the stereo and imobiliser and it was a brand new battery that had run about 1200 miles just before it was left .. might go and give her a run today..
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It's always good to go and check your MH anyway and I would not loose to much sleep you should be fine.
 
Don Quixote said:
It's always good to go and check your MH anyway and I would not loose to much sleep you should be fine.
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It's parked opposite my drive so I walk round it regularly and drive past it daily but too far to stretch EHU and haven't bothered to run it as we took everything out and drained down etc after last trip.. Will pop out in a bit and start her up but will probably not drive as don't want to lose prime parking space lol
 
mjltigger said:
It's parked opposite my drive so I walk round it regularly and drive past it daily but too far to stretch EHU and haven't bothered to run it as we took everything out and drained down etc after last trip.. Will pop out in a bit and start her up but will probably not drive as don't want to lose prime parking space lol
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If you can run a EHU cable then thats what I would do. Switch on your on board charger and leave it running, once fully charged it will switch to float mode and the electric used will be pennies per month.
 
Don Quixote said:
If you can run a EHU cable then thats what I would do. Switch on your on board charger and leave it running, once fully charged it will switch to float mode and the electric used will be pennies per month.
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If I park it on the drive I can run ehu but not parked on the road. For various reasons it works better for me to have the cars on the drive than the campervan and I only have space for 2. If I have issues starting today I will swop round but then I will also need to fit something to charge the engine battery off the ehu.
 
So I have got the drivers seat off now and took a reading off the cab battery. 12.2 is this about right without engine running?

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12.2 is really low and below 50%. I think your battery is passed it's sale by date.
 
No it is very discharged. A full battery is 12.6/7 a flat battery is 12 volts so you can see 12.2 is over 50% discharged
 
Thanks, thats confirmation enough. Shall buy a new battery 2mor and hopefully the control panel light will stop flashing. No doubt I will be back again if not. THANKYOU GUYS

Any recommendations as to which battery to buy?
 
Bosch or Varta. Dimensions are very important given where it is.
Another way to measure the voltage without dismantling is at the cigarette lighter with the ignition turned on.
 
Techno100 said:
Bosch or Varta. Dimensions are very important given where it is.
Another way to measure the voltage without dismantling is at the cigarette lighter with the ignition turned on.
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For future ref how do you measure the voltage here?

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The centre is positive and the outer is negative.

OR
Plug one of these in (available cheaper)
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Typical 12 volt outlet
CA_09061417155667-XL.jpg
 
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So I placethe red prong inside the wall and the black on the rim.... Need to go try this now :) A new trick
 

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