Charging engine battery 2023 680

M

majorminor

Messages
21
Location
Whangarei New Zealand
Vehicle
Grand California 680
my 680 has been sitting around for a few weeks and my assumption was the solar panel would keep the engine battery topped up. Went out this morning and all dead. Battery voltage 4.6v.
So is my assumption incorrect or are there settings which i have overlooked. Asking here as it would take about 3 days to make any sense of the VW manual.
 
Unfortunately the factory solar setup does not provide charge to the starter battery, only the leisure battery. It is possible to use the starter battery charge facility on the factory fit Votronic solar MPPT to add such a capability with a bit of rewiring, the Grand California UK facebook group has a post on how to achieve it. done by Andrew Cook. The EHU charger charges both batteries.
 
Thanks for the info Gordon. Set about charging the battery only to discover that it wont hold charge.
Got to 11v then died again so looks like a duff cell.
 
I was thinking myself to get this one, I wonder if anybody is using it.
shop.grandcali.com

Battery Maintainer

Is your Grand California not being used for a long time and is not connected to shore power? This can lead to problems after just a few days of downtime. Unfortunately, the starter battery discharges very quickly and after a few weeks it can be so deeply discharged that it can no longer be...
shop.grandcali.com shop.grandcali.com
 
thanx GS O - looks like a good choice to me.
Doing more work today and not ruled out issues with ext battery charger that i used.
Watch this space for next exciting post!
 
After disconnecting battery and charging to 12 volts reconnected leads and turning key and all is dead.
Are there sensors that check battery voltage, as it seems strange that i dont even get dash lights.
Could be a stuffed battery as it seemed to take ages to get it to 12 Volts.
Any comments out there?
 
majorminor said:
After disconnecting battery and charging to 12 volts reconnected leads and turning key and all is dead.
Are there sensors that check battery voltage, as it seems strange that i dont even get dash lights.
Could be a stuffed battery as it seemed to take ages to get it to 12 Volts.
Any comments out there?
Click to expand...
At the risk of stating the obvious, you are charging the right battery? The battery under the bonnet is not the starter battery, that is the leisure battery. The starter battery is in the floor in the cab area.
Just thought I’d mention it.
 
If you are going to jump start it, make sure you use the correct jump points (under the bonnet) and not directly to the battery terminals under the passenger footwell.
 
My plan at this point is to remove 1 terminal off the flat engine battery and see how much i can charge it with my modern electronic battery charger.
Still need to sort why solar panel was not keeping leisure battery topped up - see in post #1 it was down to 4.6v.
 
To charge my engine battery, I connected my Ctek MXS 5.0 directly to the terminals (not sure if this is best practice). I let it do its diagnostic check and charge over night. It could be my imagination, but it seems to be holding the charge better now. I have left the connections on the battery so I can do the same again without having to take it all apart again.
 
Well your 5 and up 7 !!
Put my CTEK MXS 7.0 onto battery and selected recon mode and then changed to normal charge.
Got to 11 volts when my little 230v getset ran out of gas. So will finish it today.
 
For me, this is the way forward. Weekend before last I was off-grid at a four day festival. I connected my Ctek to the positive terminal of my leisure battery and negative to the body. Plugged it into my power station before I went to bed and woke up to 80% leisure battery (according to the van display and corroborated by the Victron battery monitor) having used just 7% of the power station.
 
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