Leisure Battery flat

[Blue Juice]

Hi all,

Does this sound normal battery expectancy or should I go back to the dealer and get them to check it?

Fully charged leisure battery, arrived at camp site - it went flat in 20 hours after having the heater on overnight on setting 2 (8 hrs) interior lights for 2-3 hours and a small waeco fridge running. From other forum posts had hoped for atleast two nights?

Thanks

Craig

 

[Hotel California]

Fully charged wilst driving ...."saying" 100% ?
Did you ever charged it on 220v hook-up?

 

[Blue Juice]

Had it on hookup for 20 hours before leaving the house and then drove 3.5 hours to camp site

 

[Hotel California]

Hmmm , seems pretty quick to dry out .
I have no ecperience on the Beach (one battery) so hope Beach owners have better input than me.

Sure nothing else was pulling power , cigaret lighters/adapters

 

[Bigted]

The battery on a beach is 68Ah - so if the fridge is drawing 1Ah per hour then to take the battery to 50% discharge (flat) it will last 34 hours. The heating pulls a fair amount of juice to so 20 may well be about right.

As stated unless charged on mains for 12 hours before departure the the battery was probably not at 100% as the alternator only take it to around 80%. How were you measuring the battery as being flat? Was the battery protection on the fridge kicking in?

 

[Blue Juice]

The battery on a beach is 68Ah - so if the fridge is drawing 1Ah per hour then to take the battery to 50% discharge (flat) it will last 34 hours. The heating pulls a fair amount of juice to so 20 may well be about right.

As stated unless charged on mains for 12 hours before departure the the battery was probably not at 100% as the alternator only take it to around 80%. How were you measuring the battery as being flat? Was the battery protection on the fridge kicking in?

Thanks I was old school in measuring the battery being flat - nothing turned on heater was off, no lights, fridge stopped. Interestingly I unplugged the fridge and in the middle of the night the lights downstairs came on, but nothing upstairs. Heater wouldn't run either.

 

[Bigted]

Mine can do an overnight stop with the fridge and heating both on but needs to be charged the next day with a cfx 28 fridge (lowest consumption I could find).

The socket behind the pasanger seat (above 3 pin) doesn't help as it has a big wiring voltage drop under load and can make the fridge go into battery protection too early.

It can cope with one running much better so I often super chill the fridge then leave it off overnight to keep the heating as a priority - 68Ah is a small battery.

What voltage were you getting on the battery when it was flat?

 

[Bigted]

Also what fridge were you using?

 

[Blue Juice]

Mine can do an overnight stop with the fridge and heating both on but needs to be charged the next day with a cfx 28 fridge (lowest consumption I could find).

The socket behind the pasanger seat (above 3 pin) doesn't help as it has a big wiring voltage drop under load and can make the fridge go into battery protection too early.

It can cope with one running much better so I often super chill the fridge then leave it off overnight to keep the heating as a priority - 68Ah is a small battery.

What voltage were you getting on the battery when it was flat?

That's really useful thank you. Unfortunately my £2.99 Amazon voltage meter stopped working a couple of weeks ago

 

[sidepod]

That's really useful thank you. Unfortunately my £2.99 Amazon voltage meter stopped working a couple of weeks ago

No sh*t

 

[MattBW]

Sounds a bit short to me I recently did 4 days in my beach (80ah battery though) with cf40 and heater at night (but not continuously I admit), I still had 12.2 when I left. Best way is to go from a volt meter as the waeco is terrible for shutting off early. On medium mine was turning off at 12.3/12.4 :-o. It's getting a dedicated cable wired to the battery.


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[Max-Felix]

As above get a multimeter on it to see how it's faring during use.

How did you know it was 'flat' and how are you defining this?

I'd also advocate considering using a Ctek MXS 5.0 as a charger.

You should get three days maybe if fridge only.

 

[soulstyledevon]

Yes, get a ctek charger in there and a bigger battery. Running a heater and fridge all night will kill the battery.
I only really use the heater 30mins before bed and 30 mins before getting up. Then in the day when needed. Once in our sleeping bags I see little need to run it.
Fridge is the big drainer usually

 

[Max-Felix]

The fridges are pretty well insulated too - even in the height of summer we used to turn ours 'up' to 8 deg before bed (from around 4 deg), mainly to avoid the compressor noise kicking in but it would not usually do this then until about 7 hours later so that saves juice through the night. As above, doubt you really need the heater all night if you have suitable bedding?

Failing that sounds like you need solar to charge up the next day or even a second battery. You can also fit a larger single battery IIRC up to around 110AH under the passenger seat - check with Slidepods.

 

[WelshGas]

Try pre-cooling the fridge at home, also use some ice packs initially. Also, if you intend using the Heater on site, start it at Reception with the Engine running. Uses a lot of power on initial start up and you can use it while driving, so the alternator will be taking the load. Every little bit helps.

 

[Amarillo]

The fridges are pretty well insulated too - even in the height of summer we used to turn ours 'up' to 8 deg before bed (from around 4 deg), mainly to avoid the compressor noise kicking in but it would not usually do this then until about 7 hours later so that saves juice through the night. As above, doubt you really need the heater all night if you have suitable bedding?

Failing that sounds like you need solar to charge up the next day or even a second battery. You can also fit a larger single battery IIRC up to around 110AH under the passenger seat - check with Slidepods.

We keep our fridge at a reasonable high temperature all the time: 6 degrees. For some reason it seems to cool to 4 degrees, and then not cool again until it has reached 8 degrees. I don't know if this is a feature of the cooling, a setting, or if my casual observations have been faulty.

We use solar panels to charge the Beach battery. It requires some habit changes, such as recharging rechargeable devices in daylight when there is an excess of power, not overnight.

 

[MattBW]

On our recent trip we put it way down to -18 on the mains and froze a 1.5 litre bottle of water. Not long before leaving we set at 5c and loaded with food, plugging into the van. It didnt kick the compressor in for the first time until the following morning but was rapidly upto about 1c so no frozen food. Good way to extend the range and minimise power use.

When on hookup (or driving) we will set it colder then turn it up slightly if we aren't able to find hook up.

 

[soulstyledevon]

Try pre-cooling the fridge at home, also use some ice packs initially. Also, if you intend using the Heater on site, start it at Reception with the Engine running. Uses a lot of power on initial start up and you can use it while driving, so the alternator will be taking the load. Every little bit helps.

Agree, get some reusable ice packs in there to help cool the fridge. A lot of camp sites will have a fridge to re-freeze the packs. Take 4. Two in use and two in freeze. Helps keep the temperature in there nice and low.

 

[Hotel California]

When driving you put the fridge or coolbox a litlle cooler(or even lowest) and when parked up on les.bats. turn it up . Even we do this on our SE .
When cold and wet , start the aux.heater when almost at site so it uses the alternator thru the les.bats. and turn the cabin heat max. before shutting the Cali engine off.
Also charging phones , and any other USB divice while driving can help saving the les.bat.
Use windable or solar lights .
All litlle things help!

 

[Stuart]

It sounds very short compared to our Beach. I accidentally left our fridge running at 2c for a week and it was still going fine!

 

[KatyCherry]

Yes fridge/cool boxes always pull lots of power. As we tend to do lots of shows with no electric hook up available we have been using 3 way portable chest fridge for years, pre cooled at home on mains ,12v during journey then put out in awning on gas when camped up(or 240v if hook up avail)-just use cool box for odd day trips etc. Just need to work out how to connect fridge in awning and mains hook up on cali at same time to keep leisure batt topped up? Although usually turn off fridge at night as it stays soo cool it sometimes freezes stuff overnight if kept on!

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[MattBW]

You can get a hookup splitter adapter and then you can run a cable into your awning and one to your cali.

Here you go:
https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/shop/product/3-way-hook-splitter-outlet-16a-adapter

 

[MattBW]

Combined with one of these
https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/shop/product/power-kit-usb-drive-away-awnings-includes-mains-splitter

 

[bernie]

Have you replaced the bulbs with low wattage LEDs?
I have slept in the roof of my California at minus 13C with the heater on 1 only.
Try fully charging the leisure battery on hookup and putting only the fridge on set to 5C, which is adequate for most items, and see how long it takes to run down. Obviously, opening the fridge allows warm air to enter. A full fridge needs less power once cooled.
I would imagine that in winter the heater may be in demand and not so much the fridge and vice versa in summer

 

[Paul Grice]

Hhm.. there are fridgs and fridges... Slidepod Johnny talked me through this last year and at the time I had a look in the manual and verified that he was talking great sense. The jist of it is that the standard grey fridge with floor fix bracket supplied as an optional extra with the beach is a monster user of electricity. I bought one of the shipment "Isotherm" fridges that Johnny had shipped in last year and it is brilliant, uses one tenth of the draw of the one that came with the beach (checked the manuals and the numbers confirm this). Did a test this week by plugging the thing in on monday, leaving it in the van and it was still cold as an eskimo's nose on saturday morning despite a week of scorchio weather. It's all to do with milliamps...milliamp hours or something... check the ratings in your fridge manual as you may have a monster.... then go and buy one that isn't so thirsty for leccy...