# Battery charger not working?



## lifeson (Sep 13, 2010)

Just been out to look at the MH - as you do...  

An, although it is plugged into the mains ansd switched on the leisure battery is showing only 25% charge capacity - voltage is 14.4v 
The control panel is set to "leisure battery selected", if I switch to Vehicle Battery selected the display shows the vehicle battery is charging

Are there seperate chargers for vehicl and leisure battery?

Van is a 2010 Cherokee - still unused


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## CliveMott (Mar 10, 2008)

At 14.4 volts your leisure battery is fully charged and being maintained at this voltage by the charger. After a while the voltage will fall to just below 14 and this is normal.

I don,t believe you have any problems.

C.


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## Ken38 (Mar 24, 2009)

If its showing 14.4V it should be fully charged and now would be on "float charge". That is just a trickle to maintain full charge.

Check the voltage off charge. If its over 12.8V it should be fully charged.


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## lifeson (Sep 13, 2010)

But why is the capacity only showing as 25%? it was showing 100% last time I looked, does this suggest that the battery is faulty?
The battery amps gauge is showing a -ve (orange) figure even though it is on mains (mains symbol is showing on the control panel)
I would have expected the battery amps gauge to show a +ve figure (green) when lights etc are on whilst plugged in and a -ve figure orange when the battery is not receiving a charge


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## CliveMott (Mar 10, 2008)

The battery voltage will after a while drop to 13.6 volts as a float charge voltage. All this is done by the Sargent system installed in your van. The 25% reading can be confusing, my guess is that after a few battery charge and discharge cycles it will become more accurate.
But the bottom line is that the voltage indicated says that the battery is being charged.
C.


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## Ken38 (Mar 24, 2009)

The only real way to check a lead acid battery is with a hydrometer. Where to suck some fluid into a tube and check the specific gravity.

Doing that depends on the construction of the battery. It must have the screw off caps on each cell. Battery acid is not nice so if you do get it checked make sure its someone who is competent.

Daft question does the 25% refer to your vehicle battery not the leisure battery? I don't have such an indicator but it can only work from the voltage when off charge. Or I am missing something.

Having just cleared up a mystery on my van I am sensitive to my own fail-ability in understanding these complex vehicles!!


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## Ken38 (Mar 24, 2009)

Question for Clive. How does the 25% charge indicator work? Does it actually integrate the amperage in and out?

If you have a link so I can learn I would be grateful.


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## peribro (Sep 6, 2009)

lifeson said:


> the leisure battery is showing only 25% charge capacity


Where / how/ what is showing 25% charge? My panel shows the voltage but not, so far as I recall, anything in percentage terms.


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## Sargent (Feb 1, 2008)

Hi Lifeson, sorry for the delay, but could you check that the 25% is indicated for the leisure battery and that the voltage you are reading is also for the leisure battery? and not the vehicle? sorry if this sounds like a daft question, but it is worth checking?

As Clive has stated the capacity does need a couple of cycles to become accurate, as it is measuring the amount of current going in and out of the battery/ies.

If you would like us to give you a call then please email our support people [email protected] or ring then 01482 678981.

Best regards

Ian Sargent


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## lifeson (Sep 13, 2010)

This is the display this morning (now showing 27% and -3 brrrr)
If I am reading this right it shows the voltage is correct but only 27% of its amp/hr capacity left (30 ish amps) 
The batt amps is showing a -ve draw of 0.3a where I would expect to see a +ve charge value


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## Sargent (Feb 1, 2008)

Hi Lifeson thanks for the great photo, this helps tremendously. 
The good news everything appears in order. 

The reason the capacity is shown as low is that the batteries have not cycled yet, when or if you want to force the this to happen, you could turn off the charger and leave some lights on and discharge the battery. If this is over a period of a day or so then the capacity reading will fall to zero but the battery will still have capacity although not shown, The screen will continue to show zero and will remain at zero as we have not allowed in the software the ability to show below zero. 

When the charger is switched back on the capacity will rise, if this is done a couple of times (or in normal use) then the capacity will eventually reach 100% and will then be accurate.

Sorry if this has caused some confusion but it is difficult to find a start point as when the batteries are fitted at the factory or at the dealership when we have no idea where to start?

The current reading is showing a positive figure of 0.3A which is correct.

The reason that the charge voltage is 14.4v is that there are some loads being used in the motorhome that is not going through the battery/ies as it is coming directly from the charger and taking the current above the detection limit at which the charger switches back to float charge.

I hope this information helps but if you do have any further queries then please let me know.

Best regards

Ian S


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## lifeson (Sep 13, 2010)

Sargent said:


> The current reading is showing a positive figure of 0.3A which is correct.


Ian thanks for the response
Not sure I understand it yet though :lol: 
It has been at 100% since we got it home from the dealers and plugged it in - was showing 75% the day we bought it.

Now I know you should know your stuff better than the dealers, but I was told that if the batt amps is showing orange then this showed a discharge and green showed a charge.
It is hard to see in the pic but the line is orange and not green and the gets bigger the more 12v items I turn on


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## Sargent (Feb 1, 2008)

Hi again Lifeson, could I ask if you had a second battery fitted by the dealer or others? just a thought that the system might not know the true capacity, but if you haven't then please just let the system cycle a couple of times.

On the current charge or discharge then when you are looking in the region of 0.1A then I would always recommend that you use the figure at the top of the bar graph.


Best regards

Ian S


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## lifeson (Sep 13, 2010)

Ian
No we haven't had any additional batterys fitted.


> On the current charge or discharge then when you are looking in the region of 0.1A then I would always recommend that you use the figure at the top of the bar graph.


Do you mean then that if it is discharging the the figure above the graph should show as -0.3a and 0.3a means it is charging?

Thanks for your help on this.


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## Sargent (Feb 1, 2008)

Morning Lifeson, you are correct, discharges are shown as -ve (-0.3) numbers and charges as +ve (0.3)

Best regards
Ian


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## Hatikvah (Nov 22, 2007)

We have an Autotrail Cherokee 2010, hardly used and have exactly the same problem, it is most frustrating, we did fit an adiitional battery using the harness supplied by sargents, fitted exactly the same battery as what was on, after fitting the second battery Mr sargent very kindly talked us through setting the panel to recognise the two batteries, as he said the problem was that the panel still thought only one battery was fitted, everything then seemed fine batteries showing 100% capacity, however after one use the problem has re occurred, we have had the leisure battery charging all over xmas, parked at home, not being used, hardly any drain off the leisure batteries and are only showing 55% capacity. We are at a loss as to what to do next, the other van we had had a different charging system and it all took care of itself, never had to think about batteries, hope someone with obviuously more knowledge that I have can help.


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## Sargent (Feb 1, 2008)

Hi Hatikvah can I suggest that you drop our support people an email [email protected] with your contact details on and they will call you back to get to the bottom of the issue.

Regards

Ian Sargent


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## celticspirit (Apr 5, 2011)

Hi , We have an Autotrail Delaware and are experiencing the same problem. We phoned Sargent technical dept last week and the gentleman kindly talked us through rebooting the system. This week we have the same problem. We are in Spain and have been plugged in for the majority of the time since before christmas. We have two leisure batteries and know that they are fully charged. Our unit readings look exactly like the photo that Lifeson took.Perhaps when we start wild camping again after next week the system will sort its self out.


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## menis (Jul 9, 2010)

Hi,
We have a Mohawk with the same electrics. Two batteries properly and system configured to 220ah. On random occasions, we have noticed that our 'capacity' falls from 100% to anything below 100% Seems to happen when on EHU which is on a timer to run 5pm to 8am.
Whilst it has caused me to have some concerns, the fact that the capacity gets back to 100% after a few days means I have not contacted Sargent. 
I guess I should really, as they were very helpful with an earleir problem we had.
Menis


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