# Leaving motorhome on hook up



## chopper (May 22, 2005)

Hi

advice needed

as we have no room to remove the seating out of the motorhome over the winter months i leave them stood up with an old fired heater on low just to keep the van above freezing etc, that parts ok.

went to move the van this morning to clean it and the engine battery was flat meaning the alarms were down etc (not good, not happy)


i thought that if the van was on hook up then a trickle charge went also into the engine battery

on the panel i had the leisure battery selected, so therefore in light of this do i need to occasionally switch from leisure to engine to keep them both topped up

any help would be greatly appreciated.

kindest regards

keith

ps it has not helped this morning by the fact that the hose came off the tap and i got soaked. (DEFFO NOT A HAPPY MOTOR HOMER THIS MORNING LOL)


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## bigbazza (Mar 6, 2008)

On my Autotrail I have to select which battery to charge from the control panel.
It defaults to the leisure battery and then when I press the battery button on the panel it switches to the engine battery. (LED Lights up)

What I have noticed is if the battery gets to flat the system wont recharge it (I think it looks for a certain minimum voltage), when this happens I use an external charger for an hour or so then switch to the system charger.


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## chopper (May 22, 2005)

HI

thats what i thought but wouldnt u think there would be a trickle charge that fed in the other one not selected or is that too hard for the manufacturers to work out

regards


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## bigbazza (Mar 6, 2008)

Yes you would chopper.
See the rest of my post which I edited whilst you replied.


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## satco (Jan 21, 2012)

in my "old camel" (Rimor,Ford Transit) , only the 2 leisure batteries are charged when hooked up . starter cell has to be charged individually


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## chopper (May 22, 2005)

HI

well i have just switched it over and left it and hoping that it will charge enough to start so i can give it a run

with the battery being in the cab floor cant do with the hassle of getting into it to charge it separately

bring back the days when batteries were where they should be in the engine compartment

keith


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## satco (Jan 21, 2012)

hi keith ,

well , 100% agree.
and : mine has its starter battery where it should be 

Jan


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## Penquin (Oct 15, 2007)

I fitted a batterymaster which is primarily connected to the leisure battery so that the charge goes to the leisure battery first, once that is charged it then trickle charges the vehicle battery, the vehicle battery can never drain the leisure battery or vice versa.

Cost is about £70, you can get them from ODB or Vanbitz, and it is straightforward to fit, or you can have it fitted of course. 

http://www.outdoorbits.com/battery-master-p-32.html

or

http://www.vanbitz.com/product/Battery_Master_BMaster

Simple way of stopping that happening, you leave the battery set to leisure and then any spare is fed through without touching anything!

Ours is set up with solar panel to provide the current for charging - it did that successfully throughout last winter in Devon and is doing the same here in France (OK we tend to have more sun here than the Cotswalds but the panel is pointed where it picks up sun for a lot of the day....... :lol: )

The vehicle alarm system does drain the battery quite a bit - many people have reported on here that after about 2 - 3 weeks the vehicle battery is flat if they leave the alarm on without some auxiliary charging being supplied. 

Hope that gives you some ideas, 

Dave


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## worzel (Apr 12, 2007)

*battrey*

Hi Keith,

What you need is a battery mate so when the leisure batteries are full it will then charge the engine battery automaically.

Only 3 wires to fit and very easy, you can get one from Vanbitzs in Taunton about £68. Tel 01823 321992.

Mike (Devon)


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## inkey-2008 (May 24, 2008)

I just connected a wire with lighter socket plugs to the engine and leisure batteries both plug have fuses in them and all batteries are kept charged by my solar panels.

It would work the same for your charger. You will find that there is no live outlet on the cab with the engine turned off, so you may have to fit another outlet on the engine battery.

Andy


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## 4maddogs (May 4, 2010)

Exactly the same thing hapened to me a coiuple of weeks ago. 
I have a smart charger built in to the supply unit and it defaults to "Smart"....some numpty at the dealers put in to leisure so my vehicle battery drained. 
Now back as it should be and working well.

the BatteryMasetr products are an after market solution I believe.


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## Scattycat (Mar 29, 2011)

May be UK specs are different :dontknow: 

Looking at the display I'm sure ours charges both leisure batteries and motor batteries on hook-up and also via the solar panel.

Perhaps installing a solar panel would overcome the problem?


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## chopper (May 22, 2005)

Thanks guys for all the info, the joyous part that after an hour of being on the engine battery it started, yippee

so i will keep changing it over for now

but again thank you

you are all wonderful

keith
x


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## peedee (May 10, 2005)

However you connect the two batteries to a charger, the important thing is do you have a "smart" charger, one which senses the batteries are fully charged and then changes it charge rate to just maintain the battery state. I don't think many chargers are "dumb" these days but if it is not "smart", leaving a motorhome on hookup all the time will cook the batteries.

peedee


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## rayrecrok (Nov 21, 2008)

Hi.

We have the engine battery and the leisure batteries hard wired together with a fuse between and a key type power switch to isolate the engine from the leisure batteries.

We have our van in Silver Storage and this has no EHU facilities so our 120 watt solar panel is left to charge everything with all the batteries connected.. I have never had a problem, since we have done this as the panel always keeps all the batteries up to speed, and another advantage is you have the power from all the combined batteries on hand to start the engine if needed.

Another advantage is when you are travelling the alternator tops up all the batteries as well, so we can have the 2500 watt inverter on to run anything 240 volt as we are going along, especially useful to keep the grand kids amused on long distances, they can have the telly on with a dvd, or we can put the slow cooker on so there is a meal when we stop and all the batteries are still fully charged.

The only thing is you have to use your brain and remember to turn off the engine from the leisure batteries with the kill switch if you are going to be parked up and use the leisure batteries, all to make sure you keep the engine battery fully charged..

So far I have!.

ray.


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## chopper (May 22, 2005)

I just love how you guys keep all the information simple (not) wire this to that and wire this via that, have third wire that does this to that along with doing the other!!!!!!!!!

i have enough trouble wiring a plug.

but it all sounds really good

regards

keith


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## chopper (May 22, 2005)

so far all going well and had no more problems


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## StAubyns (Jun 4, 2006)

Our Dethleffs automatically charges both batteries as soon as the mains cable is plugged in, so no problems here, thank goodness


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## Jezport (Jun 19, 2008)

chopper said:


> I just love how you guys keep all the information simple (not) wire this to that and wire this via that, have third wire that does this to that along with doing the other!!!!!!!!!
> 
> i have enough trouble wiring a plug.
> 
> ...


We learned from Fiat. "Throw a large bowl of spaghetti into a biscuit tin, put 4 wheels on it and you have a Ducato"


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

I can't claim the credit for this as the van came as is.

The original onboard charger only fed the leisure batts. So the previous owner fitted a small C-Tech auto charger under the starboard seat connected to the engine battery. 
This is always plugged into a power socket and charges as soon as the mains is connected to the van.

In the event of the engine battery not being able to start the van when off mains power, the plug to the C-Tech can be put into an outlet from the onboard inverter fed from the leisure batts and solar panel. 

Belt and braces I hope. Also hope this is simple enough.

Ray.


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## vicwo (Mar 6, 2008)

I agree with Ray. I have a CTEK charger that i plug straight into a live cigarette lighter socket. It is so simple to use with different options to connect to the battery. Classic car owners connect them to their cherished cars over winter A search will get one under £50.

Vicwo


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