# Leisure Battery problem on Hymer B564



## fontman (Jul 7, 2005)

I have recently acquired a Hymer B564, registered 2003, although it was built in 2002. It was a dealer purchase from Hymer UK in Preston.

The van is great, although on a recent trip to a CL, the leisure battery did not perform very well at all, the electric step groaned when asked to retract, if the LCD TV was on and you turned a tap on or a light the TV went to standby and the boiler safety valve opened and dumped the water!

The charge on the meter was showing 12.75 V (approx as its a needle gauge) and the load was about 5 amps with the TV on.

The leisure battery is the GEL type, and without removing the seat its under I am guessing an 85 amp hour.

I appreciate adding an additional battery would help, but these problems occurred on the first day on site, and I would have thought the battery would cope as I didn't have all the lights blazing etc. so it was under minimal load.

The only thing I have done electrically is rewire a 12v socket for the TV, could inadvertently reversing the polarity on the connections drain the battery?

I would appreciate any help on this, I suppose the battery needs checking as a first port of call, although it was on charge nearly 24hrs before we left home and a 3hr journey to the site.

Any web links or technical advice would be helpful.

Many Thanks


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## sallytrafic (Jan 17, 2006)

Quite possibly the battery has reached the end of its useful life. A lot depends upon the sophistication of the on board charger and how many times the battery has been taken below 10% of its capacity. Even regularly taking it below 50% shortens the life so three years is all some batteries last.


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## wakk44 (Jun 15, 2006)

Sounds like your leisure battery is faulty.

It should be covered by the dealer warranty and that should be your first step.While your there it would be a good idea to add a second one in parallel to increase your capacity,especially as your running the TV at 12 volts.Also consider fitting a solar panel if you intend to use sites with no hook up.

Steve


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## spykal (May 9, 2005)

Hi

I agree with the previous posters ...most likely that your battery has conked out....but it just worth checking that the connections to the battery are clean and tight as the symptoms you describe could be caused by a poor connection.... but dont get your hopes up :wink:

Another tip ...Needle type voltmeters are not really accurate enough to check the condition of the 12 volt battery so buy/borrow a digital multimeter ... a cheap one from Maplin will be OK... like This<< It will come in handy for other jobs too.

If you are replacing the battery you will need to either replace with the same type or before changing to a lead acid type ( the cheaper option and preferred by many of us) ) make sure that you can alter the charge rate on the power supply unit to suit a lead acid. Read the manual :wink: or check with your dealer.

mike

P.S. forgot to add these ...you asked for tech type web links...try these for starters
Darden on 12volt batteries<<
!2 volt side of Life << ( USA based so allow for that :lol: )


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## sallytrafic (Jan 17, 2006)

I would just add this one

>battery university<


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