# I have a baffling problem



## Seeker (Dec 26, 2005)

Good afternoon all

Went to pick up the van from storage this morning but found it with a completely flat battery - not even lighting up the inidcators on the dash. (The only explanation I can think of for this condition, as it has only been laid up for about six weeks, is that the fridge was switched to 'battery' and must have drained it. Previously I have always assumed the battery option only works when the engine is running.)

Anyway, got recovery out through Safeguard/AA (thanks all) and got a jump start okay. We let it idle for a bit and then the chap got his meter on it and pronounced it healthy.

Drove home (about 3 miles). Turned her off and then tried to start her up again but nothing doing - though there was a faint glimmer from the dash indicators this time.

Disconnected battery and hooked up my charger. Checked how it was doing a few minutes later and the indicators on the charger show it fully charged!!!

Question - is it possible for a battery to be fully charged and yet produce virtually nothing in the dash indicators?
Question - if there is a bad terminal connection or a break in the cable (e.g. through mouse chewing) how did my rescuer get the jump start to work so easily?

Your views would be welcome. We depart for Scotland on Sunday.

Thanks

Harry


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## Zebedee (Oct 3, 2007)

How old is the battery?

I'm no expert, but I believe if a battery is well past its dump-by date it can do exactly what you describe.


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## richardjames (Feb 1, 2006)

could be oxidised terminals!
Richard


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## cronkle (May 1, 2005)

richardjames said:


> could oxidised terminals!
> Richard


Agreed-the first thing (and usually the cheapest) to check.


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## Zozzer (Aug 13, 2006)

Check the acid level in the battery. Top up with distilled water is needed.


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## Wizzo (Dec 3, 2007)

Hi Harry,

Fridge should only work on 12v with engine running.

Faint glimmer from dash when you arrived home would show that some charge had gone in from the journey, however it would not be very much.

Your battery should be left on charge for at least a day and preferably longer. The charger indicating 'charged' was more likely the fact that at that time the battery was not accepting a charge rather than being fully charged. It may take a few hours of being connected before the charger will show signs of putting in a healthy amount of charge.

The battery may recover enough to last you a while longer yet but that is difficult to quantify.

JohnW


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## spykal (May 9, 2005)

Seeker said:


> Disconnected battery and hooked up my charger. Checked how it was doing a few minutes later and the indicators on the charger show it fully charged!!!


Hi Harry

I think you may be a bit confused :lol:

With a hook up connected and the power unit switched on your control panel indicator will always show the battery to be fully charged even if it is as flat as a pancake :wink: .... the control panel is just measuring the voltage at the battery and with the power unit/charger functioning this will be 13+ volts or so... so you will see fully charged at the panel.

To check the battery using the control panel indicator switch off the power unit/charger ...or to be really sure disconnect the hook up :wink:

Mike

 EDIT ...that will teach me to read more slowly seems it is me who is confused :lol: sorry about that ... but the advice still applies about voltage readings ...even to the vehicle battery...if you have a charger hooked up and charging it then the battery will appear to be charged ... only readings taken with the charger removed will be valid ...and these are best taken a few hours after the charge has completed .

and re bad connections , do check the condition of the earth strap from the battery to the chassis... sometimes a bad connection here is difficult to see as corrosion builds under the strap at the connection point.


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## Motorhomersimpson (May 9, 2005)

Wizzo said:


> Hi Harry,
> 
> Fridge should only work on 12v with engine running.
> 
> ...


I'm with John on this, 3 miles would not be enough to put anywhere near enough juice in the battery, also, taking a reading and declaring the battery healthy when the engine is running would be tricky as there is a lot of charge going in.

Give the battery at least day on slow charge, you may be lucky but often when a battery drains completely it can cause damage to the plates etc.

MHS...Rob


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## Seeker (Dec 26, 2005)

Hello all

Many thanks for all your quick and helpful comments.

Thanks for the assurance about the fridge 12v option only working when the engine is running. That is as I thought and so cannot be the reason for flattening. One other thing it might have been - I fitted a new reversing camera a couple of months ago. I put the switch box next to the Electro Block which is slightly awkward to get to. As there is a standby indicator on the monitor I simply disconnected the feed to the monitor to avoid flattening the battery but did not switch the system off at the switchbox. Could the system and camera still have been drawing power?

Apologies for probably causing confusion by referring to 'hooking up' In fact this was not the usual power hook-up, just connecting the battery charger to a power source.

I've had the battery right out of the vehicle now (it can be done!) and checked the cells - all have fluid just touching the top of the plates. Probably needs a slight top-up but nothing significant. (What the f*** do they do on a service these days?) It is five years old but has done only 30,000 miles.

Standing alone the battery does show some signs of life (using a circuit tester) but not as much as my car battery so it is definitely low. After trying charging for an hour (with charger indicators still showing 'fully charged' I put it back in the van and still got nothing from it - except that the petrol guage came up! I guess this means the connections are okay.

I've taken it out and reconnected to the charger but not before checking the fuses in the vehicle and the fuse in the charger. All are okay but on switching the charger back on I am no longer getting the 'fully charged' indication - in fact it is telling me it is not even 10% charged. My guess is that the earlier 'fully charged' indicator was in fact telling me that there was something wrong with the charging connections. Pulling the fuse out and replacing it may have remade the connection.

I'll leave it on charge overnight and continue the saga tomorrow. If it still shows little sign of life I s'pose it will be time for a new battery.

Thanks again all.

Harry


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## Wizzo (Dec 3, 2007)

Hi Harry,

It would seem that your battery is taking some charge now. When a battery has been left to go flat there is a reluctance for it to accept anything at first and I still think this may be the reason your charger thought it was fully charged although I could be wrong.

It should have enough to restart the engine in the morning but I would not assume from that that it is then fully charged. Personally I would give it at least another 24 hours if you have the time.

JohnW


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## richardjames (Feb 1, 2006)

Sorry to harp on about the terminals but have you cleaned them - the fact that the fuel gauge is working does not mean that you have a good connection - to power the starter motor you need a very good connection because of the power drain. Have you checked the earth and starter connections - they sometimes work loose with expansion and contraction. I'm not trying to tell you how to suck eggs but just going through the checks that I would take
Richard


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## Moledrain (Sep 20, 2006)

If your car is parked near your van would it be possible to temporarily substitute the van battery with the car battery? If all systems work on the van then at least you'll know it's the van battery you have to concentrate on?

Just my two pennorth for what it's worth.


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## Seeker (Dec 26, 2005)

Thanks to all who've contributed on this one - here's the final instalment...

After leaving the battery 'on charge' overnight I found it no better than the day before. To cut a medium length story short, I took it to Halfords where it was tested and pronounced DOA. Not so much as even powering up the display on the multi-tester. Their own brand Ducato substitute battery was £25 cheaper (£99.95) than the Varta equivalent down the road and so bought one and just fitted it ... all systems are now go. So, the battery was knackered ... and another discovery ... my charger is knackered too! I tried it out on the new battery but also got a nil reading for level of charge! Anyone know how to test a charger?

But that's for later .. for now it is 'Look out you Scots ... the Saxonachs are on their way!'

Thanks again to all.

Harry


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## 104817 (May 29, 2007)

Hi Harry

I had a similar problem with a charger and battery going duff on my motorbike last year. I used an Optimate to trickle charge the battery when I'm not using the bike, as the bike has an alarm/immobiliser fitted that is permanently on. One of the Optimate's other selling points is that it can recover even deeply discharged batteries because it has a de-sulphating phase etc but even it couldn't recover mine. Intelligent chargers are very good generally at recovering completely flat batteries but this one couldn't and then wouldn't work afterwards itself either (showing fully charged after 20 mins, even though the battery was flat). I now have a standard charger (around £12 or so) for when I want to charge a flat-ish battery fast (bulk charge) and an Accumate (same manufacturer as the Optimate but lower trickle/maintenance charge current) to use as a permanently connected charger at home. Neither Accumates nor Optimates can charge at high current but you can leave them permanently connected, unlike standard chargers. I'd certainly take a look at the wiring for your camera as it may have been this that flattened the original battery in the first place, putting it beyond all help from your charger. If the battery was completely shot, this could (however unlikely due to overload protection devices in the charger) have taken the charger out too. Optimates and Accumates are only suitable for batteries up to around 75 Amp/h rating, however the same company manufactures intelligent chargers that have the same working principle suitable for high capacity batteries called an Accumate Pro 5 12v rated up to 225Amp/h

Hope this helps!

Regards

Phil


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## Bagshanty (Jul 24, 2005)

It is probably time for a new battery - I've had this on 2 occasions. Each time I spent days trying to avoid buying a new battery, but bought one in the end. My local garage has a battery tester comprising a heavy duty short circuit with ammeter (reading hundreds of amps) that he puts across the terminals. The battery should drive a certain current for 30 seconds or so, and it is easy to see if a battery fails on load. 

Age and mileage don't seem to make much difference - some batteries fail early


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## larrywatters (Aug 21, 2007)

tend to agree Bagshanty we had the same probe got new one 
end of probe  on the road again


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