12 volt problem

[franbrad]

bought a second hand caravan elddis hurricane 89.

took it out and everything was fine till the battery died.Mains electric ok

Bought a new battery as the other one may have been old. Bought 75 leisure. Took van out this last week and battery feeding lights and pump went down again. Mains electric still ok, but does not seem to be charging the battery. Went to kimberly caravans for advice, the earliest they could book van in is nov23rd. we are due to goaway agion in 2 weeks can anyone help please. can we get spares, what do we look for

 

[Lol1]

Frances, I can't help with your problem, it could be a number of things, but if it looks like your not going to get it fixed in time, just go and buy a cheap battery charger from Motorworld or Halfords. We did so as an emergency fix while on holiday in the New Forest. You need to be careful with trailing leads and do not to leave it unattended while charging, but for

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hi Frances,

I seem to recall that Haines did a DIY caravan book that might help, alternativley you might find some helpfull items at:

http://www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/

 

[LMH]

Hi

At risk of stating the obvious - have you checked the fuse in the charger? We had exactly the same problem as you, bought a new battery, went flat quickly etc. Turns out we were putting a 5 amp fuse in which kept blowing. We should have been putting a ten amp fuse in.

Regards

Lisa.

 

[rob_jax]

It sounds as if the caravan charger is not functioning, either because it is defective or maybe an in-line fuse has blown.

I like Lol's idea of buying a charger from Halfords and just using that to charge the battery, but don't buy the cheapest charger. Instead buy a multi-stage charger because these automatically switch over to a safe trickle charger once the battery has been fully charged and can be left on continuously.

Since it will take over 10 hours to completely charge a discharged battery, just siting and watching the cheap charger do it's stuff is not a great use of your time.

Robert