Alarm draining battery?

[RonD]

My 2010 Swift Freestyle has a remote controlled alarm fitted which runs from its own self contained battery. This battery is apparently 'topped up'. by the van's leisure battery. The info with it states the alarm will run for several months with no maintenance. After 4 weeks my 110Ah battery is severely discharged...why? Nothing else is on in the van.I've been back to my dealer twice now who say the battery has never been fully charged. (Despite being on mains hookup CL's for a week etc)

Is this normal? My insurers know I have an alarm and expect me to use it.

Ron

 

[Mikey1]

How can the dealer test if the battery has never been fully charged?

A few Swift owners have had issues with batteries quickly draining down and ended up switching the Sargent charger unit off when in storage.

 

[RonD]

Hello Mikey,

I went up to the van today to check the battery and found it well down (below12v). I removed it to take home to charge and decided to visit the dealer who measured the voltage, printing out a report showing it as needing charging, reading 12.03v.This is the second time it's been discharged...presumably by the alarm as nothing else is on!

 

[Mikey1]

Alarms shouldnt pull that much ampage so you either have a duff batt (charge check volatge 12.7 fully charged then check in x amount of days) or isolate the charger.

Do you have anything else possibly on ie fridge door open so light on,aerial etc

 

[forestgump]

Is the radio draining it as well as the alarm also it can be the tv airel som have a feed .

 

[ChrisUK]

You need to switch everything off and disconnect one of the battery terminals and measure how much current is being taken. My Eldiss has a similar alarm and it takes a tiny 30mA which is almost nothing over one month. However although I regulary remove the 110Ahr battery to charge it on a lidl's look alike CTEC charger in general the battery does not perform well on non EHU sites. We have just finished a 7 week non EHU holiday and will have to have my 26 month old battery checked for capacity, it has never performed well from new, perhaps we both have duff batteries.

As above you need to check your leakage current and if more than about 30mA something is switched on!

 

[RonD]

Thanks Chris and others,

30ma is quite a bit over several weeks and may account for the problem. There is nothing at all switched on in the van and a DVM reads no current at all without the alarm on. I will check when the battery is charged and back on the van and see what current is being taken by the alarm.

Thanks again

Ron

 

[SirRogerFFS]

Ron D

Please note I have bought this year a brand new Sterling Elite and had the same problem, a phone call to Sargant went well and as above the answer is make sure you turn the Sargant off it would appear that when you think you have turned things off they are actually sleeping and using battery power.

Mine was going down every 5 days but now all is well

I hope this is reassuring for you and anybody else that has this problem

Sir Roger

 

[RonD]

Ron D

Please note I have bought this year a brand new Sterling Elite and had the same problem, a phone call to Sargant went well and as above the answer is make sure you turn the Sargant off it would appear that when you think you have turned things off they are actually sleeping and using battery power.

Mine was going down every 5 days but now all is well

I hope this is reassuring for you and anybody else that has this problem

Sir Roger

Thanks for the info Sir Roger. I will isolate the charger on the Sargent box and see what happens. Chris, 30mA equates to almost 6 Amp hours a week which is quite a lot!

Thanks again everyone, reassuring to know it's not just me!

RonD

 

[ChrisUK]

My 30mA drain was from memory, just back from hols and the recorded values were

12mA everything off and the 12v isolator off

18mA ditto isolator on

The isolator is a small switch in the van but what it isolates to stop that extra 6mA I do not know?

I know that if I leave my garage battery connected to the battery, but not powered up at the main, it does give a small drain. Perhaps this is what the caravan power supply does? Perhaps a monitoring function.

 

[xtrailman]

No caravan alarm should discharge a battery over 5 days, something is wrong.

As chris has already said, check the discharge current, if that is acceptable, then the battery is self discharging, so faulty.

 

[TonyH1]

My guess would be the fridge is still switched to 12v from towing. You'll find it draws power unless turned off.

Regards

 

[ChrisUK]

My guess would be the fridge is still switched to 12v from towing. You'll find it draws power unless turned off.

Regards

As its a new van, the caravan battery should never supply the supply for cooling the fridge. It is only ever the car battery/alternator. My Thretford fridge does however take about 50mA from the caravan battery for the controller and this is the case whether it is being cooled by the EHU or gas or Car battery/alternator.

Yet another reason I don't like the thretford fridge but thats another gripe.

 

[SirRogerFFS]

Hi Guys ...Please note . ISOLATE THE SARGANT BOX its this and several other things pulling your power down.

There are a couple of us on the Forum been in touch with Sargant and this is their answer.

My Van is 2010 Sterling and I had the same problem but no longer .

I hope this will reassure you

Sir Roger

 

[SirRogerFFS]

Please also note the alarm will run happily with battery disconnected for some months .