Battery Charging

Apr 27, 2015
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I am new to caravanning and we have bought a Lunar Clubman 470/2. I have a brand new 110amp/hr leisure battery and have also bought an intelligent digital battery charger which supposedly knows what it is doing, has several modes and can swith itself off to avoid overcharging. What has surprised me is the time it takes charging being used to normal car battery charging with a bog standard charger, usually doing the job overnight. My new battery and charging have been going for 48 hours and the lights on the charger still indicate charging in progress and have not clicked over to 'Full'.
Is this normal or do I have a dodgy charger?
 
Feb 6, 2009
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Most leisure batteries are supplied charged and ready to go.

When you bought the battery were you told to charge it up before use by the seller?

Its difficult to tell how long a battery should take to charge without knowing the output of the battery charger you are using... however the following may be helpful information.

A battery charger charging at around 3 Amps for 48 hours will "put in" around 144 Amps but to allow for losses the actual figure will be nearer 100 Amps so in theory that level of charging should bring an almost flat battery up to a full state of charge (115 Amp hour battery)

If you can get at the electrolyte with a hydrometer then the reading (specific gravity) should be around 1.265 for a fully charged cell and the voltage at rest after 12 hours without charge should be around 12.7v ( these are the figures for a fully charged battery at the normal sort of temperature we should be experiencing in England at this time of year.

Please be careful when dealing with batteries and always wear eye protection.... electrolyte is nasty stuff, and will easily burn holes in clothing and eyes!

If you are not getting the SG figure mentioned or the voltage is less than 12.7v (even a 25% discharged battery should give a voltage of around 12.4v [offload and rested for 12 hours]
then its either a dud battery or a dud charger or both.

I have oversimplified the example in order to keep the reply to a reasonable length, but hopefully it will serve you sufficiently to have the battery checked by the seller and for you to do your own calculations depending on the output from your charger..... charger output is not always constant and can depend on the charger's characteristics and the state of the battery concerned
Regards
paws
 
Mar 14, 2005
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Paws has described the chemical method of checking the charged state of a battery, but unless you have access to the hydrometer, your non-the-wiser.

You don't tell us the capability of your charger but the majority of the 'intelligent' off the shelf chargers are typically 3 to 4 Amps output. There are some excellent branded products on the market, but sadly there are some pretty awful copies, which don't cut the mustard.

If you read the instructions for brand leaders they do tell you that fully charging a battery using their product under some circumstances can take several days, as the system changes its charging regime according to how the battery responds.

I personally have come to the conclusion that most lead acid batteries are more lossy that Paws suggests, only retaining about 60 to 70% of the energy you think your putting in, so from flat to fully charged using a 3A charger I would allow at storing energy so I would allow a 110Ah battery to charge for roughly 50 to 60 hours.

Obviously such a slow charge will not be practical when on site in a caravan, so the caravans inbuilt power supply and charging will do a better job though they don't fully charge the battery.

I am by nature quite sceptical about advertising claims, and over recent years the public has told in so many ways that Digital means better. Well sadly most 'digital' equipment still has to interface with the good old analogue world, and as a consequence the mechanical errors in the old style meters etc are often still there behind the digital readouts of the new.

Basically just because something claims to be digital doesn't always make it better.
 
Jun 11, 2012
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The Smart Chargers are very good but as already pointed out there are cheap copies out there.A point to remember is with Smart Chargers they do what is known as a deep charge which cleans the plates up somewhat so the time it takes to charge the battery will take longer.My very first Caravan was sold to me with a brand new Battery that lasted some 6 years and I think what helped it last that long I use take it off the van and take it home and charge now and again with an 11amp charger which Im sure helped it

Sir Roger
 

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