Battery query.

[LG57-UPS.]

Iv just bought a Abbey Expression 470, 2000. In nice condition.The chap i bought it off had fitted a car 063 41ah battery to it,soley to power the motor movers.He said he only uses EHU.

The battery sounds a bit weedy for the caravan.I too will want to use EHU,when on sites.But im thinking of buying a 110 ah Leisure battery and a suitable charger for charging it fully,at home every so often.

Am i better off sticking with the 063 41ah car batt? Or would the motor movers benefit more from the leisure battery 110ah?

Can anyone recommed a charger capable of charging and maintaining a 110ah leisure battery,at a sensible price.
Many thanks
Pierre.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Iv just bought a Abbey Expression 470, 2000. In nice condition.The chap i bought it off had fitted a car 063 41ah battery to it,soley to power the motor movers.He said he only uses EHU.

The battery sounds a bit weedy for the caravan.I too will want to use EHU,when on sites.But im thinking of buying a 110 ah Leisure battery and a suitable charger for charging it fully,at home every so often.

Am i better off sticking with the 063 41ah car batt? Or would the motor movers benefit more from the leisure battery 110ah?

Can anyone recommed a charger capable of charging and maintaining a 110ah leisure battery,at a sensible price.
Many thanks
Pierre.

Hello Pierre, of all you want use the battery for is the caravan mover, then the 41Ah battery should be fine. Most people will use less than 1Ah worth of battery capacity to position a caravan, so assuming you use it to hitch at the begging of your holiday, and again at your destination, and the same for your return journey, you might use 4Ahs of charge in total.

As for home charging, there are plenty of multi stage chargers available, these will fully charge the battery and should automatically switch to a maintenance charge to keep the battery in good condition.

Ctek are market leaders in this field, but there are several other very effective but simpler (fewer stages) that will work from places like Aldi and Lidl for a much keener price.

 

[LG57-UPS.]

Thanks for the info,it would seem i will be ok with the 063 battery then.

 

[Grey13]

Now I don't claim to know anything so the best response I can give is a direct quote from the "power-touch" site.

Q - What sort of battery do I need?
A1 - We recommend minimum 85AH leisure battery for the Original Powrtouch Classic Mover.
A2 - We recommend a minimum 100AH leisure battery for the new Powrtouch Evolution Caravan Movers.

 

[Raywood]

The battery sounds a bit on the small side for the job. If you are positioning the caravan on the flat though it will probably manage. I would try it and see how it goes. If it works then I would use it until the battery dies. When on mains on site the battery is only to smooth out the current to the appliances so any battery will work for this.
When replacing it though I would go for a leisure battery, but for what you need 110 amps is probably higher than you need unless you are trying to position the caravan on a steep slope.
If you are storing the caravan in winter I would check the battery status from time to time battery and charge it if it is looking low. For this a basic charger should be sufficient.

 

[ProfJohnL]

I'm sorry but I must redress some of the comments made here, in the context of OP question.

Th OP has stated he wants the battery just to run the mover, not he 12v electrics in teh caravan. This places an entirely differnt type of load on the battery. What he is looking for is a battery with enough capacity (Amp Hours)and current capability (Peak current) to run the mover.

Each pair of Electric motors as used on most movers will have a joint peak current in rush or 40A just as you turn on the motor. But as soon as the motor starts to rotate, they naturally produce a back emf, which starts to oppose the feed in current, and so the current draw of the motor will fall. The actual amount of current it uses will depend on how hard the motor is working so it will be variable and will be affected by what you are trying to move the caravan over, but typically in a mover with a 40A peak draw it will fall to 25A or even as low as 5A

So you need a battery with cranking capacity of better than 40A.

Good batteries are designed to suit the usage to which they are put. and where a caravan is using the battery to run much of its internal equipment, then you need one that can withstand long slow discharge cycles. This is typically the realm of leisure batteries. They can withstand the long slow discharges, but what they can have trouble with is the sudden high current requirements of a caravan mover. Generally the bigger the leisure battery, the greater its peak current capability is. Conversely a smaller leisure battery may not have teh peak current capability needed to run a mover.

But the 43Ah 063 type of battery is designed for starting cars, and is capable of a much higher peak or cranking current. Even the smallest car cranking battery you can find will have the current capacity to run a caravan mover.

As for the amount of power a caravan mover will consume (Equates to Ah) when you take into account the nature of the current draw and how long a mover is typically likely to be used for which in most cases is less than 5Min. the charge in the battery will be diminished by something like 1Ah, Lets be really tough as say its 2Ah, then covering a moving in and out of storage and position and leaving the caravan site, that's about 8Ah, well within the charge capacity an a 43Ah battery.

There is no reason why the OP's present 43Ah battery when fully charged will not function more than adequately to move his caravan for several holidays

If the caravan is being used on EHU then the fact most caravan have a built in charger means he should have no problems moving the caravan. And by obtaining a even a relatively cheap multistage charger to keep the battery in tip top condition at home.

 

[LG57-UPS.]

Thanks for the great info Prof john L.
Just a final query relating to the 063.
I gather built in caravan chargers only charge Leisure batteries to 80% as they only charge at 13.8v.
Does this mean a site EHU will charge the 063 car battery to a full 100%,or will that only go to 80%?

 

[Grey13]

LG 57. caravan batteries work at 12 Vdc. A 13.8 charge voltage constitutes a "slow" charge which in reality is better for battery life rather than hammering it with higher charge batteries. irrespective of the charge voltage, the battery works at 12V.

This is a very interesting article about battery / charging / maintenance
https://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/caravans/articles/practical-advice/caring-for-and-charging-your-leisure-battery

 

[VicMallows]

I gather built in caravan chargers only charge Leisure batteries to 80% as they only charge at 13.8v.
Does this mean a site EHU will charge the 063 car battery to a full 100%,or will that only go to 80%?

A traditional fixed-voltage 13.8v charger will, depending on the level of discharge, usually achieve 80% within about 24hrs. It will, eventually, achieve 100%, but that may well take a week or so.

Some modern caravans have so-called 'smart chargers' which can achieve the main charge much quicker; however there will still be a significant 'end-tail' before the battery is fully charged.

 

[saint-spoon]

Car batteries have thinner lead plates than leisure batteries and much a higher number of them. Car batteries don’t cope well from being below full charge for very long as their plates suffer sulphation. Leisure batteries suffer less from his due to fewer plates and other design features. In the event of losing EHU you may find that an older car battery may have a seriously reduced capacity after a slow discharge. For that reason alone I would tend towards a leisure battery of sufficient capacity.
One thing to consider is that appliances such as fridges require a 12v electrical supply in order for them to function.

 

[ProfJohnL]

...
One thing to consider is that appliances such as fridges require a 12v electrical supply in order for them to function.

Whilst what you say about car batteries disliking long slow discharges well, whilst correct, I think needs to be put into context.

The first thing is that every battery will have a self discharge rate, what the rate is varies on the age and the way the battery has been used, and in general it will become greater with age. So batteries will eventually discharge completely if left long enough. In practice a battery that is in reasonable condition should be able to stand at least for a couple of months or usually much longer before being considered discharged. So regardless of what use you put it to, it will deteriorate over time'

The second thing specifically related the 12Vdc control side of fridges, is the power consumption is unlikely to be any greater than teh power used by car alarm system. One of my vehicles often stands for a number of weeks between uses, alarm on, and it will still retain enough power to heat and crank an old fashioned 2L diesel, I would therefore be very surprised if a car battery would suffer unduly from running a fridge control circuit for a week.

I would suggest the OP tries the no cost option first ;-

Use caravan with the existing 43Ah car battery and see if its copes for his type of holiday. Take a set of jump leads just in case, but if he's using a EHU there should be no problems at all.

Only if there is a problem with teh battery should he then consider changing.