Hi.Am a relative newbie to caravaning,and recently bought a quite old Award Transtar off some friends.Aafter having the van hooked up to the mains for approx 3 weeks,there was still no charge in the battery.Dead as a dead thing! Assumed that the problem was purely a dead battery that wouldnt charge,so i bought another,fully charged." weeks on,and the converter/charger(HM10)is still showing a red neon light!I have disconected the battery,and put a meter to the pos and neg wires,and it shows that there is about 12/13 volts going to the battery,but when all connected up again,the damn red light is still glowing!! Any advice PLEASE???????
Electrical trouble
- Thread starter Rick_5122536
- Start date
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Rick, If you are saying that without the battery connected you are getting between 12-13v from the charger at the battery terminals then this is possibly your problem. The charger output is normally set for 13.8v and even this is regarded as a trickle charge and will not charge a battery fully. A normal car type charger gives nearer 14.2v to fully charge the battery.
Rick, does your meter have a current function? If so disconnect the +ve terminal and connect the meter in line beween the terminal connector and the battery terminal. What current are you charging at?Rick, If you are saying that without the battery connected you are getting between 12-13v from the charger at the battery terminals then this is possibly your problem. The charger output is normally set for 13.8v and even this is regarded as a trickle charge and will not charge a battery fully. A normal car type charger gives nearer 14.2v to fully charge the battery.
Rick,
Are you sure that the red LED on the HM10 is a battery "state" indicator and not just a power "ON" display?
A fully charged leisure battery should show a reading very close to 12.7 volts - when disconnected from any load. I'm pretty hopeful that your new battery will show exact reading - if not the new battery is faulty.
As Ray says, most caravan chargers have a trickle charger that is set to 13.8 volts - this can be left safely connected all the time - and will maintain a fully charged battery or recharge a discharged battery to about 90%.
Some caravans have a boost charger that provides the 14.2 volts Ray mentioned, this gets the battery to a fully charged state and then flips back to the trickle charge. It's unlikely that your Award Tristar has the modern electrical system that does this.
So if the battery passes the voltage test, the charger is providing a trickle charge of 13.8 volts - then it's looking like the display panel is defective.
Are you sure that the red LED on the HM10 is a battery "state" indicator and not just a power "ON" display?
A fully charged leisure battery should show a reading very close to 12.7 volts - when disconnected from any load. I'm pretty hopeful that your new battery will show exact reading - if not the new battery is faulty.
As Ray says, most caravan chargers have a trickle charger that is set to 13.8 volts - this can be left safely connected all the time - and will maintain a fully charged battery or recharge a discharged battery to about 90%.
Some caravans have a boost charger that provides the 14.2 volts Ray mentioned, this gets the battery to a fully charged state and then flips back to the trickle charge. It's unlikely that your Award Tristar has the modern electrical system that does this.
So if the battery passes the voltage test, the charger is providing a trickle charge of 13.8 volts - then it's looking like the display panel is defective.
Beware charging lesiure batteries with normal car battery charges.
See (download) Technical Advice leaflet from Caravan Club website.
See (download) Technical Advice leaflet from Caravan Club website.
Hi Rob.No,the red LED should turn green when the battery has reached a fully charged state. The battery has an indicator that is showing green,and if i dissconect the hook up and run anything from the battery system,all is fine.The problem just seems to be that the charger doesnt appear to be recognising that the battery is fully charged.
Rick, It looks like the LED is faulty i.e. will not change from Red to Green or depending how complex it is the driver for it.
What you need to do is replace the battery with a variable power supply and vary the voltage between 11 and 14 v and see what happens. Of course you could ignore it or cover it with blue tack - not very helpful I know.
What you need to do is replace the battery with a variable power supply and vary the voltage between 11 and 14 v and see what happens. Of course you could ignore it or cover it with blue tack - not very helpful I know.
Rick,
Everything works OK on the battery but the red LED should go green - it really does sound as if the circuit that senses the battery state is defective.
This will be an issue if the battery charger is an intelligent unit and switches the "state sensor" from fast charge to trickle charge. Otherwise ignore it.
You can test if the "state sensor" is causing a problem by measuring the supplied current - with a fully charged battery the charger should supply 13.8 volts and about 0.1 amps - these two readings are simple to do with your multi-meter.
If the charger is trying to send Amps (between 2 and 5 amps to the battery) then the charger is really defective and will cook the battery in a day or so at that charge rate.
Ideally - if you have a 100 AH (amp-hour) battery that was completely discharged, then the charger should supply 5 amps (1/20 of the AH rating of the battery) for 20 hours (with the losses inherent in the charge process this will get you a battery about 95% charged. Then the charger should switch to the trickle charge rate (about 1/1000 of the battery capacity).
What to do?
1. Ignore the red LED
2. Buy a digital panel meter from Maplin and use this to display the battery voltage - this is a much better indicator of charge state than a red / green LED (12.7 V = 100% down to 12.0 V = 25%)
3. Send the HM10 back to the manufacturer to repair it or buy a replacement - but this won't be cheap.
Robert
Everything works OK on the battery but the red LED should go green - it really does sound as if the circuit that senses the battery state is defective.
This will be an issue if the battery charger is an intelligent unit and switches the "state sensor" from fast charge to trickle charge. Otherwise ignore it.
You can test if the "state sensor" is causing a problem by measuring the supplied current - with a fully charged battery the charger should supply 13.8 volts and about 0.1 amps - these two readings are simple to do with your multi-meter.
If the charger is trying to send Amps (between 2 and 5 amps to the battery) then the charger is really defective and will cook the battery in a day or so at that charge rate.
Ideally - if you have a 100 AH (amp-hour) battery that was completely discharged, then the charger should supply 5 amps (1/20 of the AH rating of the battery) for 20 hours (with the losses inherent in the charge process this will get you a battery about 95% charged. Then the charger should switch to the trickle charge rate (about 1/1000 of the battery capacity).
What to do?
1. Ignore the red LED
2. Buy a digital panel meter from Maplin and use this to display the battery voltage - this is a much better indicator of charge state than a red / green LED (12.7 V = 100% down to 12.0 V = 25%)
3. Send the HM10 back to the manufacturer to repair it or buy a replacement - but this won't be cheap.
Robert
Dont know if this tells you anything,but the battery is giving 13.5v, the charger is sending 13.9v. Unsure how to check amps as im still getting used to my meter.Rick,
Everything works OK on the battery but the red LED should go green - it really does sound as if the circuit that senses the battery state is defective.
This will be an issue if the battery charger is an intelligent unit and switches the "state sensor" from fast charge to trickle charge. Otherwise ignore it.
You can test if the "state sensor" is causing a problem by measuring the supplied current - with a fully charged battery the charger should supply 13.8 volts and about 0.1 amps - these two readings are simple to do with your multi-meter.
If the charger is trying to send Amps (between 2 and 5 amps to the battery) then the charger is really defective and will cook the battery in a day or so at that charge rate.
Ideally - if you have a 100 AH (amp-hour) battery that was completely discharged, then the charger should supply 5 amps (1/20 of the AH rating of the battery) for 20 hours (with the losses inherent in the charge process this will get you a battery about 95% charged. Then the charger should switch to the trickle charge rate (about 1/1000 of the battery capacity).
What to do?
1. Ignore the red LED
2. Buy a digital panel meter from Maplin and use this to display the battery voltage - this is a much better indicator of charge state than a red / green LED (12.7 V = 100% down to 12.0 V = 25%)
3. Send the HM10 back to the manufacturer to repair it or buy a replacement - but this won't be cheap.
Robert
Rick,
13.5 volts from the battery - that sounds like it has just been on charge - it should settle down to 12.7 (ish) volts in a little while.
To measure amps you will (probably) need to:
1. Switch the meter off
2. Unplug the red lead from the meter and plug it in the 0-10A socket on the other side of the black lead.
3. Switch meter on and you can now measure current flow up to 10 amps
To measure the current flowing from the charger to the battery - disconnect the charger lead to the battery "red" terminal.
Connect the meter red lead to the (now) free charger lead and the meter black lead to the battery. Basically you have inserted the meter into a break you made in just one wire.
Detailed Warning:
When you measure volts - by applying the meter test leads to the red and black terminals of the battery - the meter has an internal resistive load of several hundred million ohms. This means that the meter (in volt mode) only draws a fraction of a millionth of an amp.
When you measure amps - and change the leads over - the meter now places a load of less than 1 Ohm between the red and black leads - and by measuring the voltage drop across the internal resistor it can display the current.
If you have the meter configured for Amps and apply the leads across the battery - then all of the stored power in the battery will try to flow through a very small resistance - and rather more than 10 Amps will flow through the meter and the internal fuse will blow in the meter.
So never use a meter to measure the current stored in a battery - things will get hot quickly.
Robert
13.5 volts from the battery - that sounds like it has just been on charge - it should settle down to 12.7 (ish) volts in a little while.
To measure amps you will (probably) need to:
1. Switch the meter off
2. Unplug the red lead from the meter and plug it in the 0-10A socket on the other side of the black lead.
3. Switch meter on and you can now measure current flow up to 10 amps
To measure the current flowing from the charger to the battery - disconnect the charger lead to the battery "red" terminal.
Connect the meter red lead to the (now) free charger lead and the meter black lead to the battery. Basically you have inserted the meter into a break you made in just one wire.
Detailed Warning:
When you measure volts - by applying the meter test leads to the red and black terminals of the battery - the meter has an internal resistive load of several hundred million ohms. This means that the meter (in volt mode) only draws a fraction of a millionth of an amp.
When you measure amps - and change the leads over - the meter now places a load of less than 1 Ohm between the red and black leads - and by measuring the voltage drop across the internal resistor it can display the current.
If you have the meter configured for Amps and apply the leads across the battery - then all of the stored power in the battery will try to flow through a very small resistance - and rather more than 10 Amps will flow through the meter and the internal fuse will blow in the meter.
So never use a meter to measure the current stored in a battery - things will get hot quickly.
Robert
Thanks Rob. It looks like the charger is sending 3 amps. Think i will just disconnect the battery to be on the safe side.
rick we have exactly the same van. i know this sounds stupid but have you switched the power from car to caravan? p.s. i willcheck but i am sure the l.e.d. on ours stays red just to show that it is live.
Hi tom. yes, ive tried the damn switches all ways! Just another one of those bloody annoying things where " it was working fine when we parked it up last winter".
I have recently purchased an abi transtar.I am totally new to caravanning.The problem i have is HM10 is showing a green light but as soon as i take off the 240 supply my lights go out and the only thing operational is the pump.Can you advise please.Any other tips would be appreciated.Thank you.
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