Intermittent Motor Mover

[Gagakev]

Had to move the van today but the Powrtouch mover decided to play up.
Main battery fully charged, new battery in the remote
Switch on and it would move for about 3 seconds then stop,
switch it off, switch it on and again work for another 3 seconds and so on and so on.
Any ideas folks?

 

[JRT]

Had to move the van today but the Powrtouch mover decided to play up.
Main battery fully charged, new battery in the remote
Switch on and it would move for about 3 seconds then stop,
switch it off, switch it on and again work for another 3 seconds and so on and so on.
Any ideas folks?

Although your main battery is 'fully charged' this can be a sign of it starting to fail. The motor mover draw is very heavy.

As a first thing to check I would get your leisure battery properly tested.

 

[Deejuk]

I agree with JRT it happend with our Motor Mover too different brand but same issue. New battery fixed if no worries

 

[Mel]

Check that the battery terminals are on good and tight. We had a similar problem and one terminal was loose. Easily sorted.
Mel

 

[Hutch]

I had similar, many years ago, the terminals, to the MM fuse were slack, went around all the connections on the control box to check the tightness.
Good luck Kev.

 

[Woodentop]

Look at the remote when you press a direction button. Only the light against the button being pressed should light. If all of the lights around the buttons light up your remote battery is duff - yes I know they are new.

 

[Beardy]

Had exactly the same issue with mine on Thursday when hitching up to go away. Arrived on site and only had to move 10-15 feet, no problems. Battery then on charge (EHU) constantly for 4 days so I'm confident it was fully charged. 10-15 foot move to hitch up, 1 hour drive home then unhitch and move 30 feet. I immediately checked the battery and it was reading 11.9 volts. I'm thinking my battery is on its way out too.

 

[Gagakev]

Thanks for your replies folks.
Battery on charge last 24 hours, went and tried it tonight and up and down the drive it goes.....................then nothing!!!!
Re start and couple of feet and thats your lot.
So took reading and battery down to 11.2 V
Convinced its the battery so will get it checked first and then purchase a new one.
Oh its 3 years and 3 months old, last battery lasted nearly 9 years!!
It also has the indicator on it which says
green ..good
Red......Needs charging
Clear... needs changing

Mines clear.

 

[JRT]

Thanks for your replies folks.
Battery on charge last 24 hours, went and tried it tonight and up and down the drive it goes.....................then nothing!!!!
Re start and couple of feet and thats your lot.
So took reading and battery down to 11.2 V
Convinced its the battery so will get it checked first and then purchase a new one.
Oh its 3 years and 3 months old, last battery lasted nearly 9 years!!
It also has the indicator on it which says
green ..good
Red......Needs charging
Clear... needs changing

Mines clear.

The indicators are pretty meaningless TBH. They are located on one cell which doesn't really give a reliable indication as to the health of the whole battery.

Looks like you are close to getting sorted though.

Edit to add - basic explanation here. (Car battery but the principle is the same)

The Truth About Car Battery's Magic Eye | CARPUT

The magic eye of a car battery is there to check on the condition of your car battery. But how reliable is the magic eye indicator?

carput.my

 

[Beardy]

Thanks for your replies folks.
Battery on charge last 24 hours, went and tried it tonight and up and down the drive it goes.....................then nothing!!!!
Re start and couple of feet and thats your lot.
So took reading and battery down to 11.2 V
Convinced its the battery so will get it checked first and then purchase a new one.
Oh its 3 years and 3 months old, last battery lasted nearly 9 years!!
It also has the indicator on it which says
green ..good
Red......Needs charging
Clear... needs changing

Mines clear.

I'm going for a 'rough and ready' home test. Fully charge it then connect a bulb across it. I've rigged up a 21 watt brake light bulb ready to go.
21 Watts should be 1.75 amps. I'll leave it on and keep a check on the battery voltage. It should last 24 hours without too much difficulty: 24 x 1.75 = 42 amp hours so my 100 amp hour battery should still have 58% charge and read around 12.1 volts ........ I bet it doesn't.

 

[Beardy]

Rough and ready test complete. Starting with a full charge (according to my smart charger) the bulb was drawing 1.83 amps. After 11 hours my battery was down to 9.83 volts on load (10.1 off load), so more or less flat depending which chart you go by. The bulb was drawing 1.58 amps. By my calculations my 100 amp hour battery is now capable of holding slightly less than 20 amp hours.

 

[Gagakev]

My new battery arrived today, now fitted and first reading was 12.2 volts before I connected, now on charge and having a top up, will check it this time tomorrow and see what the reading is then.

 

[Gagakev]

Rough and ready test complete. Starting with a full charge (according to my smart charger) the bulb was drawing 1.83 amps. After 11 hours my battery was down to 9.83 volts on load (10.1 off load), so more or less flat depending which chart you go by. The bulb was drawing 1.58 amps. By my calculations my 100 amp hour battery is now capable of holding slightly less than 20 amp hours.

Time for a new one then!!

 

[Beardy]

Time for a new one then!!

Time for a different one for sure. I have a couple of old car batteries in the garage, one I believe(d) to be on its way out, the other I believe to be good. I've just done the same test on the dodgy one. It's an 80 AH AGM battery that I took off my car in Jan this year. Although my car started every time it was taking a few seconds in freezing temperatures and the stop start hadn't worked for 6 months (classic sign of a dying battery). New battery sorted both issues immediately.
Same test, fully charged then lightbulb on it drawing 1.84 amps. 13 hours later voltage had dropped to 12.3 off load (so still 70% charged) and bulb drawing 1.77 amps. By my calculations I've used 23.47 amp hours and dropped 30% so it's capacity is 78.2 amp hours.
The other battery is on test at the moment but I'll be using one of them (and saving a few kg payload).

 

[Dustydog]

Kev , Check the connections on both motors. They come loose and interrupt the current flow. However I hope the new battery does the fix.

 

[trevormonty]

Time for a different one for sure. I have a couple of old car batteries in the garage, one I believe(d) to be on its way out, the other I believe to be good. I've just done the same test on the dodgy one. It's an 80 AH AGM battery that I took off my car in Jan this year. Although my car started every time it was taking a few seconds in freezing temperatures and the stop start hadn't worked for 6 months (classic sign of a dying battery). New battery sorted both issues immediately.
Same test, fully charged then lightbulb on it drawing 1.84 amps. 13 hours later voltage had dropped to 12.3 off load (so still 70% charged) and bulb drawing 1.77 amps. By my calculations I've used 23.47 amp hours and dropped 30% so it's capacity is 78.2 amp hours.
The other battery is on test at the moment but I'll be using one of them (and saving a few kg payload).

While its recommended to use 100AH battery with MMs I had no problems with 75AH of unknown age.

 

[Beardy]

While its recommended to use 100AH battery with MMs I had no problems with 75AH of unknown age.

Never thought about that. My motor mover manual says:

'An 85-Ampere hour battery is recommended for optimum operation of the Powrtouch Classic. Smaller batteries may be
utilised, but mover performance may be reduced.'

It also says car batteries aren't suitable but doesn't say why not. As I've got a couple sitting doing nothing at the moment I guess I'm going to find out.

 

[RogerL]

Never thought about that. My motor mover manual says:

'An 85-Ampere hour battery is recommended for optimum operation of the Powrtouch Classic. Smaller batteries may be
utilised, but mover performance may be reduced.'

It also says car batteries aren't suitable but doesn't say why not. As I've got a couple sitting doing nothing at the moment I guess I'm going to find out.

Until recently I always used an old car battery in the caravan, never more than 75 Ah when new - never had any issue with the motor mover - if anything it may have made the battery deteriorate quicker but they were all over 10 years old when replaced with a younger car battery.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Never thought about that. My motor mover manual says:

'An 85-Ampere hour battery is recommended for optimum operation of the Powrtouch Classic. Smaller batteries may be
utilised, but mover performance may be reduced.'

It also says car batteries aren't suitable but doesn't say why not. As I've got a couple sitting doing nothing at the moment I guess I'm going to find out.

The typical usage of a car battery is to provide very large quantities of current for the cars starter motor. Once the car has started the battery is fairly quickly recharged at a high rate from the alternator. Strange as it may seem starting most cars does not discharge the battery very much becasue the starter only runs for a matter of seconds . The batteries are designed for high cold cranking amps. Caravan batteries are usually comparatively lightly loaded, but the load is sustained over long period, and the charge on the battery may be significantly depleted for an extended period of time before it is recharged. This is called deep cycling. The design of the electrodes in the batteries are optimised differently, and consequently a leisure battery would perform very poorly if it was used to start a car engine, and would probably fail at an very early age. Conversely car starter batteries can be damaged if left discharged for longish periods, so whilst they have more than enough power to run a caravan when fully charged, as the charge is used up and taken to a low level the plates can be damaged.

If you only every use sites with an EHU, then a car battery will be just as good if not better than a caravan battery, but it would not be wise to go offgrid caravanning with a car battery

 

[Gagakev]

Folks

What should the battery read fully charged?
My new battery was installed with 12.2 volts
Checked after 24 hours on charge in van and still 12.2v
Checked after 36 hours and still 12.2v
I'm sure my last battery on charge showed above 13.0v or was I dreaming?
Yes I know it would drop when taken off charge, think someone mentioned should be around 12.6v
Hope my on board charger is not giving up!!

 

[Beardy]

 

[Beardy]

Post above assumes its an AGM leisure battery.

 

[Buckman]

Post above assumes its an AGM leisure battery.

I thought the post referred to LA batteries as on more than one occasion our AGM battery has dropped down to about 6v and then recovered after a charge. It is now almost 7 years old and still going strong and holding its charge.

 

[Beardy]

I thought the post referred to LA batteries as on more than one occasion our AGM battery has dropped down to about 6v and then recovered after a charge. It is now almost 7 years old and still going strong and holding its charge.

AGM is LA. If a normal flooded lead acid battery drops that low there is a chance that the plates will buckle and short out. AGM (absorbant glass mat) have fibreglass 'mats' to keep the plates apart if they start to buckle.
The voltage / charge relationship is very similar depending where you look.

 

[Gagakev]

So any pointers on how to test the on board charger?