Leisure battery charging

[JTQ]

The AA one identified at 1.5 Amp, really is more a "maintainer" than a particularly effective "Charger" for our circa 100 Ah capacity batteries, but given time it will charge as long as it can identify there is a battery connected.
Just often when we need a charger as opposed to a maintainer, time can quite likely not be on our side.

The CTEK 5.0 Amp unit would firmly be my recommendation for our typical car and caravan size battery uses, not cheap, but look out for offers, and it is likely to be a buy once and use completely unattended.
The others "can" like the Aldi & Lidl offering in the past not be used totally unattended in these have not auto reset after a power outage.

Edit: I would not go with a charger of much higher amperage, as then we start moving into possible issues with car CPU systems, best settle to being gentle, it's infinitely cheaper in the long run!

 

[JTQ]

1. As I have a 150w Sargent solar panel do I need to do anything before removing the LB?
2. Which terminal is best to disconnect first?

1) I would not uncouple , shade or do anything with the solar system, just ignore it and its controller ought just as when on an EHU, sort itself out.
2) with cars, where we can avoid making a spark on the battery post, with the explosion risks that brings, make the final connection and initial disconnection of chargers remote from the battery on the chassis, so with the negative (ground).
With a caravan or just the battery that option is not necessarily available, so do it with charger unplugged from mains, where the current will be way lower just the parasitic "load" of the charger. Though as always with it as well ventilated at the battery as possible.

 

[Andy Norfolk]

Ok so to complete this from my perspective. We went to pick the caravan up today. The battery was on 38%, it has been in the storage facility for 9 weeks. Decided this was enough to bring it home and used the motor mover to bring it in off the road. Now hooked up to recharge. Happy ending 😀. Thanks for all your input.

 

[ProfJohnL]

OC, I have no intention of making criticisms of you or anyone else's suggestions, it's just that for a typical caravan leisure battery that is a very low amperage out put charger, not sure exactly what it is designed for as it is a little bit on the big side for a motorcycle battery, perhaps it would be suitable for some of the lower capacity mobility scooter batteries.

May I suggest that at least a 3 amp output, preferably 5 or even 10 amp for a typical caravan leisure battery.

Over the years I have bought and now own a lot of battery chargers, from 0.8 amps for motorcycle battery, to 25 amp continuous charge\ 200amp max boost.

I have purchased 2 number Lidl and 2 number Aldi battery chargers, I possibly had value for money from them but discovered that they all expired just as the warranty period ended, I returned one under warranty and it was sent back repaired only for it to fail a couple of weeks later, of course the warranty had expired by that time.

I strongly suspect planned obsolence, my best guess being around 50 uses at best; they are OK for very light DIY use and that is what most people will use them for so should last for many years, I would say that I used them for moderate diy use, certainly not heavy diy or day to day use.

I now stick to C-TEK, Optimate, Noco and Victron, much pricier (the Victron being very overpriced for what it is, but it best suited a particular 280amp lifePo4 that I purchased) said battery chargers do last for my usage (usage that is not particularly heavy) and are proving more cost effective over time.

I have 4 Aldi/Lidl battery chargers which continue to maintain old LA car batteries used for intermittent use lighting in out buildings. The eldest must be 15 years. 3 of the four does have to be manually reset after a power outage, but 1 (a lidl) does automatically turn back on to just its trickle charge setting which has been fine for my application.

I also had a Ctek unit which did fail.. So you cant make generalised assumptions about reliability with any certainty.

 

[IanB1485]

Banus, I am going to assume that the solar charge controller is connected to the battery and not the solar panel directly.

Assuming that is the case, I would disconnect the negative lead from the solar panel to the charge controller.
And then disconnect the battery earth terminal first then then the positive terminal, on reconnecting the battery it is positive terminal first followed by the negative battery terminal.
Then reconnect the earth wire to the charge controller.

A lot of solar panel charge controllers don't like the solar panel being connected first , then the battery. I have attended a few were the owner has removed the battery for some reason and when connected back into the caravan the controller either didn't start up or went into fault. Simply disconnecting one wire from the panel into the controller and then reconnecting solved the problem . On negative earth systems ( where the negative terminal is connected to the metal parts or is unswitched /common to all equipment ) then disconnecting it first and reconnecting it last is the safest option, particularly on cars where you may, if disconnecting the positive terminal first accidentally connect the positive terminal of the battery to the chassis of the car with a metal spanner. In caravans its not that important as there is very little metal close to the battery