Motor Mover / Battery Query

[GrinningGrandad]

Hello, we have just encountered a problem using our newly installed motor mover (Powrtouch evolution) - The caravan and battery are only 3 months old. We used the MM recently for the first time to maneuver the caravan out of our sloping driveway and then again to position it onto our pitch, and was thinking what a great investment it was. After a 4 night stay (with EHU) we set off back for home (we didn't need it to hitch up again), parked up outside the house and engaged the MM again to get it off the road and up the slope into our driveway. When pressing a button nothing would happen, or occasionally it would start to move and stop again after moving a centimetre or so. There is quite a slope onto our drive (hence the need for the MM) and after about 30 mins and lots of button pressing, we managed to get it far enough to allow us to pull it into place.
I turned on the master switch and the battery was showing 12v. I turned it off, connected the EHU turned on the master switch again and it went straight to 12.7v.
I am going to call the MM installer tomorrow but I have a feeling he may say the battery was flat in the first place.
We are new to caravanning but I would have thought after 4 days on site with EHU and a 90 mile drive home, that the battery would have been fully charged. I have to admit I didn't check the voltage during our stay but we had no problems with any of our appliances.
I realise none of you will be able to say what the problem is but I'm not too sure what to say or do if the installer does end saying the the problem is with the battery and not the MM. We have had no problems with the battery before the MM was installed.

 

[Woodentop]

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt!

Could be flat batteries in the remote. If they are flat when you press a movement button all of the red LEDs around the various directions on the movement diagram will light up: if the batteries are OK only the LED adjacent to the button being pressed will light.

If the batteries are shot check that none of the buttons are sticking, that you have Ni-MH batteries installed in the remote, and that (hopefully) no-one has been sitting on it! There should also be a power cable supplied with the remote that will allow you to connect it to the 12V socket in the caravan and see if it works then.

If no obvious fault call Powrtouch (now part of Truma) who are very helpful.

 

[Guzzilazz]

Interesting voltage numbers. I've just towed back 350 miles, and put the van into storage. There was a bit of manoeuvring into the storage space, about 10 minutes in total. At the end, my battery was showing 13.3.... I think your caravan battery is fritzed... It needs a proper battery test to confirm, but when on EHU mine shows 13.7...

 

[Damian]

At 12v the battery is flat, at 12.7 it is almost flat and that would be the reason the mover will not work.

You can try a test to establish roughly how good, or bad the battery is if you have a multimeter.
Measure the battery voltage at the terminals without the mains power being connected.
Without engaging the mover,and withthe multimeter still attached to the batter, switch it on and run in either direction and see what the battery voltage does.

If the battery is good, it should drop to 12v and recover almost immediately.
If it is shot, it will drop and stay down, possibly as low as 2v .

The mover must have a full 12v minimum to work, any less and it will not.

As you say the battery is 3 months old, if you have the receipt I am guessing it is still under warranty.

Another possibility is that you say on EHU the battery showed 12.7v, was this on the on board indicator or with a multimeter?
The battery charger should be putting out a minimum of 13.7 and up to 14v when charging.

If you have not got a multimeter, get one !!! and use the 20v DC setting.

 

[Woodentop]

Interesting voltage numbers. I've just towed back 350 miles, and put the van into storage. There was a bit of manoeuvring into the storage space, about 10 minutes in total. At the end, my battery was showing 13.3.... I think your caravan battery is fritzed... It needs a proper battery test to confirm, but when on EHU mine shows 13.7...

I would suggest there are other things more seriously wrong if the battery is (related to a horse at the end of its life) at 3 months old. It will still be under warranty through the supplying dealer anyway.

 

[Craigyoung]

At what ampage is your battery ? Since getting our mover put on we had a 110 fitted and after a few months it was flat , when i took it back and got a replacement at 130 amp but is there nothing inside that could be draining your battery i.e. TV booster and radio like the usual suspects ?

 

[ProfJohnL]

The battery voltages you have found do indicate the battery is flat. Everyone seems to be jumping to the conclusion the battery is faulty, but I suspect its equally possible that even though you were on a site with a mains connection, perhaps you hadn't set all the control switches correctly and the battery was not being charged whilst on mains.

I do suggest you if feel confident enough to use a multi-meter to get one, becasue it will almost certainly be more accurate than the voltage display in the caravan.

Do consult your caravans hand book concerning the functions of all the switch settings, and check at the battery terminals that the voltage increases to 13.8 to 14V when the mains is turned on.

If it doesn't, then either you haven't set the switches correctly, or the caravans 12V supply/ charger is not working.

It is possible the battery has gone faulty in which case when teh mains is connected, the battery voltage may increase a bit, but it will also decrease quickly when the mains is turned off.

 

[GrinningGrandad]

Some great tips there, thank you.
As we only seem to be having this problem since the motor mover was fitted I was making the assumption the motor mover was faulty causing the battery to drain or the half and hour spent trying to move it onto our drive drained the battery.
Having said that, we have had the caravan plugged into the mains most of the time on the drive and have only ever stayed on pitches with EHU so I suppose there could always have been a problem with the battery/charger and the motor mover has just highlighted this.

I can't think we are doing anything wrong on site, its a fairly basic caravan with no extras added. I hook up to the mains, turn on the master switch on the console, switch on the pump, switch the fridge to mains and turn on the hot water. One thing I haven't been doing though is checking the voltage reading on the console.

I do own a multi meter so will do some of the tests as suggested.

 

[otherclive]

Some great tips there, thank you.
As we only seem to be having this problem since the motor mover was fitted I was making the assumption the motor mover was faulty causing the battery to drain or the half and hour spent trying to move it onto our drive drained the battery.
Having said that, we have had the caravan plugged into the mains most of the time on the drive and have only ever stayed on pitches with EHU so I suppose there could always have been a problem with the battery/charger and the motor mover has just highlighted this.

I can't think we are doing anything wrong on site, its a fairly basic caravan with no extras added. I hook up to the mains, turn on the master switch on the console, switch on the pump, switch the fridge to mains and turn on the hot water. One thing I haven't been doing though is checking the voltage reading on the console.

I do own a multi meter so will do some of the tests as suggested.

What caravan model and year is it. Mine requires the Sargent PSU EC 440 to have certain switches made when towing and when on 240 v otherwise the battery doesn’t charge.

 

[Raywood]

As the others say we cannot be sure of your problem. You may have a faulty battery but again it may be the charger or possibly you have a switch to change the battery from car to mains. Check your hand book to see if there is a switch.
When on a hook you will get a reading of 12.7 volts though whatever the state of the battery.

 

[Guzzilazz]

I would suggest there are other things more seriously wrong if the battery is (related to a horse at the end of its life) at 3 months old. It will still be under warranty through the supplying dealer anyway.

I didn't say the battery was "worn out" through use, but has had an inherent fault, such as a cell short. Also, if it's an older "non-smart" 12v charger/PSU and the van is left hooked up, that can goose the battery - sometimes dangerously due to the battery gassing. As others have said the make model and age of the caravan will help others with more detail caravan knowledge than me to assist.

My boat (when I bought it in 2005 was fitted with a Zig PSU unit which cooked an Odyssey expensive AGM battery (one of 3 in parallel for the domestic bank). It was bulged and hot...

 

[GrinningGrandad]

The caravan is an Elddis Xplore 304. It's a 2019 model. The battery is 105AH (the MM installer said it was more than suitable).
I have read through the 'getting started at your destination' part of the manual and we seemed to be doing everything by the book (so to speak).
I will do some voltage checks with my multi meter as suggested on here mad not the readings.

 

[ProfJohnL]

....My boat (when I bought it in 2005 was fitted with a Zig PSU unit which cooked an Odyssey expensive AGM battery (one of 3 in parallel for the domestic bank). It was bulged and hot...

If you had three batteries in parallel charger by one charger, and only one battery failed, it points to a battery rather than a charger fault.

 

[PaulT]

I had exactly the same problem with a new battery in a new 'van. The dealer had failed to remove the transit bungs from the sides of the battery which caused the internal battery presure to rise which then split the battery allowing some of the electrolite to drain out. Everything worked on the 'van except the motor mover. The voltmeter behaved exactly as the OP reports. The dealer replaced the battery and I made sure that the transit bungs were removed.

 

[Hutch]

I had a situation, where I had to Motor Move our van from a pitch, It move about 3 feet then stopped. Eventually managed to get it of the pitch with the car. When I got home I found the battery terminals were loose and also the MM fuse bolt were slack as well, all tightened up and everything operated as it should.

 

[Guzzilazz]

To add some "baseline" data... We had to move our caravan to the storage cleaning apron today. Before we started the electrics indicated 13.5 (we have a 100W solar panel ). When we'd coupled to the car, the voltage read 13.0. After an hour or so of washing, battery (AGM) was showing 14V, when back on our storage pitch 13.5...

 

[ProfJohnL]

To add some "baseline" data... We had to move our caravan to the storage cleaning apron today. Before we started the electrics indicated 13.5 (we have a 100W solar panel ). When we'd coupled to the car, the voltage read 13.0. After an hour or so of washing, battery (AGM) was showing 14V, when back on our storage pitch 13.5...

This goes to show that despite the perception that a motor mover should use a lot of power, the practical effect on battery charge is surprisingly small. Typically the cumulative moving time to position a caravan either on site or in storage lasts for less than 5Mins. The actual amount of power consumed from a battery will often be less than 2Ah of capacity. This is helped by the fact that when an electric motor starts it may have very large current demand, but in the fraction of a second it takes to start moving, the motor starts to produce a back emf which opposes the battery current and the running current can actually be less than 25% of the start up peak.

 

[GrinningGrandad]

Further to my original post…

When I arrived home and found the battery was flat I plugged in the EHU, and the dial went from 12v to over 13v immediately. I assumed it was charging. 2 days later (today) I checked the dial and it was back to 12V. Obviously it hasn’t been charging.

According to the manual I have a power supply/charger installed. Apart from the master switch on the console there are no other switches.

I am trying to understand this and I am making some assumptions, but….

The power supply is a form of transformer to transform the 240v to 12v?

When the EHU is attached this is providing power to the power supply and charger. The power supply will provide the 12v power required for the lights/pump/flush/radio so when the EHU is attached then all those appliances will work – regardless of the state of the battery?

So, in theory, if you always use EHU you don’t need a battery?

As I have the EHU plugged in at home and have only used EHU at our 3 trips out, its feasible the battery has never worked or the charger part of the battery may never have worked and the reading on the dial of over 13V and the use of the 12v appliances has come from the power supply connected to the EHU.

All this has only come to light since the MM was fitted as it is connected directly to the battery.

We used the MM to get it off the drive originally and then into position on the pitch so there must have been some power in the battery in the first place.

Do I understand this correctly?

To test if the charger is working : If I disconnect the leads from the battery, plug in the EHU then put my multi-meter on the battery leads I should get some voltage from the charger, this would this prove the charger is working or not?

To test the Power Supply is working : if I disconnect the leads from the battery, plug in the EHU, the lights etc should work?

To test the battery is working : Charge it up independently using a standard car battery charger?

As frustrating as all of this is, I am finding it quite fascinating

 

[Damian]

Going back to your original posting you say the van and battery are 3 months old, so presumably it is a brand new van from a dealer?
If so, it is under warranty and you should get the dealer to sort it out because as soon as you do anything , you invalidate the warranty.!.

 

[Hutch]

GG, there is no need to disconect the battery terminals, connect the EHU, and after switching on master, check that the Charger RcB is reset then just check across the battery terminals with the Multi meter. The voltage should show an increase from the power off battery voltage to about 13.8 volts if the charger is working.

 

[GrinningGrandad]

Going back to your original posting you say the van and battery are 3 months old, so presumably it is a brand new van from a dealer?
If so, it is under warranty and you should get the dealer to sort it out because as soon as you do anything , you invalidate the warranty.!.

A lot of my post was more of getting an understanding of how it all worked together theoretically.
The motor mover installer is a little concerned it may be linked to the install so he is coming to take a look at that before I do anything else.

 

[Icaru5]

Incorrect post. Mods please delete ... Thanks.

 

[Raywood]

Going back to your original posting you say the van and battery are 3 months old, so presumably it is a brand new van from a dealer?
If so, it is under warranty and you should get the dealer to sort it out because as soon as you do anything , you invalidate the warranty.!.

If I read this correctly, the mover was installed by another business. This could leave the problem of everyone blaming each other.

 

[PaulT]

Just wondering if there is an update on this? Over a week since the thread was started, I would have thought there would be some news.

 

[bertieboy1]

We recently had a similar problem,sometimes the mover worked other times it wouldn't.couldn't understand it.Then checked the battery connections,found both positive and negative connections slack,after tightening connections mover works every time.