zig charger seems faulty, help i,m a newbie

[warbulator]

just got 1st van , all was dead as its stood a while. 240 hookup powers plugs but wont power any 12v like lights and pump/heater blower etc, zig cf8 manual says even without a battery it should (though batt req to smooth spikes) also doesnt seem to charge the battery, is it goosed?, is it worth replacing, can you still get em?.

secondly i recharged the leisure battery but it drops to 10v overnight with nothing conected. a breif look on the net says charging these leisure batts is different to car ones. should i hi charge it for a few hours and drop it to trickle later overnite or is it hello more expence and a new battery.

should have got a tent shouldn,t i!!!!

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Richard,

Firstly, the battery voltage that drops to 10V over night almost certainly means the battery is damaged and needs replacing.

Secondly, the CF8 is still listed on the Zig Electronics web site, so if yours is faulty, then it might be repairable or at least replaceable.

Given that the CF8 is quite an old model, you might consider replacing it with a more modern power supply, that will manage the battery better than the relatively simple charger in the CF8.

 

[rob_jax]

Richard,

Regarding your battery, the most common cause for a reading of 10V with no load is that one of the six cells is dead - usually because a piece of lead has broken away and shorted that cell out.

And as John says it's dead and needs replacing.

But I wouldn't replace the ZIG unit straight away - if it doesn't appear to work with the dead battery - that probably because the battery has an internal short - and the ZIG trips out. Try it again after you change the battery, then decide if it's working OK.

Leisure batteries have a slightly different internal chemistry and construction, so the charging requirements are different - but usually only that the charge voltage just needs to be a bit higher (14.4V rather than 13.4V for the car battery).

Robert