Thread: Problem with Battery/Fridge/DBS

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Baz, at those voltages, your batteries are not fully charged.

They are at 70% and 80% respectively. Do you have anything running off them at the time?

If not, you need to fully charge them.

Also next time you’re out and about in the disco, after driving for a while, leave the motor idling and measure the voltage at your cranking battery.

Had nothing running off them, car has been sitting around not being used, I plan to charge the auxillary tonight for the test Friday morning and I'll charge the main with a run on Saturday.

I'll also do that test on the SC40 tonight, I'm also going to see what amps the fridge is drawing, I have a feeling it might be drawing too many amps, I'll do that Saturday.

disco 3 door, I've only ever run a 55AH battery in my Disco, never had a problem until lately.

Baz

13.2v is as high as the battery will go after being charged for over 24hrs, is this OK??

SC40 input is 14.20 output is 14.20.

Put the fridge in the car, voltage was 13.02v, turned the fridge on at 11.45AM, at 12.00pm the voltage is currently at 12.40v.


Baz.

Originally Posted by Redback

Put the fridge in the car, voltage was 13.02v, turned the fridge on at 11.45AM, at 12.00pm the voltage is currently at 12.40v.

Hi Baz, if you mean the battery voltage dropped from 13.02 to 12,40v in 15 minutes, then it looks like your battery is not holding a charge.

If you get a chance, try running your fridge for a few hours.

Don’t worry about flattening your battery, if it goes flat after just a few hours, it’s stuffed anyway.

See how you go.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Baz, if you mean the battery voltage dropped from 13.02 to 12,40v in 15 minutes, then it looks like your battery is not holding a charge.

If you get a chance, try running your fridge for a few hours.

Don’t worry about flattening your battery, if it goes flat after just a few hours, it’s stuffed anyway.

See how you go.

Hi Tim, this multimeter I have is a pain, it has some blank bits on the LCD readout, I checked the voltage around 4.00pm and it was sitting at 12.68v

Anyway I'm having a coffee right now(waking up) fridge has been running all night, battery protection is at medium on the fridge(11.4) so in about 10min I'll check it, I'm thinking if the battery is OK and SC40 seems to be working as it should(disconnected at the moment), the fridge is the only thing left.

If the temp has risen on the fridge from -1.0c it had settled to at 4.00pm yesterday, then it has to be the fridge that's the problem and this is why it's draining the battery, the compressor is running all the time trying to bring the temp down to what it's set at.

Baz.

OK, as of this morning fridge is sitting on 1.0c, volts are sitting at 12.55v

Not at all what I expected considering when we were at Barrinton and with the ambient temp there was 0 to 2.0c overnight, the fridge would increase in temp, one morning the fridge had risen to 7.0c from it's normal setting of 1.0c

OK Baz now you are really pushing the limits.

Your fridge sounds like it is fine, your battery is obviously good but now it looks like your problems might be caused by a faulty multi meter.

If your multi meter is playing up, you really need a new one and if decide to get a new one, don’t spend a fortune on some top shelf brand, just go buy a $10 Dick Smith special.

These days even the cheapest multi meter is as accurate as the average RVer needs with less than 0.01 or 0.02v error, just don’t use them for measuring high voltages like 240vac, the insulation on their leads are not up to the safety needed for AC.

One more question, what is the charge CURRENT capacity of your battery charger?

I've been checking with 2 different multimetres and get the same values.

The charger is a Battery Fighter 1.25

Hi Baz and the reason I asked about the battery charger was that I vaguely remembered you posted some years back that you had the Battery Fighter.

With a maximum out put current of just 1.25 amps, a fully charged battery would still hold the voltage down and so 13.2v would indicate you have a fully charged battery.

BTW, your 1.25 amp battery charger would actually have your battery in a better charged state than bigger chargers would so this would explain why you fridge is running for so long.

Anyway everything ( except the multi meter ) sounds likes all working well. You will just have to wait till your next trip to confirm as much.