Battery charging

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Originally Posted by Hogarthde

Red tail , if your charger is IP 65-5A, can I assume it is of 5 amp capability, and bearing in mind Disco DB , ‘s rational critique that is not enough , .....but then Tim didn’t say anything so are you happy with the set up?

For what it is worth, I locked the D4 in the shed and left the little cheapo at the airport for nine days. Cheapo started instantly , D4 , flat as a night carter’s hat.

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Did you lock it, locked in the shed?
Or just lock it in the shed?

One will consume a lot more power…

Side note: a lot of people hard wire in USB ports and they are quite a parasitic draw over time.

Locked Tombie, I followed advice from Tim I read somewhere, and trickle charged 12 hours and rest 12 hours for several days , left the bonnet up and locked the drivers side catch down , double locked the D4, but, didn’t flick the Traxide switch up , another trick to-remember.

D4 wouldn’t even unlock.... the auxiliary battery had 12+ volts , cranking battery 2.5 and the charger didn’t recognise it .

RAA started for me, 10 minute run to Waitpinga Beach ,back home, switched off, spoke kindly to various deities , and all is well .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hogarthde

Locked Tombie, I followed advice from Tim I read somewhere, and trickle charged 12 hours and rest 12 hours for several days , left the bonnet up and locked the drivers side catch down , double locked the D4, but, didn’t flick the Traxide switch up , another trick to-remember.

D4 wouldn’t even unlock.... the auxiliary battery had 12+ volts , cranking battery 2.5 and the charger didn’t recognise it .

RAA started for me, 10 minute run to Waitpinga Beach ,back home, switched off, spoke kindly to various deities , and all is well .

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You haven’t locked it if the bonnet is up. Locking is all doors closed, double press of the lock button on the remote. That shuts down all the computers. That said, if you had a charger connected to it and you still ending up with a flat battery, you have serious issues. That’s ridiculous levels of draw when it’s unused

Even though the bonnet was up , I locked the bonnet latch down, and double clicked on the door handle, so it was locked.

perhaps didn’t write it properly , I didn’t leave charger on whilst away, but yes , a lot of draw somewhere

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hogarthde

Red tail , if your charger is IP 65-5A, can I assume it is of 5 amp capability, and bearing in mind Disco DB , ‘s rational critique that is not enough , .....but then Tim didn’t say anything so are you happy with the set up?

For what it is worth, I locked the D4 in the shed and left the little cheapo at the airport for nine days. Cheapo started instantly , D4 , flat as a night carter’s hat.

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Hi Hogarthde and under normal use, once the motor has been off for a few minutes, your D4 should NOT have a discharge of more than about 300ma, including the Traxide isolators power requirements.

So a 5 amp charger is well and truely enough to charge and then maintain your cranking and auxiliary batteries.

While you can use a bigger charger and as long as any charger used is a 3 ( or more ) stage charger you will still achieve the same goal.

The advantage of a smaller charger is that long term, it is much gentler on the batteries and this gives a better charge.

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Originally Posted by Hogarthde

We may have to leave the Landmark parked for a few weeks,in a public open space .... so I intend to get a 10 w solar charger and leave on the dash or seat.

I realise the best connection is straight to battery positive and earth stud, but is it possible to use the OBD or the Traxide 12v socket ?

Dave

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You raise an interesting point about charging via OBD port, I'm not sure it is rated for much current, and I think it is switched as I've noticed my mechanic needs the key and turns the ignition on when reading codes on mine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hogarthde

Red tail , if your charger is IP 65-5A, can I assume it is of 5 amp capability, and bearing in mind Disco DB , ‘s rational critique that is not enough , .....but then Tim didn’t say anything so are you happy with the set up?

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Just to clarify - my observation was a 10W panel on the dash won’t be enough as at best you may see a peak of 0.4-0.5A.

But 5A for say 6-8hr would be more than enough. Comparable to having 60W solar panels on the roof.

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Originally Posted by DiscoDB

Just to clarify - my observation was a 10W panel on the dash won’t be enough as at best you may see a peak of 0.4-0.5A but average a lot less than this.

But 5A for say 6-8hr would be more than enough. Comparable to having 60W solar panels on the roof.

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My plan is to have it run for 6-8h a night for all of the 32 days I'll be away.
It'll be thru the rear Traxide plug, topping up the crank and the recently fitted SSB HVT70D.

Is doing it every night is too much?
I can switch out the basic timer for a weekly one and do it say 3 or 4 nights a week with a day off in between.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Redtail

My plan is to have it run for 6-8h a night for all of the 32 days I'll be away.
It'll be thru the rear Traxide plug, topping up the crank and the recently fitted SSB HVT70D.

Is doing it every night is too much?
I can switch out the basic timer for a weekly one and do it say 3 or 4 nights a week with a day off in between.

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Why not just use a maintenance charger designed to remain attached to the battery the whole time, like a CTEK etc?

You are planning to use the Victron 5A smart charger. It has a 7 step recharging cycle and will sort itself out.

Even includes a storage stage that will kick in after 48hrs so can even handle being left permanently connected as it will drop the charge voltage even less and just re-top up every so often.

By adding the timer all you are doing is resetting the charge cycle but you are letting the battery rest for a period. Same as when using solar to charge.

So either option you are proposing will no doubt work and should be good for the battery.

I should mention my car gets parked for up to 4 weeks every few months and the daily charge cycle is more or less the same - ~1hr of bulk, 1-2hrs of absorption, then goes to float charging until the sun goes down. This is with claimed 80W of panels so in real terms less than 5A when you account for efficiency losses.