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Caravan batterys both warped


Kevin And Judy

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Hi just checked my battery's after a trip away had a suspicion that they where not holding  a full charge as  after a couple of days with no 240 a/c connected when we turned on the water pump the lights would flicker. Removed cover from battery's  and found battery's warped top and sides .

test each charger on they own

240 ac charger  E-POWER output 13.7 V d c

Solar TRISTAR  output 13.6 V d c

12 V dc from car REDARC 14.7 V d c

Has any one else had there battery's cook

the caravan is a 2014 XC3 so I would think that battery's are the same age.

Battery's are RITAR RA12-120

Don't know how long the batter's have bean in this condition as they still work.

Any one have any ideas before buying 2 new battery's.

Regards Kevin

 

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Kevin,

Get your wallet out and go buy two new batteries. Full River are an OK brand, remember that the weight of a battery is an indicator of it's quality.

 

Lead acid batteries, which includes AGMs, should have a life of 6 to 7 years is they are looked after. By " looked after" I mean don't discharge them below about 70%. You will then get thousands of cycles out of them. Working batteries down to 15 to 20% of their rated capacity will result in you getting 100s of cycles, then get your wallet out again.

 

Yes, that means you are carting around 2 X 120AHrs = 240AHrs and you can only safely use 30% of that or 70AHrs. Sorry but that is the current chemical/physics laws.

 

Grahame (retired Elec Engr)  

 

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Yes Kevin, agree with Grahame, time to get two new batteries. We had to replace the two batteries (3yrs and 2mths use) in our van earlier this year. They were working fine, pulled up for an overnight camp on the Plenty highway and had no power at all. Couldn’t pump water, flush the toilet, light the stove and of course no lights. Had to revert to manual mode. I might also add the ALL the batteries in the van died that day, ie smoke detector, torches, blood glucose monitor and hearing aid batteries. We laugh about it and said the Min Min lights out of Boulia got us. When we arrived in Alice Springs we dropped the van off at the auto elects and we went went for new batteries. $$$

The joys of caravanning.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Our batteries are 7 years old , I don’t worry about percentages of battery use . I don’t let them go below 12.2 volts . When the batteries were new 12.2 volts was 50% used . Now that the batteries are 7 years older 12.2 volts is 30% used .

 

Nev 

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We also cooked a battery very early in the year. I always keep the batteries above 70% soc so it was a surprise.

I found the charger was overcharging the batteries by keeping them in absorption mode for way too long. It was a pwm type charger.

When I replaced the batteries I also replaced the charger with an mppt type charger with a more battery friendly charge algorithm. All good now.

Cheers

Stu

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