colnden Posted September 28, 2012 Report Share Posted September 28, 2012 In early June we had to take our van back to the factory with a leaking hatch that had been resealed and then replaced by a local repairer. We were allowed to camp in the van of a night and we went out of a day to leave the Kedron crew do their thing. At the end of our stay i have to say that after owning 3 new vans and this being the fourth, it is great to find a company that doesnt duck shove you around or give you any grief. It is so easy to have a customer sing your praises if you just give them a bit of service.Last night the batteries in the van collapsed with only the TV and one LED light drawing 3 amps. Not good considering that we were on power and the batterys were fully charged at 4pm. We had turned the charger off as the the only draw on the batteries was the TV plus one LED light . The rest of the van was on 240 Volt.got up this morning and the batteries were on 10.6 Volt. Put the charger on and charged them up again Rang Kedron and spoke to Tom and ended up at Brunos batteries in Mareeba. I would think that after testing them electronically and then putting each battery on a high rate discharge tester and passing the test that they were fine. However Brunos got me to hang around for half an hour with the batteries on load of 30 amps for 15 minutes then a load of 12 amps for 15 min after which the batterys dropped from 12.5 to 10.6 volts in the space of 5 minutes.Have always looked after the batteries and dont let them go below 12.7 volts. Came as a shock to have 3 x 120 AGM batteries needing replacing after 12 mths.Thanks to Brunos , Alko and Kedron. all replaced under warranty.Great service and once again greatfull for the help received.Kedron? Yep. good mob to deal with.Den and Col Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RussnSue Posted September 29, 2012 Report Share Posted September 29, 2012 Hi,I have to ask the question.....Why, when you are on a 240 Volt supply, do you turn your battery charger off?CheersRuss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colnden Posted September 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2012 Hi,I have to ask the question.....Why, when you are on a 240 Volt supply, do you turn your battery charger off?CheersRuss[/Hi Russ, had a sneaking suspicion there was a problem at the 9 month stage when we ran out of power bush camping. Bearing in mind there are 3 panels and 3 x 120 AH batts and we are only Running a TV, drawing 2.5 amp and the decoder roughly the same and a couple of LED lights. Batteries should have been fully charged by 4 PM but on this occasion they were down to 10.6 at 6 AM. We do watch a fair bit of TV of a night but no more than 8 hrs. Add the load of charging 2 phones and a Net book and there is no way that you could say it was a load. The fridge is a 3 way but has never been run on 12Volt until yesterday when they wanted to load the batteries up. At the time i was prepared to blame shade on the panels but as we had been on power since i didn't have the chance to test them again. ( You wouldn't expect them to die after 9 mths.) Decided to turn the charger off to see what happened. They were fully charged that day by solar as we left the van in wide open spaces, rodeo grounds at Mareeba, and returned at 5pm. In that time there was no load on the batteries. Next morning 10.6 volts again.Frightening experience to see the cost of replacing them.Den and Col Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RussnSue Posted September 30, 2012 Report Share Posted September 30, 2012 G'day Den and ColDid Bruno's find anything wrong with your charging system? Did they offer any explanation as to why the batteries died so young? Were the old batteries a reputable brand? In the past, was there ever a day, or a series of days, where the batteries were discharged very low due to lack of sunlight or similar?Something doesn't add up with this and I'd be worried about the same thing happening again. One thing you could check is when you are absolutely convinced that no 12 Volt appliances are running in your van, does the monitor agree and tell you that you have 0 Amps of discharge? If not, something is still drawing current in the van and could be an issue. I found that the fluoro light in the front boot of our van was "on" all the time after I must have bumped the switch at some stage. Also, our stereo draws current in the standby mode. Ordinarily it wouldn't be enough to trouble me, but when you are relying on solar for power, every bit of usage is important. Inverters draw significant current, even in their idle state.CheersRuss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colnden Posted September 30, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2012 Hi Russ and Sue , we live in the van full time and Colleen does get a bit cheesed off with the way i am always checking the battery monitor for voltage and amps. My monitor ,Xantrax, gives a combined charge / discharge readout, In other words if you want to check for current draw you have to wait til night so that you don't have the panels putting any charge in, that is to say if the batteries are on float and you are using 10 amps and the panels are putting out 10 amps to hold the status quo , the panel will show zero amps. ( Or else pull the fuses out for the solar panels)Inverter is only used to power sat receiver, charge phones and computer and a camera once in awhile. Always turned off after use because the display is too bright of a night When we ordered the van, Kedron advised me that i had too much solar and battery power for my need but i am a firm believer in keeping the batteries over 12.6 volts. I am quite happy to, and do pull the Honda gen set out if the batteries look like being down at 4pm, meaning if they are down to 12.8 volts. The batteries are Alko ,as supplied by Kedron. Bruno is also the local solar / wind power distributor and he did a good check over of things and no fault. When i first communicated with them they said that it sounded like batteries collapsing , but it surprised me that they could survive the high rate discharge test individually, one being slightly down on the other two, but not enough to be a concern.Am i worried about them collapsing again? Yep. Just have to annoy Col more by keeping a close eye on things of a night and morning.Just a side note. Bruno i believe was the founder of the business, and i can remember my father doing business with him 50 years ago,he has since passed on. The son, who would have to be in his sixties, is deaf mute, but a pleasure to do business with. If you haven't done any writing for awhile then you will quickly gain some experience. Reminded me of the chap in Windorah who is blind and runs a servo. An enlightening experience to deal with both gentlemen.Den and Col Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolley Posted October 16, 2012 Report Share Posted October 16, 2012 Hello All,On the topic of Kedron Service I would like to support Colnden's initiat comment about the quality of Kedron's service.I had my van in there yesterday to have a couple of small items fixed. Ashley and Tom were just great, once again. To them I say "thank you". I understand that there is a wait of over one year for a van to be built. That is at least 50 vans which means that there is at least 50 people standing in a queue. That speaks volumes for the quality and desirability of the product and the after sales service.RegardsColin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolley Posted October 17, 2012 Report Share Posted October 17, 2012 Oops! My last post on this thread was in the early morning. I must have been still asleep as my maths was wrong in relation to the number of vans etc., I do not have any inside knowledge of how many vans Kedron build. Just visiting the factory gives me the impression that production could possibly be 15 vans a month. In eleven working months that is about 165 a year. That means there are perhaps 165 people standing in the queue at any one time, not 50 as I surmised this morning! All the better for Kedron and it does speak loudly about the product.RegardsColin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATV42 Posted October 18, 2012 Report Share Posted October 18, 2012 Oops! My last post on this thread was in the early morning. I must have been still asleep as my maths was wrong in relation to the number of vans etc., I do not have any inside knowledge of how many vans Kedron build. Just visiting the factory gives me the impression that production could possibly be 15 vans a month. In eleven working months that is about 165 a year. That means there are perhaps 165 people standing in the queue at any one time, not 50 as I surmised this morning! All the better for Kedron and it does speak loudly about the product.RegardsColinHi Colin.Just a few facts here that might help.We took delivery of our 1st ATV for two in May 2003 and our 2nd in January 2012, the chassis numbers varied by 980.RegardsPeterATV42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolley Posted October 19, 2012 Report Share Posted October 19, 2012 Hi Peter,Thanks for that. I guess my point is that Kedron have a great product supported by top quality after sales service so they deserve to do well. The "waiting list" is of interest to all of us as the demand helps keep value in our vans.RegardsColin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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