Caravan Battery Chargers

Fairly common, I think. We had a similar experience.

 I have a Swift Charisma which has a Sergent charger fitted, which I cannot fault since I forgot to charge the battery after using the mover, but it brought the battery back. The charger is part of the original equipment and the van will be 7 years old this year. Perhaps I better touch wood so that my luck does not run out 

Hello Doncaster2

A couple of questions:

a) Have you a Motor Mover Fitted?

b) Have you used the Motor Mover when connected to EHU ?

as I have heard of Battery and Battery Charger failure  being  attributed to this practice.  

if you visit aandacaravans (charger repair specialists) website youll see their take on charger failures, often the result of failing batteries.

they have done plenty of tests and it makes not good reading.....

charger regimes not matched correctly to the type of battery, overworking but not acheiving a lot, battery starts to fail, charger works harder, acheives les due to failing battery, battery fails.....

The main reason why chargers fail is due to incorrect installation.

That certainly applies to most bailey caravans, especially the newer ones with the charger tucked away inside the PDU, it limits the air circulation, these units run hot  normally, with the cooling fan only cutting in when the current is from around 8 amps, or even 12 amps.

There do last however if you add extra cooling, turn the off on exceptionally hot days, and give them as much ventilation as you can.

I'm taking delivery of a Swift caravan shortly, and I've already noticed thankfully that it mounted externally to the rest of the electric fuses etc, and has lots of extra cooling fins, even so I'll pack if off if its a easy job to do so, it even has an off switch fitted.

Something i had to fit myself to the Bailey.

Yeah   also on a Coachman Pastiche. Just a poor design poorly installed sadly. After the last failure I chose a Ctek replacement. A proper charger and power supply no fans required and does a much better job of looking after your battery. Dead easy to do. In fairness it's the only problem I have ever had with our van.

Tj

I believe that model of Coachman has a smart charger which will properly maintain the battery after discharge, unlike Bailey and other models. Therefore worth getting it repaired or replaced rather than swapping for something different.

A Bailey single stage charger will fully charge the battery.

It just takes longer than a 3 stage one, which itself will finish the cycle on 13.8 volts approx.

BCA make the power supply charger fitted as standard. Not reliable run hot and failures are common. Ctek amongst others make a much better designed product with multi stage charging and regeneration cycles. They are designed to be left on for extended periods whilst connected to your battery. They make custom leads to fit pretty well all types of wiring and fitting is a doddle.

Tj

I have had problems with the charger fitted to my 2014 Lunar Clubman, produced by BCA. It failed when the caravan was just over a year old, we were at the start of a 2 month tour of France. We ended up buying a new leisure battery and charger. We then had one on charge in the awning and one connected to the caravan which meant swapping every 5 or 6 days, not ideal! In hindsight we perhaps should have had a new charger fitted to the caravan, but we were wary of invalidating the warranty. We had contacted the dealer but they said that they could not help until we returned home. The second charger failed a fortnight ago when the caravan was just under 3 years old, so it was fortunately still covered by warranty. The service engineer, who replaced it, contacted BCA to query this but he could only tell us we were unlucky. Apparently the caravan and battery passed all electrical tests on the annual service. It does not make me confident for the future. As others have commented the charger is fastened behind the electrical control box under the mattress so not a lot of fresh air around it. I try to remember to leave the front of the under bed compartment open when the weather is hot.