Motorhome Battery advice

Hi, BVM. Most modern vehicles have a method of disconnecting the battery without affecting important memories, either by a removable link, fuse or concealed switch.

In this case, the battery isolator is fitted to the ignition switch and is a Peugeot optional fitting. I can assure you it does not affect any important memories and only the date/time needs to be reset. Mine is a 2 litre 2017 model.

In my experience, items such as trackers fitted by the converter are normally connected to the leisure battery. The circuit diagrams should show if this is the case. Converters do not normally run anything from the vehicle battery, other than via the habitation area control panel, but after fit installers often do connect to the vehicle battery.

TW I think you are right as regards the memory at least on 2017 (post 2014 ?) Peugeots/Citroens.

Having a flat battery (down to 10.8 volts) and to ensure reliability I bought a Varta Battery same dimensions but 100ah and 830amp CCA  and I fitted it this morning involving of necessity a total disconnect. My van a  2107 Citroen 2 litre (which sounds like it is the same as your 2017 Pug ) was showing a check engine and check power steering fault which was not cleared by the initialisation procedure in the handbook (switch on ignition and wait for one minute) however within a short time of the engine starting up the faults cleared so it wont be necessary to have the vehicle "diagnosed" as I had feared and had an appointment with a main dealer pencilled in for. As you say only the clock time and date needed resetting but that is very easy with the new style of central display panel.

I will get the old battery tested and keep it as a spare which i can substitute if the new one goes flat. My alarm however (fitted by a well known firm in Taunton) is definitely wired to the vehicle battery. The tracker is ex-works (before conversion) and is likewise.  However practice will vary.

One of the interesting things I discovered in this exercise is that the voltage shown on the Sargent Panel for the vehicle battery agrees with a direct reading taken with a meter on the battery terminals. I thought that perhaps there might be a small voltage drop between the panel and the battery but apparently not. 

BVM, our battery goes flat in 2-3weeks in this dull weather if not turned off, even with the SP in use.

When the battery is turned back on it takes a couple of minutes for things to settle and various warning lights appear in that time. It does indeed sound as if your warning lights were a result of a flat, or disconnected, battery which is good news.

I'm not a bit surprised that the after fit alarm is wired to the vehicle battery as that seems to be the way VB wire them. The alarm and tracker in our last MH were fitted by them. I wasn’t impressed, tbh.

Your findings re the voltage shown by the Sargent panel are a bit of a surprise but a good one. 

just for balance, which might be applicable if the storage facility is relatively open, we keep our van on the drive when not in use and the 100w SP is more than able to keep two leisure batteries and the cab battery fully chanrged even with immo ilser and alarm set.

this is acheived using a twin channel solar regulator, so we dont need a battery master....also, according to Apperley (who has a new Bailey) the fitted panel 'should' charge cab and leisure batteries....however, this may depend on how its set up...possible a Sargent PSU with built in regulator, which should be set to 'smart' to feed both sets of batteries.

im not sure we have a cab battery isolator (dont have the red tag on the ignition) but there is a red leisure battery isolator should i feel the need to use it.

however, as the panel does exactly what i want of it (keep all batteries fully charged whenever the van is parked up) i wont be changing anything.

a little investigation might verify you already have all the kit you need to ease any worries.

good luck 

Hi Tinwheeler, we also have Peugeot based motorhome with the battery isolation switch on the ignition key. We had one on our previous motorhome too.

My question is, this new motorhome has a solar panel which charges both the habitation battery and the vehicle battery, do you know if this is disconnected from the vehicle battery when the isolation switch is operated? None of the dealers seem to know how these are connected.

PhilnShaz  

I'd look at the dates of the posts  --  January 2018    !!

Don't expect you'll get a reply  

Oh, yes they will!🤣🤣

Unfortunately, though, I can’t remember for sure, although I think the SP carried on charging the leisure battery for what good it did - our SP wasn’t up to the job in winter months. If your controller has a changeover switch, the answer is obvious but it will depend a lot how your set up is wired and I doubt there’s a one size fits all answer.

As I posted earlier somewhere, we changed the van for a Fiat based model and that doesn't have the button on the ignition switch (NB switch, not key). Therefore, I no longer have the Peugeot handbook which is where I found info about mine.

Speak to somebody technical at the MH dealership where you bought it. If they don’t know, how can they possibly repair it if/when there’s a fault on the SP side?

Our leisure and vehicle batteries were both running down despite having solar panel which charged both 'smartly' through Swift Command on Escape 612 2020. Just really wanted to make sure the vehicle would start, so, as vehicle battery was getting low decided to isolate it and let solar panel carry on charging the leisure battery. Unfortunately, by isolating vehicle battery it turned off solar panel completely. So, re-connected vehicle battery and set control panel to charge vehicle. It did for a while and then went back to 'smart charging' both batteries. Is there any way of JUST charging the vehicle battery?

It does your battery no good at all if it’s subject to regular deep discharge and recharge. Much better to maintain on a trickle charge while not used for extended periods. Also, it (both) will reward you with a significantly longer life if maintained that way. Given the value of your MH I think a modest investment on a roof mounted solar panel (at least 100w, ideally more) with a split controller to maintain the leisure & starter battery would make a lot of sense.

Just to emphasise the point, this is the (iNet) status of my leisure battery on stored MH under a very gloomy (wet) Cornish sky. MH hasn’t been started since sometime in October and continually operates a tracker. SP is 150w, 80% of the charge is direct to leisure battery and remainder to van battery which (although not represented here) is also around 13v.