@ Freedom ... And before someone starts on about leaving it connected and damage being done, the Truma controller is a “smart” charger
We've already got a thread running on whether to disconnect a battery before charging it 
Keeping the tow vehicle’s battery healthy
Freedom a whitebox
Club Member Posts: 296 ✭✭✭
I haven’t used my vehicle since the government advised everyone to stay at home. This morning thinking that I should start it up, I discovered that the battery didn’t have enough change in it to turn the engine over fast enough.
Luckily, I keep it on my drive along with my caravan. (Bailey unicorn )
So after starting to run the mains cable and battery charger out to it, I thought about the caravan parked next to it, with its Truma Solar panel keeping that in tip top condition.
The Truma controller has two separate battery outputs as it’s suitable for motorhomes. So the simple answer was to temporarily run lead from the unused battery terminals on the controller to my vehicle.
I know that I am fortunate enough to have them side by side and my tow vehicle has a permanent live accessory socket that I can plug the lead into. But it wouldn’t have been an issue if I had to connect it directly to the battery.
While I’m not using it, I can rest assured that the caravan it’s looking after it.
And before someone starts on about leaving it connected and damage being done, the Truma controller is a “smart” charger!
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Comments
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As that's only about 3 weeks, I would think the car battery is not in particularly good condition. When we were away in the MH for 6 weeks in September / October both of ours started fine, despite the drain of alarms over that period. However, previously in May my XTrail had refused to start after only 4 weeks. The battery needed replacing and as I put above there was no problem in September.
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There again, my Forester (brand new) went flat in 3 weeks. I blamed all the electronic gadgetry on it. 🤷🏻♂️
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You may well be right, but until freedom of movement is back I won’t be considering it’s replacement. In its defence, from its last few journeys before it was parked up they were only short trips to the supermarket.
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Our sportage batt would not start the car after 3weeks in the garage ,so Mayday to the rescue ,the car had to be winched out of the garage after the auto box "P" had been released,the Mayday man "advised" it could be an old batt , or it maybe as a lot of modern cars tend to still draw power when not used, after it was started went to Halfords who tested the batt and said it was fine,but i noticed the Dash cam was still on so he thought it may have been that the dash cam is now unplugged when car not used
Since then the batt has not had enough power to start the car ,so it is now outside the garage ,within easy access to a charger when i next try to use the car
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Been there, done that. £100 well spent👍🏻
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I want to be able to justify buying a jumper pack like these jump start pack 😎
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Just go for it!
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Mmm, but when away in the MH the other car isn’t with us. 🤔
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Really?…
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My Discovery can run down the battery to the level where one of the computers complains in about four days at the best of times. There are so many things still running when it is "off" that I'm not at all surprised.
As well as the jump leads that almost every Land Rover driver carries I bought myself one of those new-style charge blocks. It will run my tablet for days on end or my girlfriend's 12 volt electric blanket for a lot less time but a lot more brownie points!
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cant beat the oldies, our Kia Carens 2007 sits on drive for 3 months whilst we were are in Spain, starts first time, we have had the car 10 years and never replaced the battery, always leave in park mode , handbrake off couple of bricks under front wheels, always reverse in so you can get into bonnet easily if something should go wrong, all this keeps the battery charged no problems
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Just a quick update.
Just checked the batteries and both are showing a good state of charge.
At least I know that my vehicle will ready for when I need to use it next without the worry maybe having to jump start it.
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All you would ever want to know https://www.ctek.com/
strictly speaking they have a recondition function .... but conditioner is near enough
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It was questioning a too generalised inaccurate statement.
You can only 'condition' flooded type batteries with a CTEK or any other of the same ilk, an AGM battery like I have in my towcar takes no benefit at all from the reconditioning mode, it just does nothing of any use as an AGM doesn't suffer from stratification.
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I have a power pack which I have used in the past mainly on other peoples cars/motorhomes when I have been running rallies.
I am not at all technically minded but why, when using a jump start, are you advised to put positive of the jump lead on to the positive of the battery and the negative on to a good earth and not the negative battery terminal ? Will it do the battery to be charged any harm if you use positive and negative terminals ?
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One of the reasons to connect the positive terminal first and then use a negative earth point, may be due to sparking ignition of battery gases.
When you connect a slave battery with higher level of charge to another battery, there will be discharge to the other battery. You may see this as sparkling as you make the final contact. Lead acid batteries give off hydrogen gas when charging, which is highly explosive. By not using the negative terminal directly, it reduces the risk of explosion.
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Yes I understand thanks for that. I also understand that this method is much preferred when jumping an AGM battery as opposed to a lead acid battery. My power pack has an on off switch so there is no power at the leads until I attach to the battery and switch on.
I was thinking of getting one of these really small lithium jump starters which can also be used as a 12V supply and USB power bank. These are made with very short jump leads which would only reach the positive and negative terminals on a standard size battery.
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We have a car ,which we only use in the spring and summer and will be our tow car when we have a tower fitted .to keep the battery in good condition I recently bought a C-Tek charger and conditioner and it seems to be working a treat.
regards Brian
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I'm surprised that so many have issues with flat batteries after the car has been stationary for relatively periods of only a couple of weeks.
When we went on extended holidays overseas or when work sent me on an overseas assignment, my car would sometimes be laid up in the garage for up to 2 months at a time, but the only one I ever had a problem with was a Lexus RX which had a very small battery for such a big car (because there wasn't enough space under bonnet for anything bigger, the battery was identical to that of a Nissan Micra), but even that would last over 4 weeks so long as it was in good condition to start with. The battery of my current BMW will last a good deal longer than that.
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