Advice on Leisure Battery

[Duckman]

Hi Everyone!!

Got a quick question. We have a leisure battery in our van and have never had any problems. However, just recently, when running off leisure battery only (no electrical hookup), when we switch the lights on, the indicator on the zig panel goes to red. On electrical hookup, the indicator light shows as green (as we would expect) and have no issues.

The leisure battery is fully charged (first thing we checked), so just wondering if there are any fuses that we could try replacing or if anyone has any (easy) fixes we could try before looking at getting an internal service to see if they could sort out the problem.

We have a couple of VW shows coming up and while we're not that worried about the lights as much (we have plenty of battery lanterns, etc) and have enough spark to fire the fridge up, we would like to try to resolve this by then.

Thanks, in advance, for any advice!

[CovKid]

What kind of lights?

[kevtherev]

What is the battery voltage when the lights are on?

[CovKid]

[Duckman]

The light swears running in the interior are 3 LED lights (not as bright as normal), and 2 halogen spotlights. It's when we switch the halogen lights on, the leisure battery light on the zig panel goes to red. We're wondering if there is a fuse/relay that may need changing but it seems like the split charger may not be working correctly.

[Mocki]

I would say that either you are getting a false indication from the battery indicator , or more likely you have a cell down in your leisure battery
Halogen bulbs are greedy little burgers and will draw much much more than a led light , so it is entirely possible that the battery voltage is dipping under load more than it should .

[CovKid]

Agree with Steve and considering the LED replacements for halogen are just as good in terms of output, I'd get them swapped. That said I rarely need bright white lights inside. Home Bargains do them and many pound-type shops.

[Duckman]

Thanks for the advice. One quick question, if we had a cell out in the leisure battery, would the battery still show as fully charged when we put the multimeter on it (which is what happened)? A cell down in the battery would make sense but it's only 4 years old - there again, I don't know how long they're supposed to last. However, as all the lights are duller than normal, including the LEDs (we hardly ever use the halogens) and it's happened really suddenly, it's a good place to start.

We have a few non-electric trips coming up, so may need to get over to our local camping place and see if they can test it or let us try a new one to confirm that this is the problem.

Thanks again!

[kevtherev]

for £40 I would just buy a battery

[California Dreamin]

Thanks for the advice. One quick question, if we had a cell out in the leisure battery, would the battery still show as fully charged when we put the multimeter on it (which is what happened)? A cell down in the battery would make sense but it's only 4 years old - there again, I don't know how long they're supposed to last. However, as all the lights are duller than normal, including the LEDs (we hardly ever use the halogens) and it's happened really suddenly, it's a good place to start.

We have a few non-electric trips coming up, so may need to get over to our local camping place and see if they can test it or let us try a new one to confirm that this is the problem.

Thanks again!

What do you regard as 'Fully Charged'? FYI a battery reading 12.6-12.7 (several hours after charging) is fully charged. I say after several hours because all batteries report a 'false' high straight after charge (I've seen as high as 13.3 volts immediately after removing from a battery charger)
12.1 volts is actually around 50% charged and anything less than 11.5 volts is DEAD FLAT!

Martin