Club 80-90 Forums

Hi all,

I have 1 1981 LHD westfalia Joker and i am trying to sort out the electrics. The van currently has 2 leisure batteries, a 65amp one under the drivers seat and a 110 amp one which is in the rear wardrobe.

My questions are:

Although i am able to isolate the 110amp battery is it ok to charge both batteries up at the same time through this battery? or alternatly charge both when driving therough the split charge?

When camping is it better to have both batteries switched on at the same time and use the similtaniously or would it be better to isolate/ switch off the 110amp and use this when the 65amp has run low? which is more economical?

The hook up on the side of the van does nothing other than power the plug socket in front of the rear seat and i think the fridge - is this right or shoud it be charging the batteries as well? There doesnt seem to be any change on my multimeter reading on the leisure batteries when the the hook up is plugged in?

another idea i had was to fix some kind of battery charger near the 110amp battery permamently connected to the battery terminals and plugged into the 240v socket so when i hook up it will automatically charge the leisure batteries?

any ideas anyone?

thanks

My personal preference when using multiple leisure batteries is to use them sequentially and charge them seperatley (rather than in Parallel) mainly to reduce the charge load on the alternator. As for the hook up charger, don't know if all Westys had them but have you looked under the rear seat? May be a Westy owner will tell you where they are usually fitted and the location of any fuses. German vans often have a dedicated charger that is not part of the control panel and located elsewhere and fuses blowing seems to be a common problem. Maplin sell intelligent charger modules for multiple batteries, it checks the condition of each battery and connects it to the alternator, once charged it routes the alternator to the next one, (often used for solar panels).

Hi, Thanks for the reply. From what i gather from your post it ok to charge them together but i will probably only charge the one under the the drivers seat when driving to reduce strain on the alternator.

I just d/l the manual (one i had was in german) and it seems that the 240v runs the fridge and that there is also some sort of internal battery charger associated with the electrical hookup. I will have to have a look tomorrow and see if i can find any fuses for this charger as i dont recal ever seeing any fuses other than the bullet fuses which are under the steering column?

thanks

Not sure but the charger may have a fuse inside it as well as an external one. Do a search as there have been a few threads about Westy chargers and the location of the fuses, seems to be a common problem!

Hi, I have now found the lg20 battery charger and i had was not working because it had blown the fuse. I replaced the fuse and now when i plug the 240v hookup the main car battery is charging and also the 2 other batteries (one is a 110ah and one is a heavy duty car battery). I have decided that it is best to isolate each battery as they are charging so that the westy charger only charges the car battery and one other battery at any one time.

When i take a reading from the battery when it is charging on 240v through through the westy charger i get 13.7volts so i am sure that it is charging ok. The problem is that when the 240v is disconnected and i have the engine running the readings of the battery do not have any significant change and only go up very slowly (reading about 12.7v). Is this what i should expect from the charge from the engine running? or will it not be charging because the batteries are full?

Also when using the westy charger i know that it switches off when batteries are charged but how will this work if if the van main battery is already charged when i begin to charge up my second leisure battery?

Also what readings should the batteries be when they are fully charged? would you reccomend one of those small meter that you can wire in to be able to see the condition of the battery? are these accurate?

thanks