Club 80-90 Forums

I know there are previous posts on this and I have looked at a few of them but it has confused me slightly.
Im not sure if my leisure battery is wired or working correctly, when I got the van the leisure battery was from 1988 and was knackered!
I have put a new battery in and found a red wire next to the starter battery that is carrying the voltage from the leisure, it had been cut off and left there.
Now I have connected it to the main battery and it keeps the leisure charged.
But, I have now noticed this next to the battery with two yellow spades on it with no wires connected, so what im trying to say is should the red wire from the leisure be connected to the starter or through this relay- im hoping thats not the alarm one!
When i run the propex i think it drains the starter, had it on earlier and the leisure was 12.56v and the starter 12.31.
Still very much learning with this so just after some confirmation that this is ok, I cant see how the starter could be isolated from the leisure as I have attached them together!!
this is the starter

This is the leisure


sorry if the pictures are massive or have not worked, 1st time posting pics on here!

I have 13.7v on the starter when running and 12.5v on the leisure. Is that right?

If you have connected the Leisure battery directly to the Main battery (without using a relay), then the Main battery will continue to be discharged when you use electrical items in your camper (i.e. lights, water pumps etc) - you need the relay in place to disconnect the Main battery from the Leisure battery when the engine is not running.

The split charge relay circuit should look something like this;



When the ignition is turned on (i.e. the key is turned), then 12v is supplied on the blue wire; this energises the relay causing pins 30 and 87 to be connected together, which is turn allows the Leisure battery to charge from the Main battery. When the ignition is turned off, the relay turns off and the Main battery is disconnected from the Leisure battery.

Looking at your pics, I am guessing that the green/yellow wire might be the 'Ign' wire (blue wire in my diagram) - check this by seeing if it has 12v on it only when the ignition is ON. (or if you can get your ear close enough to the relay you should be able to hear it click when the ignition key is turned)

If you can get the relay out it should have pin numbers written on it that should match the diagram.

If the two yellow connectors are on pins 30 and 87 then pin 30 should be attached to the Main battery and pin 87 to the Leisure battery as per the diagram - my guess is that previous owner chopped the wires off when the Leisure battery died.

Thats a fantastic reply just what I was after!
Thank you, Just waiting for the wife to come home then I can go back out to play

Quick question then, does this mean that both the reds that are on the battery currently should go via the relay?

Also the control panel is powered directly from the starter via the blue fused wire, should that then go via the relay and if so which pin?
Think im slightly getting the idea of how this works now

There's an Autosleeper manual and wiring diagram in the Wiki y'know

Yer I saw that but couldnt figure it out to what I have! I will have another look at it now I know my wires have been moved to the wrong positions.

Ok, looks like I have to put 30a fuses on both my lives into the relay and hope there is another connection for the control panel live- seems odd someone would remove the fuses or are they fused somewhere else?
Sorry I find wiring diagrams difficult, give me a Plumbing/heating diagram and I can work that perfectly!

Graham81 wrote:Quick question then, does this mean that both the reds that are on the battery currently should go via the relay?

Also the control panel is powered directly from the starter via the blue fused wire, should that then go via the relay and if so which pin?
Think im slightly getting the idea of how this works now

Not necessarily, I assume that one of those red wires is the one that you connected between the two batteries - that one needs to go via the relay. What you do with the other red depends on what it actually does (i.e. what it supplies power to, or what it is there for - will need to be investigated). Do you know what the other red wire does?

If your blue (fused) wire from the main battery is what powers the control panel (I assume that by 'control panel' you mean the panel that provides power to the camper lights, water pump etc) then that is indeed a strange setup - and incorrect, this should be taking power from the leisure battery ......
...... is it possible that when the leisure battery packed in, that the previous owner rewired everything to run off the Main battery ? if this is the case then you have a bit of rewiring to do .......

The auto sleeper i recently bought had a similar problem. The previous owner had, for a couple of years, been charging the leisure battery from the mains using conventional charger. A bit of digging around and sorting out the wires proved that the fault was a blown fuse. Fixed it for 40p. and everything working fine now

Thanks for your help it looks like I will have to rewire the panel (water pump, fridge etc) to the leisure batt and provide a live to the relay.
No idea what the other red is for, need to get out there with the multimeter.
I suppose I need to provide 30A fuses on the live in and out of the relay as per the AS wiring diagram too.
One thing thats bugging me slightly is that the leisure was not recieving the charging voltage when the engine is running even though it is connected directly to the starter battery.
All fun

Islandboy, im in Sandown probably seen you around. I think some numpty has disconnected mine altogether the battery was dated 1988 and had no water/acid in it.
So I assume it hasnt worked since then, it went off the road in 97 till last year.