Ehu long term use

Forresbroons

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Having just switched on the ehu to top up the batteries.

My question is, will it harm the system or batteries to leave the ehu switched on long term (weeks/months) without them been used.


many thanks
Keith
 
We all know how dumb I am around electrickery 🤪 but I've got a smart charger in my van and I'm told it's OK to leave that on hookup because it goes into float mode.
 
Having just switched on the ehu to top up the batteries.

My question is, will it harm the system or batteries to leave the ehu switched on long term (weeks/months) without them been used.


many thanks
Keith
If an intelligent multi stage charger no but you could just buy a timer plug and have it switch on a few hours daily as i do.
You could check your battery bank status daily over a few days and adjust the time the charger is switched on to keep the batteries charged. I have mine on for 3 hours a day as solar panels in shade with little output to batteries.
 
I have left mine on 24/7 since 2002 without problems but since fitting wet acid batteries I have had to put it on a timer because I had to keep topping the batteries up
 
I have ours on ehu but with a timer for four hours during the coldest part of the night together with a frost guard heater and dehumidifier, I don't know if it's doing any good, but it keeps me happy
 
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@Forresbroons
In theory no it is not a problem but that assumes you have an efficient multistage charger.

my van arrived with two of the superb Votronic duo chargers, yes it had four battery banks. These are great but even on float each draws around 40w so if used 24*7 that’s not far short of a Kw a day.

I use the Votronic on mains hookup and if the batteries need a full charge e.g. after a trip but once fully charged solar keeps them at float but if not I use a ctek msx5 this only draws 3w on float.
 
I am getting nothing from solar due to shading , I have put my hook up on a timer for I hour a day ,this is holding at 98 % charge . Running at 1 hour a day will not shorten the .life of my sargent system as much it working 24 hours a day . Fitted a cheap battery monitor that tells me all I need to know about the state of my 210 amp battery's , I will shorten the charging time as the solar kicks back iin.
 
What I can see suggests this is an intelligent charger, so it should be fine.
Many thanks for that and all of the other answers. Given these facts and knowing that our solar system keeps both batteries topped up during the better months I will be leaving it switched on keeping an eye on it to see how it goes.

once again many thanks to you all

keith
 
I was interested in this myself. Last year I fitted a 7 stage "connect and forget" smart charger. I have found that if I switch it off for a few hours, when switched back on it goes through the phases and always ends up in "recondition" mode for about 4 hours, at a very high voltage. This results in gassing and having to top up more frequently. I assume this is due to the batteries being on their way out and failing the test after "absorption" mode. To avoid that, I'm now just leaving it connected so that it stays on float
 

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