Flat starter battery on the van

Thanks Richard & Tom

Here am the co-ords

51.0223512236897, 2.6789535470793537

Good job I looked it reminded me I need to download the area maps for Belgium, Luxemburg and Switzerland over WiFi before I go in Organic maps.
 
Route planning aside, it sounds like your problem was that a short circuit in the ECU emptied the battery, rather than a flat battery damaging the ECU.
So all the battery testing was a bit of a moot point.
The people who suggested a battery maintainer wre suggesting something that would have left all your batteries flat (and maybe damaged). After all, a parasitic drain that empties a starter battery in x hours or days will empty the lot in 4x hours or days.
The moral is that you should find the cause of a problem before fixing it, and before blaming one component, whether your innocent battery or your blameless charger.
Glad it is sorted, though!
 
I thought I should update this as all the work to help the VB is now complete, this is the data from this BM6 battery monitor from Aliexpress, with free app, which is also very good, I think that had I only had this installed I could have avoided the flat battery and possibly the cost of the dead ECU, don't know of course but maybe.

I now have two 85w panels, the solar controller was supposed to help the VB but in winter it just can't harvest enough solar for that bu tit keeps the LB topped up fine (there may have been a setting but it now only charges the LB anyway as the Gizmott takes a little current from the LB to the VB, keeping it happy. The data below is from the VB, the LB Volts will be very slightly higher as it donates to the VB.


Or Amazon https://amzn.eu/d/7xx6BhM

This morning:-
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It all took me a couple of days as the original controller installation was a complete abortion, & I had a little help from Merlin ;) ;)

New location posed problems too, I needed to be able to access it for observation when needed, it needed to work with existing cable runs and to have a place where the 300w inverter could be used out of the way for charging our laptops and other devices, ( the fuse was an afterthought, IE after I'd cut the cable) had we been doing it from scratch it might have been better, and being in the wardrobe I didn't want to use square trunking, this round stuff is better for ladies clothing to rub against on the move, but more difficult to work with (I've been told) it is available in a wood finish at B&Q

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WiFi didn't work mate.
 
I just logged onto the battery minder for the five day log. It's still new to me, and I'm fascinated by what a cheap bit of kit can do.

Screenshot_20250409-053306_BM6.jpgScreenshot_20250409-052734_BM6.jpgScreenshot_20250409-052738_BM6.jpg


I wonder what happened here???

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Bear in mind that this is the temperature of the monitor, not of the battery. They're probably close. My one sits directly on top of the battery. When it works, it is good. All too often the bluetooth won't connect.
Mine is a BM600 Pro. Not sure whether that's a different model or not.
 
Geek said:
Bear in mind that this is the temperature of the monitor, not of the battery. They're probably close. My one sits directly on top of the battery. When it works, it is good. All too often the bluetooth won't connect.
Mine is a BM600 Pro. Not sure whether that's a different model or not.
Click to expand...
Yes of course, it only measures the battery volts, but the ambient temp is handy to know anyway, it also does other stuff.
 
At least I'm now a Tw@ with a purpose, whats your feckin excuse silly bollocks, are you still suffering from being Barried, I did warn you.
 
Definitely, there is no probe, and it isn't anywhere near the battery anyway. I may use my laser temp thingy to check the accuracy of that part of it
 
A tiny bit of good news, I kept the goosed ECU so I could, out of curiosity look inside it, lots of gubbins above my pay grade, a small burn mark and strong smell of electrical burning, so rather than bin it, I put it on Ebay, for parts not working, for £10 and someone has bought it.

For the right person there are hundreds of tiny parts that may live again elsewhere.
 
Pudsey Bear said:
A tiny bit of good news, I kept the goosed ECU so I could, out of curiosity look inside it, lots of gubbins above my pay grade, a small burn mark and strong smell of electrical burning, so rather than bin it, I put it on Ebay, for parts not working, for £10 and someone has bought it.

For the right person there are hundreds of tiny parts that may live again elsewhere.
Click to expand...
always worth something to somebody. quite often a part will be bought and the insides gutted so the casing and connectors can be used.
When I sold my 3-Way Thetford Fridge, the guy who bought it didn't care if it worked or not, he just wanted the carcase to replace a contaminated one.
 
That was my thinking, I hate just throwing things away that may help someone else, it'll never be a ECU again.
 
The internals, I couldn't get further in than this.

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