240v hook up battery charge.

[AlyJay]

On our ageing 2007 Ace airstream does anyone know if cab battery is meant to charge when hooked up or does this just charge aux battery up?
Had to charge cab battery up with mobile charger as it had drained during storage despite moho being connected to mains.
There is a battery charger hard wired which illuminates when hooked up bottom of wardrobe where mains inlet comes in.
Cheers Alistair.

 

[wildebus]

Very unlikely EHU will charge vehicle battery by default.
Being an British van, there is a fair chance it has a sargent electrics setup and it is possible that you can select which battery - leisure or vehicle - is being used to provide the habitation electrics. And if so, the battery selected to provide the electrics will also be the battery charged by the charger.
The above is all an assumption based on the vans age, likely spec and no changes made from standard.

What the best thing to do is get some kind of vehicle battery maintainer/trickle charger that will send a charge to the vehicle battery when you are hooked up and charging the leisure battery.
The best on the market is the Ablemail AMT12-2, or the AMT12-2B with built-in Bluetooth. There are other chargers that are not as good, and there are various Heath Robinson methods which are cheaper.

 

[AlyJay]

Very unlikely EHU will charge vehicle battery by default.
Being an British van, there is a fair chance it has a sargent electrics setup and it is possible that you can select which battery - leisure or vehicle - is being used to provide the habitation electrics. And if so, the battery selected to provide the electrics will also be the battery charged by the charger.
The above is all an assumption based on the vans age, likely spec and no changes made from standard.

What the best thing to do is get some kind of vehicle battery maintainer/trickle charger that will send a charge to the vehicle battery when you are hooked up and charging the leisure battery.
The best on the market is the Ablemail AMT12-2, or the AMT12-2B with built-in Bluetooth. There are other chargers that are not as good, and there are various Heath Robinson methods which are cheaper

Thanks Wildbus.

 

[TissyD]

I always left a small solar panel on the dashboard and plugged into the fag lighter socket on my old van. Saying that my engine battery has just died so don't know if it would have stayed charged.

 

[AlyJay]

Very unlikely EHU will charge vehicle battery by default.
Being an British van, there is a fair chance it has a sargent electrics setup and it is possible that you can select which battery - leisure or vehicle - is being used to provide the habitation electrics. And if so, the battery selected to provide the electrics will also be the battery charged by the charger.
The above is all an assumption based on the vans age, likely spec and no changes made from standard.

What the best thing to do is get some kind of vehicle battery maintainer/trickle charger that will send a charge to the vehicle battery when you are hooked up and charging the leisure battery.
The best on the market is the Ablemail AMT12-2, or the AMT12-2B with built-in Bluetooth. There are other chargers that are not as good, and there are various Heath Robinson methods which are cheaper.

This is the factory charger on bottom of fuse box.
The Aux battery does stay charged so it is working.
On the control panel above door theres an option to use cab battery for hab supply so your saying by selecting this it should charge the cab battery instead of hab?

 

[wildebus]

This is the factory charger on bottom of fuse box.
The Aux battery does stay charged so it is working.
On the control panel above door theres an option to use cab battery for hab supply so your saying by selecting this it should charge the cab battery instead of hab?

Not familar with that charger, but the way the selector switches usually work, it is a relay switching between the two supplies, and if the charger is integrated into that box, chances are it will switch charge as well as load (supply).
If you have a display showing both battery levels - either by number or LEDs - switch it over and see if the vehicle battery indication goes up

 

[AlyJay]

Ok, will try that tommorow when I refit the charged up battery.
From memory the control panel allows me to manually switch over to cab battery if hab battery goes flat with plenty of warning telling me the cab battery will go flat should I do this.
On the display it shows both batterys in a picure with the current voltage on each one.
The hab was way up but the cab was 12v.
I will investigate it more tommorow.
Thanks again Wildbus.

 

[trevskoda]

A simple wire with a inline switch connecting hab batts to starter bat will work, always best to use a smart charger, those ones in vans are poor.