Flat starter battery on the van

I've rung 4 ECU repairers all have said that this is a difficult one as they don't have the software to interrogate it, one has a used one for £600 that would be coded to the van???, there is one on ebay for £297 that would need to be coded.

I've lost a week as the chap who tested it didn't write down the fault codes and is on holiday until Saturday and the repairers need to know the codes, I would have thought they should be able to read the codes themselves.
 
Pudsey Bear said:
I've rung 4 ECU repairers all have said that this is a difficult one as they don't have the software to interrogate it, one has a used one for £600 that would be coded to the van???, there is one on ebay for £297 that would need to be coded.

I've lost a week as the chap who tested it didn't write down the fault codes and is on holiday until Saturday and the repairers need to know the codes, I would have thought they should be able to read the codes themselves.
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Can you plug in your code reader to the OBD (? name) socket, Kev? That's what the Battery Suppliers whose defective replacement VB blew my ECU did. Mine threw up something like 18072 and mentioned ' defective balance module' or similar wording. The ECU repairers in Liverpool said my code meant that the ECU could not be repaired, and I would need to get a new ECU (£300-£310 in Nov 2021). The coding of the new ECU was a cloning of the original ECU codes and settings so that the system does not reject the new ECU as an alien part. The Auto Electrician in Fife that I used was able to do this without breaking a sweat, using his diagnostic kit, charging either 0.5 or 1.0 hour labour, but part of the labour of 6 hours overall included tracing individual circuits back to find and repair a large parasitic drain that was causing the VB to back feed the Leisure Battery ... Burstner would not sell a schematic wiring diagram 'because we have to protect the intellectual property of our Dealers', which was fair enough, but the Intellectual Dealer said just to pull the circuit fuse ...

Steve
 
Pudsey Bear said:
I'm going to ask the garage to take the battery out so I can go over to Alpha with it.
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Good luck! The issue seemed to me to be an inordinate drop off of capacity/ cranking power at low temperature ( around zero) . That's not going to be a quick and easy test. Prepare to get fobbed off.
 
I have always bought bog standard batteries from tow sure , Halford etc lead acid for leisure and starter and only charge from solar leisure and alternator for starter also alternator for leisure. Never had a battery fail in 30 years only had them wear out due to age I think too much tec can be bad??
 
Not that relevant (why change now?! :D ) but last winter ('23-'24) my car was getting a big sluggish on the starting. As it was 6 1/2 years old and original battery, decided wouldn't hurt to change the battery. Removed the OEM Stop-Start AGM Battery and fitted one of the new Jennox Gold Permium Batteries from Alpha-Batteries. This year has been pretty cold but never a moments hesitation starting (y)
A fair bit cheaper than the standard Stop-Start battery (I don't have stop-start so no need to get some that supports it) and a 6 year warranty! Not seen a similar warranty on any Starter Battery before!
(full disclosure - I did have to cut the little cover pegs off the battery top for it to slide into the space but matter of moments with a pair of snips)
 
Panicky couple of hours with the Roamer 230Ah Underseat Lithium Leisure Battery this morning. Voltage was ok, given the poor solar harvest of late in the Spanish rain, but the BMS cell charging had split into 2 pairs, Cells 1&2 on the one side, and Cells 3&4 on the other, with 0.0017mv difference between the 2 pairs (normally all 4 cells have slightly differing voltages within a range of 0.0003-0.0004mv). Spoke to Steve at Roamer who said 0.0017mv was within tolerance, and the change might be due to a change of use, or no use. He advised doing a Top Balancing Charge via a long mains plug in charge over a couple of days to confirm that no one Cell was stopping the charge before reaching 3.65v (14.2v overall). This will have to wait until we get back from Spain ...

Went for a wander around Palencia, and when I left the M/home, Solar Power charge was struggling to get above 25w in grey/black skies. Returned 3 hours later, just as another downpour started, and Solar Panel was struggling to put out 8w. BUT, the 4 cells were back to within 0.0003mv of each other, and have remained so. Lithium at 13.42v now that downpour has stopped and Solar Power has benefited from a wee bit of Sun, and now getting over 5v from the Panel as clouds drift across the sky.

Seems the Lithium may just have had a hissy fit about the inconsistent solar input in the rain. Will keep an eye on the Cell Voltages as a precaution, though.

Steve
 
Steve, you need to stop micro-monitoring :)

Out of interest, did you notice this difference after maybe using the Inverter a bit? Cells usually start widening the voltage range variance after a higher current discharge or charge as no cells are totally identical and will respond ever so slightly differently. Then when the load or charge is minimal, they start to equalize themselves naturally.
 
wildebus said:
Steve, you need to stop micro-monitoring :)

Out of interest, did you notice this difference after maybe using the Inverter a bit? Cells usually start widening the voltage range variance after a higher current discharge or charge as no cells are totally identical and will respond ever so slightly differently. Then when the load or charge is minimal, they start to equalize themselves naturally.
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No use of the Inverter, David, not even to charge the toothbrushes! I did charge a bike battery for about 55 minutes 2 days ago, but it still left the battery at 13.16v and we had a 50 miles drive yesterday, plus a decent spell of solar harvest, so the battery finished the day at approx 13.3v. This pattern is little different from that for the rest of the trip ( couple of occasions I discharged the battery to 13.1v and then had to use it for lighting, lowering the drop down bed, and water pump operations, so the low point was 12.94-12.98v and the Cell range remained within 0.0003-0.0004mv ...

I expected the initial 0.0013-0014mv gap to just be a blip and rebooted the App on 4-5 occasions over a couple of hours, but the gap widened to 0017mv, which made me really jumpy! As long as I know that the battery might just misbehave like this, and that I won't cause any damage (no Protect State errors showing), I can live with the hissy fit and leave the battery to emerge from its sulk in its own good time 🤫

Steve
 
marchie said:
Panicky couple of hours with the Roamer 230Ah Underseat Lithium Leisure Battery this morning. Voltage was ok, given the poor solar harvest of late in the Spanish rain, but the BMS cell charging had split into 2 pairs, Cells 1&2 on the one side, and Cells 3&4 on the other, with 0.0017mv difference between the 2 pairs (normally all 4 cells have slightly differing voltages within a range of 0.0003-0.0004mv). Spoke to Steve at Roamer who said 0.0017mv was within tolerance, and the change might be due to a change of use, or no use. He advised doing a Top Balancing Charge via a long mains plug in charge over a couple of days to confirm that no one Cell was stopping the charge before reaching 3.65v (14.2v overall). This will have to wait until we get back from Spain ...

Went for a wander around Palencia, and when I left the M/home, Solar Power charge was struggling to get above 25w in grey/black skies. Returned 3 hours later, just as another downpour started, and Solar Panel was struggling to put out 8w. BUT, the 4 cells were back to within 0.0003mv of each other, and have remained so. Lithium at 13.42v now that downpour has stopped and Solar Power has benefited from a wee bit of Sun, and now getting over 5v from the Panel as clouds drift across the sky.

Seems the Lithium may just have had a hissy fit about the inconsistent solar input in the rain. Will keep an eye on the Cell Voltages as a precaution, though.

Steve
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The error you're seeing there is minimal Steve and not of any concern.
If you're anal about things then depending on which brand of BMS is fitted to your batteries there may be an option in the BMS settings to adjust when balancing takes place, sometimes the BMS is set to only balance whilst charging over a preset charge current which reduces the overall balancing time, if you have the option then reconfigure it and set the balance to "Always".
 
I went over to Alpha batteries to get the battery tested with one of these which is better than the electronic method.

1741276882143.png

It measured up at 12.6v.

I still don't understand how it got to 0v on the vans display, and two meters and a 12v socket plug in, also no dash lights.

This was on the 24 Feb after being on charge 48 hours, and a bit of sunshine, hab despite being knackered always shows good voltage, I'll replace it once it dies.
1741277164577.jpeg
 
I installed a Battery Monitor BM2 which was bluetooth enabled to my Santa Fe, it's now on my MH. It keeps a record of battery voltages and is good for solving any problems. It also can gives alerts for when the battery is getting low. I've had 2 of these and would get another if I got another car. - no connection to the company.
 
marchie said:
Panicky couple of hours with the Roamer 230Ah Underseat Lithium Leisure Battery this morning. Voltage was ok, given the poor solar harvest of late in the Spanish rain, but the BMS cell charging had split into 2 pairs, Cells 1&2 on the one side, and Cells 3&4 on the other, with 0.0017mv difference between the 2 pairs (normally all 4 cells have slightly differing voltages within a range of 0.0003-0.0004mv). Spoke to Steve at Roamer who said 0.0017mv was within tolerance, and the change might be due to a change of use, or no use. He advised doing a Top Balancing Charge via a long mains plug in charge over a couple of days to confirm that no one Cell was stopping the charge before reaching 3.65v (14.2v overall). This will have to wait until we get back from Spain ...

Went for a wander around Palencia, and when I left the M/home, Solar Power charge was struggling to get above 25w in grey/black skies. Returned 3 hours later, just as another downpour started, and Solar Panel was struggling to put out 8w. BUT, the 4 cells were back to within 0.0003mv of each other, and have remained so. Lithium at 13.42v now that downpour has stopped and Solar Power has benefited from a wee bit of Sun, and now getting over 5v from the Panel as clouds drift across the sky.

Seems the Lithium may just have had a hissy fit about the inconsistent solar input in the rain. Will keep an eye on the Cell Voltages as a precaution, though.

Steve
Click to expand...
This is one reason I am glad I have dumb batteries. Been in 6 years now and I only have to check my Victron shunt, never had any problem at all with them, they just work. I do keep an eye on internal temps if I am in sub zero park ups but easy enough to manage
 
My lead acids are 12 years old and still doing the biz, but i have noticed they do fall down a point or two on voltage over night, new starter batt rests at 12.7 and lez batss at 12.5 or 6v by morning.
 
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