Battery problems

mellykelly · Member

RE: Battery problems

mellykelly · Member

Nope unfortunately its under the bed!

Phil C · Guru

OK, let me know what happens when hubby wakes up. Good luck.

mellykelly · Member

Thanks

KFT · Guru

You are doing great here Phil, good ya mate

I am thinking there should be a 230v supply to the fridge so that when mains is on the 230v takes priority

Melly you will need to have a look in the cupboards and spaces around the fridge and see if you can find a powerpoint with a plug in it or a plug that should be in a powerpoint and switched on.

This would allow your fridge to run on mains and permit the battery to fully charge.

frank

mellykelly · Member

Wouldn't I need an anderson plug thingo for that? I disconnected the fridge overnight to let battery catch up but it didn't work. Same prob as soon as I plugged it back in.

KFT · Guru

The fridge should have a normal 230v 3 pin plug on the end of a lead somewhere so that it can be run from mains power.

how did you disconnect the fridge?

if the battery did not catchup then the charger was not switched on or not working.

frank

mellykelly · Member

Yes the fridge has the normal power cord but there's no jack to plug it into in the camper - only the 12v. We will have to put the camper up and see if there's an on/off switch on the charger (which is under the bed unfortunately). Would have thought the on/off was on the display panel as pictured. Will have to investigate further. Thanks everyone for your input. Amazing how much help one gets from people who don't even know me - much appreciated. The power of the internet - yay :)

mellykelly · Member

PS I disconnected the fridge by pulling the cord out of it

Izabarack · Guru

mellykelly wrote:
Found after a couple of days the fridge was off as the battery ran down. Unplugged fridge overnight and left battery charging, turned on the this morning to find 5 minutes later still no power in battery. All the appropriate switches are on (pic attached). Clearly the battery is not charging. Is there a trick to this? Would appreciate some assistance as we are going away Tuesday and completely new at this!!

When you say the fridge was off because the battery was flat, are you saying you expected the battery was going to run the fridge. If the fridge draw flattened the battery, it may have also stuffed the battery. A house battery does not keep a fridge going long if not being charged as well.

Left the battery charging? Was the battery charging or do you simply think it was? If the battery is still flat and it was getting a charge, likely the battery is stuffed. Lots of questions are needed to sort this problem out.

Iza

KFT · Guru

The fridge is a waeco but not sure what model.

If it is a compressor fridge it should have a low voltage cutout to protect the battery

If it is a 3 way then Iza could be spot on and the battery may be stuffed.

Melly can you tell us what model the fridge is please?

mellykelly · Member

It's a compressor fridge - Waeco, brand new. I know the fridge wasn't working because it was flashing orange which the manual tells me is advising low battery power. Yes it does have that low voltage cutout. My husband is now awake (night shift) and he says there is a switch on the battery charger inside the camper and it did not occur to him prior to this thread so that maybe our problem. Will have to put camper up and turn switch on!!

Iza, I just thought the battery was charging but clearly it was not - probably due to the fact that this idiot and her husband didn't turn the switch on at the charger!!

KFT · Guru

Thanks Melly

now hopefully you can get the battery charging and also find a powerpoint to plug the fridge into so it will run on mains power whenever you are hooked up. At least that way you will be running the fridge on mains and charging the battery at the same time.

The little rubber things above your switches look to me like they could be circuit breakers. You will need to press all of these to ensure they are reset otherwise the switch can be on but no power will be going to the devices.

The battery main switch should not need to be on while you are not using any 12 volt stuff. The battery should still get charged with it off.

hope that helps

frank

Phil C · Guru

Now im real keen to see what the outcome of this one is. Melly, dont feel too bad Ive met pilots who didnt turn on a switch or set a circuit breaker who bought an aircraft back from task and were very red faced when a lowly avionics puke showed them how stupid they were... Mind you the boss got a bit snappy at them as well...

Cheers

Phil C · Guru

mellykelly wrote:
Yes the fridge has the normal power cord but there's no jack to plug it into in the camper - only the 12v. We will have to put the camper up and see if there's an on/off switch on the charger (which is under the bed unfortunately). Would have thought the on/off was on the display panel as pictured. Will have to investigate further. Thanks everyone for your input. Amazing how much help one gets from people who don't even know me - much appreciated. The power of the internet - yay :)

Thanks Melly, this is a wonderful forum when you can get help at any time. stick around its worth the time you spend on line.

Cheers

Phil C · Guru

KFT wrote:

The little rubber things above your switches look to me like they could be circuit breakers. You will need to press all of these to ensure they are reset otherwise the switch can be on but no power will be going to the devices.

The battery main switch should not need to be on while you are not using any 12 volt stuff. The battery should still get charged with it off.

hope that helps

frank

Gday Frank, I cant find a circuit for this thing anywhere, I guess its reasonable to assume the battery switch only leads off to the DC distribution, but I would suggest leaving it on as there will be no other way of telling if the batts are charging (voltmeter on panel).

Cheers mate, methinks this is finger trouble and lack of communication from the dealer cry cant believe there was no user manual with this camper.. I really feel for Melly and hubby, chucked in at the deep end like that.

mellykelly · Member

I'll let you know. We have a back up battery and we are meeting my brother who has been grey nomading for 6 months and knows what he's doing, so we have decided not to unpack everything as it is such a debacle and sort it out when we get there. Huge leap of faith that it's the switch but if not there's not much we can do about it anyway, given everything's closed and we're leaving Tues. We're doing the free camping thing in Mansfield (Sheepyard Flats). Its just for a week so we'll just have to deal with it. At worst we can go into Mansfield and have it looked at, but with backup battery and solar we should be able to get through a week. There's going to be lots of little things we will have to learn about and resolve as we go on given we've never done this before. Now if it was a computer I would be fine!!!

Thank you so much for putting so much time into my problem :) xx

mellykelly · Member

I'm going to get onto MDC when we get back about the manual - I agree it's ridiculous. I can solve pretty much anything with a blasted manual!!

KFT · Guru

No worries at all melly, this is one of the things we do for newbies such as yourselves.

we might need your help with a computer issue one day

what comes around........

Phil, the "normal" operation of a 12v isolator is to remove the load from the battery but the charger(s) should remain connected. Of course they can also be used to isolate the battery from the towing vehicle supply so I am guessing a bit too.

and just to reassure you Phil the RV world rarely goes to the trouble of actually drawing a circuit diagram of anything they do. I reckon they want to maintain the mystery.

cheers mate
love eastern standard time----- Happy hour comes an hour earlier in the day.

stay safe
Frank

Phil C · Guru

Yeah that's a bugga when you can't even get a wiring diagram Jayco point blank refused my request for a diagram saying it was proprietary document. Yeah right.

I'm a bit in the dark too about disconnect load etc so I'm not going to comment on that one till I know better.

Cheers mate, have a great Monday.

Izabarack · Guru

mellykelly wrote:
..... this idiot and her husband .......

No idiots,Melly. If you don't know, then asking usually sorts things out with an input of information. You have probably worked out that most here are happy to help if they can.

Iza

Baz421 · Guru

Well I may have missed this in reading the previous posts, BUT

Our van 12V fridge has a MOBITRONICS (Waeco) 240V to 12V transformer fitted that run the fridge off 240V when plugged into 240V by means of transforming the 240V to 12V. This is an automatic process when 240 power is on to the transformer.

Input is obviously a 240V 3 pin plug, and out put can be hard wired direct to fridge or by cigarette lighter plug (depending on the model).

We also have an 18litre Waeco fridge that operates the same,principle ie 240V to 12V transformer via cig lighter plug.

Hope this helps, and as son one said look in cupboards etc to see where wires are.

Cheers Baz

-- Edited by Baz421 on Sunday 5th of April 2015 07:28:57 PM

-- Edited by Baz421 on Sunday 5th of April 2015 07:31:41 PM

Baz421 · Guru

Here's a pic of the common transformer - refer to my previous post. Cheers Baz.

Waeco transformer.jpg

ballast2 · Guru

G'day all. I know nothing about electronics so have said nothing. I will say that it is absolutely great that so many have offered help. I feel that is what is so great about this forum. Well done to all.
Cheers