Battery

NannaD · Member

Battery

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

It is unlikely that your battery was ever 14.6V. What you are reading is the voltage from the charge source.
12.6V for a battery doing nothing for a while (no loads, no charge happening) is pretty much fully charged and normal.
Cheers,
Peter

Warren-Pat_01 · Guru

Hello Nanna,
We are assuming you have a typical 100Ah AGM battery & LED lights - please advise if this is not the case.

Charge voltage is nominally 14.3-14.5v; Float - when the battery reaches its full capacity & is still connected to a charge source is around 13.2-13.7v; sitting dormant the battery voltage is 12.6-12.8v. Have a look at www.energymatters.com.au/components/battery-voltage-discharge/ if your battery is a different type.

At 50% capacity, a battery sits around 12.2-12.3v. If you see it any lower, I'd suggest you reduce the load/connect the charger (power or solar).

When I bought my van, someone had installed one of these - www.jaycar.com.au/marine-grade-cigarette-power-socket-with-led-voltmeter/p/PS2024 - it is connected to the battery via a fused circuit & has a small press-button switch to check the battery condition.
Alternatively, you could use one of these - www.jaycar.com.au/search%26+volt+meter&CSRFToken=d0e468ad-3eec-4e79-9170-8dafd4b67812. They are cheap but not nasty.

I too have a only light load (a few LED lights) but you have double the amount of solar than me (roof solar, that is as I carry additional portables).

Ron-D · Guru

Your. Better off discussing this in the teckies section of the forum theres a wealth of information there just troll through it...

Jaahn · Guru

NannaD wrote:
our battery in our van was always 14.6 but now it only gets to 12.6 as we only use it for our lights also only have 120 solar unit.
would that mean the our battery is on its way out, & need to be replaced with new battery

Hi NannaD smile

You would be better off asking technical question in the Teckies Corner as Ron also said. But here is my answer. We do not know why your battery only reaches 12.6V. You would have to give more information and test a few things to make a judgement on it. But it is not likely the battery is bad.

my guess is that the solar regulator is faulty, or the wiring or something like that. If you do not fix it then the battery will fail. But replacing the battery without fixing the fault will just ruin a new battery too. So get it checked by a person who knows about solar and batteries or perhaps another camper may be able to check it out with a meter for you. hmm

Best I can do from my computer keyboard aww

Jaahn

-- Edited by Jaahn on Sunday 11th of November 2018 08:17:27 AM