Jayco Off Road Battery Problem
Submitted: Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 21:28
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jefgold
I recently purchased a Jayco Expanda Off Road Van 2006. It has provision for a battery so I went to Battery World and got a 100a Gel Battery and a charger which charged it up to 13.5v before I went.
Just came back from a weekend in the bush. Friday night used the lights of the van - 3 of them for various times. Saturday my wife had one light on for several hours. That night, tried to use a 12 v TV, there wasn't enough charge to get it going. Found out that the battery had gone down to 11.6v (in one night?)
It was only normal useage and I expected that it would be okay for 5 days, but one night.
Anyone got any ideas?
Jeff
Reply By: pelbo - Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 22:12
Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 22:12
What type of charger did you get for it? Was it a 3 stage charger?
Did you try to run your 3 way fridge off the battery?
Did you leave your vehicle hooked up?
What about water pump? Did you also have a compressor fridge, like an Engel?
AnswerID:
305852
Follow Up By: GerryP - Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 22:29
Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 22:29
Also, what kind of lights, incandescent or fluoro? If they are globes, how many watts each? It's surprising how quickly a few globes will suck the battery down. Outside light are often incandescent globes as
well.
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: Nomadic Navara - Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 22:52
Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 22:52
Gerry
Jayco use ancient technology electrics. The lights all have 20 W incandescent globes.
PeterD
FollowupID:
571938
Reply By: Member - AJB (VIC) - Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 22:48
Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 22:48
I would say the battery was not charged completely. I have the same van and use a 90 amp sealed lead acid and have got 5 nights out of it using lights, rangehood and ran a small DVD player for a couple of hours. We are pretty diligent in turning lights off and only using the ones we need for as long as we need. The Jayco system shuts the circuit down when the battery gets down to about 11.5 volts to save completely flattening the battery.
The simple solution to long stays running on 12v is to use the second battery (if you have one) in the tow vehicle as much as possible, as this gets charged when tripping around, and isolate the van battery. I have made up an "extension lead" so I can plug the van to the second battery and do not have to locate the car so close to the van. If that makes sense.
Anyway you should get a weekend out of your type of battery easily. You didn't have the three way fridge running on 12v did you?
AnswerID:
305863
Reply By: Nomadic Navara - Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 23:00
Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 23:00
The problem is that the power supply (Setec) in Jayco vans is not an efficient battery charger. The maximum output voltage is a lot lower than that of a proper multi stage charger. If you want to charge your battery in a timely manner then purchase a proper battery charger. The Setec is only capable of maintaining a charged battery, not recovering a discharged battery.
With a good battery charger you can get rid of your Setec. The Cetek models are a favoured model with members of this
forum.
PeterD
AnswerID:
305866
Reply By: MEMBER - Darian (SA) - Monday, May 26, 2008 at 08:34
Monday, May 26, 2008 at 08:34
I'm a bit of an elctro-klutz but via experience with my chargings suggest that your battery may not have been a 'real' 13.5 V after charging (as suggested above) - you need to run a device on it briefly to see what the 'working' charge really is. It seems a quality 3 stage charger is the go (25A models are usually $300 and up - more A more $).
AnswerID:
305880
Follow Up By: jefgold - Monday, May 26, 2008 at 20:08
Monday, May 26, 2008 at 20:08
Thanks Everyone.
The battery was a new one which is the same as a Haze Deep cycle Gel battery N70Gel which hadn't been used. I checked it on the multi meter and it registered 12.6 V so I charged it up again on a Matson 3 stage charger which I also bought from Battery World. I was comfortable that the battery was fully charged.
The fridge was on gas as I put it on myself, so I didn't expect any draw from that.
I talked to a Jayco Service guy today and he was just as surprised as I was. He has suggested that I get an electrician to
check out the power load and find out what is drawing the power. I'll do this later on in the week, in the meantime I will try and replicate the problem at
home and see what happens.
I'll keep you posted.
Jeff
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