Charging 6V battery

Yep, have got a second battery but the only way of charging the flat one is leave it in the Coleman & plug it in or use the second fully charged, get your hot water then get it out of the Coleman, plug in the flat one, put it back into the Coleman & put it on charge. The 6V is a FP645 (6v 4.5 Ah/20hr) Rechargeable made byFirst Power designed for standby & cyclic use.

that's what I thought....

Your battery is probably a AGM VRLA type, for which you could purchase another charger.
Shop around for a 6V/1A unit.

Best regards, batterymeister

If you have a CTEK charger or similar - I'm fairly sure they have a motorcycle battery mode which would be 6v ??

Cheers

Steve

Forget that idea - just checked CTEK specs and its all 12 volt !!
Sorry - back to plan A - 6v Charger ..

Cheers

Steve

My sister had one, it ran flat on us while we were on moreton island, her brother, me, had a jumpstart pack that we hooked up whilst we roved all over the island same with the coleman lamp, plugged it into a jump start pack i had and left it!

Then all you do to charge the jump start pack is hook it up to your vehicle and run for 20 mins or so.

I boughtr a deals direct one and threw to battery that was in it out, dead, sorry recycled the battery, put a 12v/ 20 amp battery in it and goes well!

The XC-800 is 6v Steve.

Andrew

works a treat if you know what you're doing :)

Best regards, batterymeister

umm, err, ok then :)

Andrew

Only going from memory here but the charger that comes with the coleman water heater is actually 12 volt.
Is there a step down circuit within the internal system?

Honky

There would have to be some internals to it one would think. My coleman is 1000km away at the moment so i can't check.

Andrew

Thanks very much for all the replies. Flynnie, what I was trying to say about the AC/DC charging was that it has to be done through the unit. I was trying to raise the point that whilst the spare is in and running the unit there was no other way to charge the battery that was flat apart from putting it back inside the unit. You say charge it after every use.Well I thought that also. I followed instructions when we first got the Coleman & charged it (as per instructions) for at least 12 hours. The damn thing handled about 4 applications & would not run the unit. Low battery light on. So, thought I would throw it in the river & decided against that so when I got home I rang Coleman. The lady who answers all their calls said "Take it back to where you bought it & get another." Did not want to enquire about the problem so I asked to speak with Technician. A very knowlegable guy who works on the Colemans knew the ins and outs about them. He said, "Charge battery for 12 hours is B S" Charge the battery for 24 hours. Charging for short periods is no good for battery. Prior to going away I charge both batteries for 24 hours each. No problems. My concern is, that when batteries are being used & one is flat I would like another way to charge battery than through the Coleman unit. It would be great to put coleman plug into 12 volt outlet or have Aligator clips to clip onto car battery but they are not made for that...Shame. Coleman stipulate that the battery is good for approximately 9 applications (I hope I am correct from memory) before the unit will fail. So Coleman do not mention anything about charging after every application/use.

Page 9 of the manual mentions "charge battery immediately after each outing to reach optimum performance."

The specs mention that a full charge is good for 150 litres of water...which is quite a bit of water when using these appliances for their intended task. There should be no problem running just the one battery and charging it nightly or every couple of days for 10-12 hours max.

Andrew.

Orejap

Sorry I did not pick up that you had already clarified you were juggling 2 batteries.

The CTEK 6 volt charger has been suggested and you could need an inverter as well.

Too much gear! It is bulky enough as it is in its bag with a few spare disposable lpg bottles

I can not see the usefulness of a second battery. When I got my first Hot Water on Demand I remember checking it out wondering how one could keep a second battery charged. In any event the access to the battery is not set up for a quick swap. To me the only use for a second battery is as a replacement should the first go dead.

Mine has run for a few 20 litre showers without recharging. Recharging is not a problem for me as I have some 12 volts sockets on the cruiser.

I found no way to run it directly from 12 volts or 240 without modification, which I would not do. When you plug in external power it cuts the unit off and only recharges it. This is a design decision in keeping with its intended use as a camping accessory. After all it is not intended for a semi permanent or permanent setup, Carbon monoxide and other hassles in enclosed spaces no doubt.

On my profile are a few comments on the Coleman and Gasmate hot water system.

Flynnie