testing deep cycle battery

Hello smokie,

looking at the 15V figure, it looks like your charger's set too high.
If that's the case then it would have boiled dry your deep cycle battery over time.
The battery can't recover from this.
If you're in the market for a good value deep cycle 95Ah battery, look in my profile.

cheers, Peter

Hi Smokie, The battery Gurus will know more about batteries than me but just trying to help....15V!!! holy snappin turtles Batman!!! If your battery (when tested & it's the only way) underload conditions drops away...it is probably damaged & in line for battery heaven.

What's the voltage right at the fridge when the compressor is running?
Sounds like some drop between battery and fridge.

Hello Smokie, sounds like it could be a wire fault or maybe fuse box problem best is to check the voltage source in the van and see if you can test the amps while fridge is plugged in, maybe its just a corroded socket or terminal you can also use a bit of vaseline around battery terminals so that it doesn't corrode or you might loose a bit of current while running stuff i hope you sort it out good luck.

Assuming the battery in the van isn't damaged, if it started at 13v then it was already near enough to 100%, an hour on a reasonable charger could have brought it up to 15v, I will leave it to the experts whether that voltage is too high for that particular battery.
Once disconnected from the charger the fridge helped the battery down to 13v before it cut out.

If the battery was badly over charged would it not keep dropping? Or at least drop below 13v?

I would assume that if the cut out on your fridge is 11.5v and your fridge stopped when the battery was at 13v (measured while the compressor was running) then that would indicate you are losing at least 1.5v through the cabling from your battery to the fridge.

What sort of thickness cable are you using?
4 meters minimum 4mm cable, 6 meters minimum 6mm cable, over 6 meters minimum 10mm cable.

Make sure all your plugs are making a solid connection to any sockets.

You normally won't see issues in your wiring if there is no load on the system. With nothing running I would expect to have next to no drop through the wiring.

To test you will need to have the fridge running while checking voltages.

Hi Smokie

Is the cable running to where you have the fridge plugged in the vehicle manufacturers fitted cable? If so I would suggest you look at changing that first as they rarely suit running a fridge due to their smaller size.

I fitted one of theseWAECO RAPS units in my Prado and have never had a problem since with the fridge. They have a Hella fitting which is more secure for the fridge plug, and a cig type plug also, with switching so you determine when you want the fridge to turn off (ie when voltage is down or power is off)

In case you want to check the different Waeco error codes look at REPLY 3 HERE

The RAPS units are not expensive to buy and are easy to fit. You could even fit it like I did so it can be removed if you want if you change vehicles. There is an ExplorOz member (Steve) on here that sells them (and other stuff) if you want his details let me know. (No affiliation other than being a very happy customer and very satisified with his help and advice) They retail around $120 and he can post them out direct to you. I have a back problem (spine op 2008) and I easily fitted mine, although it took me longer than it would have if I fitted it before I hurt my spine. I think this would fix any vehicle manufacturer cable size issue and even Engel make a similar product for owners of engels.

If you want Steves details re the RAPS, post an email address and I will forward his numbers, email address etc, good luck with it, Cheers....

got a new battery and all working great again looks like the battery is nacked funny it shows 13v on muiltiy meter but even put it into my mates van and same thing happens there. so thanks for the help fellows cheers smokie