Electrical Battery Not Charging.
- Thread starter Sweet Pea
- Start date
Are all the negative connections going to the drifter shunt ?
Jayco seem completely unable to correctly wire a drifter
Our Drifter was all pear shaped when we got the van, and despite the visually beautiful and incredibly neat way it was wired up ... it was all completely wrong. It looked so good I was reluctant to re-wire it, so i emailing Setec to confirm it wasn't an alternate method. Setec said I should contact Jayco, because they are the experts .... Yup. Dumb and dumber
Now the wiring looks like cheap, but it actually works
With the drifter panel, when your vans are in storage plugged into 240v, does everybody have their battery switch (top right one) left on (i.e. top out/ bottom down) or off (top in/ bottom out).
I leave mine on (top out/ bottom in) and plugged in all the time and when I went into the van over the weekend, the panel was saying discharging with 25 hrs left on the battery.
I leave mine on (top out/ bottom in) and plugged in all the time and when I went into the van over the weekend, the panel was saying discharging with 25 hrs left on the battery.
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Hi @Tonykarter15,
did you happen to note the battery voltage shown on the drifter panel, firstly when you left the van, and later when you went into the van over the weekend?
cheers
Mike
12.4v was what it is showing after 24 hours plugged in with the battery switch turned on. The note on the display saying it is discharging and only showing 25 hrs left on the battery is what im confused with.
I pulled the plug and turned everything off before going overseas for 5 weeks and noted this when I got home and plugged it back in/ turned it on.
I pulled the plug and turned everything off before going overseas for 5 weeks and noted this when I got home and plugged it back in/ turned it on.
Hi @Tonykarter15,
it is possible that the Setec Battery charger is not charging your battery? Are there any lights lit up on the Setec Unit?
You should have a yellow one indicating that the battery is connected, and a green one indicating that the Setec is getting 240V
cheers
Mike
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Jayco did ring back as promised and gave us two options to try.
1. Drain the batteries completely incase the control panel was operating on memory?? Wouldn't that have been checked at Jayco? We were very nervous to completely drain two new very exy batteries!
2. Check the temperature setting. I'm sure I've read something on the temperature setting in the manual but again wasn't that checked by Jayco?
We went with option 2. first thinking if that didn't work we still had option 1. and found the temperature was set at 20.c so as soon as the temp dropped to 20.c and under the batteries stopped charging. We live in a cold climate and rarely get out of single digits in winter so that meant we were never going to charge at this time of year. Doug reset the temp to -20, lol we do get to -6 so we will be right.
We are now charging and everything is reading fine.
We questioned that this must not have been checked when the van went in a few weeks ago or discovered when the van was there being detailed ready for handover back in November 2015. Jayco had it for three days yet when we got the van home we were able to see straight away that we weren't charging on mains so we think they can't have popped it on power after the batteries were replaced.
It's unfortunate this has happened but at the end of the day we have a great caravan and this has been our only problem. Eventually everything can be resolved. The trick is keeping your peace while waiting out the eventually!
Finally the holidaying can begin
1. Drain the batteries completely incase the control panel was operating on memory?? Wouldn't that have been checked at Jayco? We were very nervous to completely drain two new very exy batteries!
2. Check the temperature setting. I'm sure I've read something on the temperature setting in the manual but again wasn't that checked by Jayco?
We went with option 2. first thinking if that didn't work we still had option 1. and found the temperature was set at 20.c so as soon as the temp dropped to 20.c and under the batteries stopped charging. We live in a cold climate and rarely get out of single digits in winter so that meant we were never going to charge at this time of year. Doug reset the temp to -20, lol we do get to -6 so we will be right.
We are now charging and everything is reading fine.
We questioned that this must not have been checked when the van went in a few weeks ago or discovered when the van was there being detailed ready for handover back in November 2015. Jayco had it for three days yet when we got the van home we were able to see straight away that we weren't charging on mains so we think they can't have popped it on power after the batteries were replaced.
It's unfortunate this has happened but at the end of the day we have a great caravan and this has been our only problem. Eventually everything can be resolved. The trick is keeping your peace while waiting out the eventually!
Finally the holidaying can begin
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Do you mean the temp setting in the drifter control. I thought the temp setting was only for the drifter to have a better guess at how long the battery has remaining at the set temp. Did not know the drifter is connected to setec charger to tell it when to charge or not to charge.
I see you mistake, never assume Jayco has checked anything, QC are just letters of the alphabet.
Not only should you not assume it's been checked, but you shouldn't assume it's been wired up correctly in the first place
Good morning gents this is what Jayco Sydney explained to us.
There's a setting in the drifter control panel that varies the temperature range at which the battery will safely charge. Our setting in the drifter control panel was set at 20.c for the minimum and 50.c for the max. While I doubt we'll ever get to 50.c having the minimum set at 20.c meant as soon as we hit 19.c the battery shut down and would not charge. The chap at Jayco was disappointed this function hadn't been checked before the van came back to us but alas disappointed didn't fork out the 900 + $
I wonder what the function of this setting is for? I guess to protect the battery in extreme temperatures?
Base23 we have the drifter/setec.
Lol assuming something will be done properly inevitably gets us into trouble
Edited for spelling mistakes
There's a setting in the drifter control panel that varies the temperature range at which the battery will safely charge. Our setting in the drifter control panel was set at 20.c for the minimum and 50.c for the max. While I doubt we'll ever get to 50.c having the minimum set at 20.c meant as soon as we hit 19.c the battery shut down and would not charge. The chap at Jayco was disappointed this function hadn't been checked before the van came back to us but alas disappointed didn't fork out the 900 + $
I wonder what the function of this setting is for? I guess to protect the battery in extreme temperatures?
Base23 we have the drifter/setec.
Lol assuming something will be done properly inevitably gets us into trouble
Edited for spelling mistakes
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Be blowed, I read something about that on another site just last night.......................what a great discovery, I will store this bit of info away someone is bound to ask the question again..................I wonder if it's the battery temp or ambient temp ???? If it's the battery temp I would drop it lower while I think 50 is okay..................since I'm on the road I don't have my Bible with me to check up.
Hi @Drover,
I don't have a Drifter panel. But I have downloaded and read the manual printed in 2014, and in that manual, I can only see one parameter for setting the temperature related to batteries, advanced settings, parameter 8:
Battery Operating Temperature
This is the typical operating temperature of the battery. This helps improve the
accuracy of the predicted time remaining readout 3 . This can either be in °C or °F depending on parameter 5
Which seems to imply it would have no effect on whether the Setec is charging or not.
Are there different types of drifter panels?
I'm confused.
cheers
Mike
I'm confused as well.
I do have a drifter, and there is no control over the Setec charger from the drifter panel.
All it can do is turn the battery switch on or off.
I think they might have been communicating out of his backside
Hi @Bellbirdweb,
sorry, I just read back over the previous posts and found I had just repeated what you had already written.
Just out of curiosity, what is the setting on your Drifter panel for the Battery Operating Temperature?
I would almost bet that setting it to 50C would have absolutely no effect on the Setec charging the battery.
cheers
Mike
Hi @mikerezny, I just checked mine, and it's set at the default 25 degrees.
It's 11 degrees here now and is still charging, as it has at much lower temperatures over the past 3 years.
@Sweet Pea I think you've been told a load of BS from Jayco Sydney (not that I would be surprised by that).
The temperature setting on the drifter is only there to improve the accuracy of the capacity reading, it doesn't stop the battery charging once it gets above the set value.
If you want to get your van serviced by people who know what they are doing in Sydney, I'd recommend RVGO at Terrey Hills or just about anyone else other than Jayco Sydney.