12v battery low warning light

[MandaS]

Hi all, does anyone have a conversion done by Cascade Conversions in Wales & is enough of an electrical boffin to understand how the leisure battery interacts with the vehicle battery? I suspect I’m going to have an argument with VW van servicing in Swindon on Monday & could do with understanding the wiring a bit better. Rob at Cascade has already been a reliable source of information, but he’s busy and must get sick of me phoning him The van is only 9 months old, the issue has to be a warranty fix, but VW immediately came out with ‘got a conversion? Must be that’

 

[Deaky]

Not familiar with that setup, some photos of the starter, leisure batteries and any sharpers would be helpful. Also a description of any issues you’re experiencing

 

[ginkster]

As Deaky says, some pics of the key components and an idea of what is happening will help.

Often there is no interaction between starter battery and leisure battery other than the SB charging the LB when the engine is running via a DC-DC charger. Once the engine is switched off this should disconnect. It may be this isn’t happening properly.

The other common issue is the SB going flat while camping due to lots of opening the doors, central locking, interior lights coming on etc. If it’s flattened once it may well be damaged and therefore not holding charge. A good way around this is an Ablemail AMT12-2 which trickle charges the SB from the LB to keep it topped up.

 

[MandaS]

Not familiar with that setup, some photos of the starter, leisure batteries and any sharpers would be helpful. Also a description of any issues you’re experiencing

The van is at the garage so not able to do photos; and I wasn’t able to go away in either this weekend bad fun!
The problem started three weeks ago when the warning came on saying 12v battery low, drive to charge. The van had been driven to a site for around 60 mins, parked up on electric hook up for 48 hours & this happened on the Sunday morning when I started it to go home. Then last Sunday I had collected it from storage 10 minutes away, cleaned the van, & the warning came on when I started it to go back to the storage. I hadn’t turned anything on in the back of the van so hard to accept the reason the garage gave of ‘something in the conversion is draining it’ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Deaky]

My guess is that your dc-dc charger is connected directly to the negative post of the starter battery. A pic will confirm. Being on hookup will not necessarily charge the starter battery.

 

[TheGrapeEscape]

As everyone is saying, pics will help us understand the issues. It would be good to see the setup you have