Ctek D250sa

[andys]

The CTEK shouldn't draw the vehicle battery down if you have connected an ignition supply properly.

It is connected as per their instructions and all the lights light up when they’re supposed to. All I did was take the relay out of the circuit and wire the Ctek right next to the battery. It carries on pulling power for the leisure battery for about 10 mins after the engine is switched off, and as you mentioned, the alternator only charges the starter battery to 80% which just seems to leave it marginal. I realise it’s quiescent current draw from the alarm etc which is actually running the battery down rather than the Ctek, it’s just that the starter battery is being left in a condition where it doesn’t have enough in reserve if the vehicle is left for a week or two. This only changed when the Ctek was fitted and was fine before.

 

[travelvolts]

Is this a 250 or 250SA?

 

[Pauly]

That's strange I have had both in mine (original started to play up when I added solar) and both of them shutdown reasonably quickly after turning of the engine, I would say my current 250SA with no solar input powers down within 60 seconds of killing engine

 

[travelvolts]

Yes, the SA version has ignition control. The previous version should have the input from the vehicle battery wired to the solar input via an ignition controlled relay.

 

[andys]

It’s an SA, I wonder if I’ve got a faulty one then. I’m not absolutely sure it was 10 mins but it was long enough to come in, go for a pee, get changed, put the kettle on and then remember I’d left something in the van so was certainly longer than 60 secs and it went off while I was looking at it. I’ll time it next time I’m home.

 

[travelvolts]

It sounds as though you don't have an ignition connection? It should shut down within 60 seconds of turning ignition off.

 

[andys]

Ignition feed is fitted and tested. Turns on and operates correctly going by the lights on the unit, other than the delayed shut down. I'm home Sat so going to time it then.

 

[PenfoldE6]

Did you get to the bottom of this? I also think the 250SA is playing up or being very keen to charge.

The ignition live is tapped from the ACC fuse (middle section of fuses). I have a ctek Battery sense on each of the batteries. With the ignition off and just the starter battery on charge (using a ctek mx5) after a period of time the aux Battery started to get charged. No ignition or EHU.

I have not taken the seat out to see the lights on the 250SA but I was not expecting this to happen.

I also forgot to set the mode to AGM when charging my starter battery hence why it got to 97% for the people that spot it

It looked like it saw a higher voltage on the starter battery and assumed the engine was running. I do have a fuse to isolate the 2 batteries which I may try next time....

 

[travelvolts]

To be expected. The charger will harvest energy from the van battery until the voltage falls to around 12.5

 

[PenfoldE6]

Ahh great - even with no ignition? I could not see that in the docs anywhere when I looked...

 

[travelvolts]

The ignition supply just forces the charger to turn on even when the alternator is switched off.

 

[PenfoldE6]

Ahh right thanks! I am just trying to diagnose any potential drain on the engine battery.

I do think the battery was left to discharge before I bought it. With electric sliders and a pre-reg van loads of people pressed lots of buttons and when I got to it the battery was so flat the door would not close.

I suspect that’s caused some lasting damage.

Thanks for your help and quick response...

 

[andys]

This has prompted me that I never posted back to this thread. The Ctek turned out to be fine, the current draw was from the Thinkware dash cameras. Once I deactivated parking mode everything was fine with no problems since.

 

[PenfoldE6]

Any idea what the draw is like? I have enabled battery safe (or whatever it’s called) on my thinkware, but does anyone have any idea what the best voltage setting should be so they shutdown when they hit this voltage?

 

[andys]

I initially set mine to 12.6v but it hit that within minutes. Stepped down until I got to 12.1v if i remember rightly and then gave up as it was hitting every time

 

[PenfoldE6]

Ace thanks - I will give it a try...

 

[jbt]

also when picking an ignition signal, make sure you don't choose one that is linked to the comfort circuits. I.e. some cars run a few circuits like radio, windows and even seat heaters for up to 20 minutes after ignition off.
you don't want to tap into these circuits

 

[travelvolts]

It wouldn't matter if you did. The charger switches off anyway when the vehicle battery falls to 12.5 volts.

 

[andys]

Only just come across this and your 10 seconds of fame @Fish

 

[Pauly]

Good find, they said they were going to tell us when when the video was released but never heard from them