Dead leisure battery or ablemail's fault?

[tomosllyr]

I've recently noticed that my leisure battery is dead every morning, and even after a 3hr drive yesterday was not fully charged.

Set up is lead leisure battery, Victron DC-DC charger, Victron MPPT, solar panel, Sargeant PDU and ablemail trickle charger.

Yesterday I switched off the leisure set up (I know this isn't the same as disconnecting it, but I thought it would give me an idea). This morning leisure battery voltage was 10.1v.

Before I change the leisure battery, is there a chance that the ablemail is overly draining it?

 

[t0mb0]

It’s not likely to be the trickle charger but anything is possible so you’re going to need some more investigation to find out. I’d start by working out whether the actual leisure battery charging kit is working as expected - measure the voltages at the very least and preferably current flow with a clamp meter (assuming you don’t have a shunt already installed).

Either way though, your leisure battery likely isn’t too healthy if it’s been taken down to 10v or so. I’d verify the rest of the kit is working as expected though or you run the risk of putting a new battery in and then immediately trashing it.

 

[Anakin]

The ablemail settings will only charge the starter battery if the leisure battery is at a healthy voltage, so it’s unlikely to be that at fault.

If your leisure battery is flat, it will take at least 12 hours on a mains charger to recharge it, not 3 hours of driving, where your smart alternator will not always be in charging mode. Try hooking up the leisure battery to a proper charger and see what happens, but it may be so flat that you’ve damaged it now.