Battery Charging Float or Three Stage ? Forums

DABurleigh

Dipsticks,

Clive's thinking about this.

"should be OK suitable for both batteries?"

Yes, but not in parallel (is one the vehicle battery and the other a leisure?).

As to silver calcium, see my post back in November:

dipsticks

Dave
Thanks for your reply
Yes the Calcium Silver battery is the what Ford call the starter Battery and the Varta is what they (Ford) call an Additional Deep Cycle battery.
Auto Sleeper call them respectively the Vehicle and Habitation Battery!

I don't have many diagrams of the vehicle wiring but it seems to me that the Varta battery is as much part of the vehicle electrics as the Calcium Silver one is when the engine is running and only when the vehicle charge relay is released the Varta then becomes isolated from the vehicle and is then used a Leisure Battery

The drawing I have shows the starter battery (Calcium Silver) supplying:
Starter Motor and Alternator.
Passenger Junction Box power, start related.

And the Varta deep cycle battery via a bus bar suppling:
3 fused (60a) customer connections.
Passenger junction box power, non-start related.
Heated front windscreen.
Standard relay box power, non-start related.
Engine junction box, non start related.

I have to say I am a bit surprised that I don't seem to have a dedicated Leisure battery but does it matter ? Everything works fine I would just like to benefit from the full charge that can be delivered by using the 3 stage charge cycle. This is a July 2007 vehicle.

Kind regards

Pete

DABurleigh

It seems to me you simply have the normal arrangement we all have but your batteries are co-located? If so on the one hand this means your habitation/ leisure battery will get a better charge than most of us (the extra distance introduces resistance). On the other, it suggests to me, but I need to think about it some more, that the batteries ought to be the same for long life.

Dave