I just put a new leisure battery in my campervan and have noticed that recently the stereo cuts out if the volume gets too high. I just measured the voltage at 12.4 volts and have put it on an AC charge.
What should the voltage of a brand new battery be, and is this likely to be causing the issue with the radio? I have the same issue regardless of whether the engine is running or not. The car battery is fine.
I recently ran the fridge off the battery for a couple of days, without any issues other than with the radio. The fridge works fine, the 12v DC socket works fine (charging phones etc) and the led lights are OK. But as well as cutting out, the display on the radio also dims with loud beats in the music (a nice effect, but a bit worrying with a 6 week trip coming up!).
cheers
stereo cuts out if the volume gets too high.
Did you mean voltage ?
EDIT: If you run a twin battery system, then one of [url= http://www.expedition-equipment.com/products/battery-management/monitors/national-luna-s388-dual-battery-monitor-with-alarm ]these [/url]is well worth fitting so you can keep an eye on what is going on, especially if running a fridge.
Sorry, no I meant that if I turn up the volume beyond a certain point, the stereo cuts out. Presumably because this requires a little more power?
A bit of googling suggests that a fully charged battery should read about 12.7v, whereas 12.4 would be about 50% discharged.
So, either my alternator isnt charging it fully or the battery isnt holding its charge properly.
my alternator isnt charging it fully
it can't. you need a management system or except that this is the case.
Thing is, I never had this stereo issue with my previous battery and only ever used the alternator to charge, or occasionally an AC charger when hooked up.
run stereo from the other battery does it still do this?
The increase in volume will create more drain but not enough to switch it off as the load is no tthat high [ I am assuming you are not running 7 subwoofers at 200 watt each etc. Is there a circuit breaker that trips and resets /
12.4 is the point at which you should charge your battery as anything more is a deep discharge and will fubbar non traction batteries.
You can get full charge from an alternator but it will take a very very long drive as it trickle charges after about 15-30 minutes
Thanks, good warning about the low voltage. I drove nearly 500 miles last weekend so would have thought the alternator might have done the job.
I'm a bit of an idiot when it comes to this sort of thing, so dont know how to switch the stereo to the main battery. But I did have a similar issue with a previous older leisure battery that would cause the stereo to turn off if I hooked up an ipod, but not when I just played the radio, so assumed that was a power thing too.
You say you ran the fridge pf the battery thiswoulse a lot of jui ce iirc a caravan fridge uses about 10 amps
The Alternator won't ever achieve a full charge to a leisure battery using a split load relay system due to voltage drop along the cable run. even if alternator is putting out 12.9 volts at source it'll drop to around 12.5 at the battery unless you have a massive cable and it's only a very short run.
This however doesn't fix the stereo issue, do you have a large amp that needs more than 12.5 volts to stay on? when cranked up big amps can draw a lot of juice.
have you measured the voltage when the stereo is in use? to see how it dips?
I dont agree with Blazing saddles
An aleternator will kick out between 13.5 and 14.5 when in operation thought the amperage may be negligible and trickling for reasons to complex and dull to goinot here
There will be some voltage drop [see odf if you want to know /calculate] but I doubt it will cause the voltage to be below 12.7 and I would
Split chargers are more efficient these days than the old split diodes but you can eradicate them by fitting an one way charging system so it can charge as usual when the alternator runs but not draw from the main starter which I assume is an easier fix.
As he notes it is possible that the stereo cuts of because of low battery wattage and there may be an issue with the battery
Charging it to full charge using a three step procedure if possible remove ot from the vehicle and see if it holds a charge [ all batteries loose voltage but it should be negligible over a week...is there a battery issue? Possibly the battery only "allows" a certain amount of drw of power [ cranking amps type thing but I would be surprised/amazed if a normal car stereo could exceed this
FWIW most 12 volt equipment will operate under incredibly low voltages as low as 11.5 generally.
I lived of 12 volt for years so have geeky knowledge and practical experience.
You rarely get 12.7 from a battery once attached to as large system [ I was on a boat] as there are huge cable run lengths.
You can e-mail me if you have dull questions or you want help /advice
FWIW I strongly recommend an alternator charger such as this
http://www.sp-shop.co.uk/Sterling-Power-Digital-Advanced-Alternator-Regulator.html for regular quick charging off batteries.
In general alternators are poor as they respond to load and are not really designed to charge batteries and will kick out as little as 2-5 amps after 15-30 minuted of engine run time. if you need 50 amps [ 50% discharged 100 amp battery for example] and this is split between two batteries you can see full charge will take some time.
Power Cap for the stereo? Bad earth on the stereo? Different Stereo?
sort of sounds like you have no management of the leisure battery at all. if the two are just connected up in parallel then i'd get that sorted sharpish. the leisure battery could be seeing demand from the starter 😯