Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Smudgeoff Cleaning Services on September 06, 2011, 06:52:13 pm
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Hi all
I have a purefreedom flow control and my battery has a split charge relay (intelegent)
my problem is the battery reads 11.1 - 11.5 volts so I don't think the intelegent relay is working properly.
What tests can I do to check it?
The water flow isn't as fast due to the low voltage.
Please help Daz
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if it aint working . phone pure freedom they should replace it for fee
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Hi all
I have a purefreedom flow control and my battery has a split charge relay (intelegent)
my problem is the battery reads 11.1 - 11.5 volts so I don't think the intelegent relay is working properly.
What tests can I do to check it?
The water flow isn't as fast due to the low voltage.
Please help Daz
Probably needs a supplementary overnight charge with a stand alone battery charger. Most of us don't travel enough miles everyday for the charge to be returned to the battery through the split charge relay.
If its a separate intelligent split charge relay (not part of a pump controller) then you should be able to run the engine with your pole connected up to the pump and see the pump delivering a better water flow. It may take some time for the relay to kick in as it dictates that the vehicle battery gets a full charge first before the aux battery.
First check is to find the fuses which should be very near the positive battery terminal posts of each battery to make sure they haven't blown.
We put our batteries on a separate charger every couple of days. Yesterday was a prime example of the issue you may be experiencing. On Monday I fully charged my leisure battery and both of us went off about a mile down the road to finish off a big job we had which took us 2 hours each. As the job was an atrium I guess that both pumps worked for more than 90% of that period, about 3 3/4 hours. On completion we drove home and parked up. I then put our 10amp intelligent leisure battery charger on the battery and it took about 2 hours to fully charge that battery.
On occassion my son will work a day with his van and drive a 40 mile round trip in the evening, and even in the summer, with no headlights on, his battery still wouldn't be fully charged when he came home and parked up. Both of us have 15 amp fuses protecting our split charge relay circuits, and in 6 years we have never replaced a fuse. So even with a big alternator (Citroen Relay van has 150amp alternator) the leisure battery isn't receiving more than 10amps charge or the fuse would have blown. So if his pump worked 5 hours and drew 4 amps per hour he has taken 20amps from his battery. If his split charge relay is delivering 10 amps per hour then he will need to drive for 2 hours to put the days use back into the battery.
Spruce
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Thankyou Spruce, very well put I'll look into all your advice and thanks again
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Some good advice spruce it may also be worth checking the cables are a short as possible as long loops of cable act as a resister and reduce voltage and current draw.
Plus you could check if the relay is working is to start the engine and make sure that the two battery voltages are the same. readings. If they are the same then the relay is engaged and effectively the alternator is connected to the battery. If this isn't the case, check the MAIN battery' reading on it's own, it should go up to about 13.5V when the engine is started. If it doesn't then I would suspect the wiring from the alternator.
Hope that all helps
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Some good advice spruce it may also be worth checking the cables are a short as possible as long loops of cable act as a resister and reduce voltage and current draw.
Plus you could check if the relay is working is to start the engine and make sure that the two battery voltages are the same. readings. If they are the same then the relay is engaged and effectively the alternator is connected to the battery. If this isn't the case, check the MAIN battery' reading on it's own, it should go up to about 13.5V when the engine is started. If it doesn't then I would suspect the wiring from the alternator.
Hope that all helps
Hi Ian,
Yes, using a voltmeter is the best way to check to see that the leisure battery is being charged, but most probably wouldn't have a volt meter to hand as we do. (I personally think that everyone should have a voltmeter to hand as part of their kit - they are cheap enough. But then I bought mine back in the good old days when we had to set up points on the cars distributor when we did an engine tune up so they were as necessary as a 10mm spanner was. :))
In our kit we have a standard car battery charger that has a led light that changes from red to green advising that the battery is fully charged.
I find that running the engine with the battery charger on will change the charger light to green, also indicating that the charging circuit is working.
We did have a split charge relay burn out on my son's van a couple of years back and this is how I picked it up.
Spruce
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A Voltmeter can be very useful the Flow master has one built in. So it will measure the voltage at the control which is going to be slightly lower than at the batter due to the voltage drop down the cable. A voltmeter can be a valuable diagnostic tool.
It is good to have some knowledgeable people on here offering some good information and advice. Foe our part as the manufacture we are always looking to help where we can + we have some very good distributors out there.
As for the 10mm spanner absolutely agree with you spruce,