Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Simon Trapani on July 03, 2020, 09:15:40 am
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I’m hoping Spruce or someone can help me.
We’ve two 16 plate Vivaro vans both with twin delivery setups, including 110 leisure battery, Spring v11 controllers, Sterling battery to battery charger, pump etc. Almost always work very local & one man per van.
The problem is with my van which is the twin turbo with stop/start. Van battery is not charging enough to stop/start. Leisure battery seems fine or certainly works well enough. Auto electrician advised at beginning of covid that van battery was only capable of being charged to 60% of capacity. (It had failed to start one day). So I bought a new one. Halfords was only place open at time due to covid but it had a 5 year guarantee. Worked fine. I bench charge the leisure battery weekly in situ with a ctek charger as you may remember from a previous thread?
If I charge the van battery the stop/start works fine. So basically I’m not doing enough mileage to keep the van battery fully charged. Any ideas? I find the Sterling instructions a tad complicated for anything other than plug & play.
Hope all that makes sense as I’m trying to type quickly on my phone. I’m guessing i could damage my van battery if it’s not kept fully charged?
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I’m hoping Spruce or someone can help me.
We’ve two 16 plate Vivaro vans both with twin delivery setups, including 110 leisure battery, Spring v11 controllers, Sterling battery to battery charger, pump etc. Almost always work very local & one man per van.
The problem is with my van which is the twin turbo with stop/start. Van battery is not charging enough to stop/start. Leisure battery seems fine or certainly works well enough. Auto electrician advised at beginning of covid that van battery was only capable of being charged to 60% of capacity. (It had failed to start one day). So I bought a new one. Halfords was only place open at time due to covid but it had a 5 year guarantee. Worked fine. I bench charge the leisure battery weekly in situ with a ctek charger as you may remember from a previous thread?
If I charge the van battery the stop/start works fine. So basically I’m not doing enough mileage to keep the van battery fully charged. Any ideas? I find the Sterling instructions a tad complicated for anything other than plug & play.
Hope all that makes sense as I’m trying to type quickly on my phone. I’m guessing i could damage my van battery if it’s not kept fully charged?
My understanding is that the stop start will only come into play when the battery is at a higher charge which would make sense.
The owners manual confirms that the starter battery needs sufficient charge in the battery to operate.
Can the stop start facility be turned off by the dealer?
According to the manual I downloaded it can be deactivated by the driver.
I know this was possible with Citroen in the early days of stop start but it may not be an option now due to emission standards.
You stated elsewhere that you have a fly lead connected up so that you can just plug the charger in to 'bench charge' your leisure battery. I have the same setup as you have. I have mine permanently connected to the starter battery side of the Sterling unit. So my intelligent charger is charging the starter battery at 13.9v but the Sterling unit is taking some of that and boosting the charge to my leisure battery at 14.6v.
Once the smart charger goes into float mode then I know the starter battery is fully charged. Strangly enough I have never seen my starter battery at any more than 12.5 volts. After work on Saturday I will put the batteries on charge on Saturday night, take them off on Sunday morning and check both batteries voltage on Sunday afternoon. I won't trigger any power draw from the starter battery (central locking etc) as I can read battery charge voltages on an ap on my phone connected via bluetooth.
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You can download an owner's manual from
https://www.manualslib.com/download/1061629/Vauxhall-Vivaro.html
See pages 119 to 121
Everyone I've spoken to hates stop start with a passion.
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Thanks Spruce. I’ll re-read through later & try to take it all in.
Yes I can turn it off manually by a switch on the dash but you have to do it every trip.
I know I’m alone but I actually don’t mind stop/start.
New battery was a £150 stop/start battery by the way.
Thing is I’m pretty sure my leisure battery is charging as the voltage says 14.5 on the controllers with engine running & Sterling is lit up. It’s just my starter battery isn’t fully charged I’m guessing as the stop/start would kick in as it does when I’ve bench charged the starter battery.
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Thanks Spruce. I’ll re-read through later & try to take it all in.
Yes I can turn it off manually by a switch on the dash but you have to do it every trip.
I know I’m alone but I actually don’t mind stop/start.
New battery was a £150 stop/start battery by the way.
Thing is I’m pretty sure my leisure battery is charging as the voltage says 14.5 on the controllers with engine running & Sterling is lit up. It’s just my starter battery isn’t fully charged I’m guessing as the stop/start would kick in as it does when I’ve bench charged the starter battery.
At 14.5 volts it is charging.
The last split charge relay I had on my old van was a voltage sensing relay. The relay worked within preset parameters. So often when I switched the engine off the relay stayed connected for a time afterward. With the leisure battery at a lower charge than the starter battery meant that the leisure battery was drawing power from the starter battery unit it dropped to below a certain preset voltage.
The Sterling unit does the same. It continues to draw current from the starter battery until the voltage drops low enough to trigger the Sterling unit to switch off. I wouldn't know if this feature was causing starter battery drain or if you have a failed battery. (There was discussion on the forums that the early batteries fitted to stop start vehicles and those with reg braking were suffering premature battery failure.) This feature may also be causing the lower voltage readings on my starter battery.
There is an option on the Sterling unit that gives the option to connect the unit's control to the ignition switch. The moment the ignition switch was switched off the Sterling unit powers down. The disadvantage is that if you have to switch your ignition on to listen to the radio you are triggering the unit to switch on and connect both batteries together, not seen as an ideal situation.
With the old split charge relay we also had the option the connect the trigger to the alternator charge light circuit. I would see this as a better option but if I chose this route would confirm with Sterling that I could do this and not damage the B2B charger.
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Thanks for taking the time Spruce.
I don’t have the ignition feed wired in as it looked complicated.
My factory radio broke so I had a Kenwood double din touchscreen fitted but you have to have the ignition on position one for it to come on.
I think the Sterling does have an option to turn off the delay if I’ve read the manual correct? I can’t upload a screenshot from my phone so I’ll try later when I get home.
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When i went to my local motor factor to buy a battery just before he shut for covid, he was surprised my battery had failed. He said start/stop ones usually last years. Hence why I got an auto electrician to check. He wasn’t familiar with Sterling units though. By the time I went to go back to buy one the motor factor had shut for covid which is why I went to Halfords online.
I’m also constantly charging my iphone & have a dashcam piggybacked to fAg lighter which is position 1 so I’m guessing these put extra load on my alternator?
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Here’s the bit in the manual. Not sure if it’s referring to the cutoff time. I found it a complicated read which is why I thought I’d ask you! ;D
Even more painful was I had to download a convert to jpg app on my iphone to upload that screenshot ::)roll
(http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1593780584_E6A2D074-7EC2-4E73-BBD1-2986C212F7E6.jpeg)
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My van doesn't have regen braking so if memory serves me I believe I set that to zero.
What I did do is activate the SVEM engage mode as an experiment which I had forgotten about. As I don't sit on the side of the road with an inverter running its not necessary, so I need to deactivate that.
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I put the batteries on charge when I came back from work yesterday afternoon. The charger was in float mode last night so I pulled the cable to the van.
The batteries have had all night to settle.
The leisure battery reads 13.09 volts and the starter battery 12.79 volts this morning.
Just this alone shows how good the b2b charger is. It's pushed another 0 .3v into the battery. What that means in extra capacity I don't know, but it just shows me my leisure battery is truly fully charged.
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I’ve charged both my leisure & van batteries in situ this weekend. Maybe that’s what I’ll have to do now. They both go to float within a few hours.
I’m sure the stop/start will work pretty much from the off tomorrow as the starter battery will be fully charged. That’s what happened last weekend but the stop/start wasn’t cutting in by Tuesday or Wednesday due to my lack of mileage.
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I’ve charged both my leisure & van batteries in situ this weekend. Maybe that’s what I’ll have to do now. They both go to float within a few hours.
I’m sure the stop/start will work pretty much from the off tomorrow as the starter battery will be fully charged. That’s what happened last weekend but the stop/start wasn’t cutting in by Tuesday or Wednesday due to my lack of mileage.
I'm going to deactivate that SVEM option today and monitor the system this week. My gut is telling me that this SVEM setting is allowing the Sterling unit to charge the leisure battery from the starter battery when the engine is switched off.
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Thanks Spruce. i'll see how mine goes this week & update you.
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I’ve charged both my leisure & van batteries in situ this weekend. Maybe that’s what I’ll have to do now. They both go to float within a few hours.
I’m sure the stop/start will work pretty much from the off tomorrow as the starter battery will be fully charged. That’s what happened last weekend but the stop/start wasn’t cutting in by Tuesday or Wednesday due to my lack of mileage.
I have the same issues with my renault master vans , I have to charge the van battery up every 2-3 months as it doesnt do enough mileage to charge it up enough .
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Somethings not right somewhere mate....
I do very little mileage,run a 9kw diesel heater on full power every day,100psi pump and electric reel and I've never had a problem with the batteries not starting the van.... ???
Grippatank also wired up a battery to battery charger(so I have van battery and 2x 105ah numax batteries)...my van is also stop/start...(connect)
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Somethings not right somewhere mate....
I do very little mileage,run a 9kw diesel heater on full power every day,100psi pump and electric reel and I've never had a problem with the batteries not starting the van.... ???
Grippatank also wired up a battery to battery charger(so I have van battery and 2x 105ah numax batteries)...my van is also stop/start...(connect)
I dont think your van has re generative braking charge system , it’s a major problem if you don’t do many miles per day , many manufacturers went over to it to improve exhaust emissions to get through the euro 6 tests , some are better systems than others Vauxhall’s and renault are the worst for it .
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Somethings not right somewhere mate....
I do very little mileage,run a 9kw diesel heater on full power every day,100psi pump and electric reel and I've never had a problem with the batteries not starting the van.... ???
Grippatank also wired up a battery to battery charger(so I have van battery and 2x 105ah numax batteries)...my van is also stop/start...(connect)
I dont think your van has re generative braking charge system , it’s a major problem if you don’t do many miles per day , many manufacturers went over to it to improve exhaust emissions to get through the euro 6 tests , some are better systems than others Vauxhall’s and renault are the worst for it .
He’ll have regenerative braking, most newish vans do now.
It’ll be the “stop start” Daz doesn’t have, therefore battery level is less important as all it’s really doing is starting the van.
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Somethings not right somewhere mate....
I do very little mileage,run a 9kw diesel heater on full power every day,100psi pump and electric reel and I've never had a problem with the batteries not starting the van.... ???
Grippatank also wired up a battery to battery charger(so I have van battery and 2x 105ah numax batteries)...my van is also stop/start...(connect)
I dont think your van has re generative braking charge system , it’s a major problem if you don’t do many miles per day , many manufacturers went over to it to improve exhaust emissions to get through the euro 6 tests , some are better systems than others Vauxhall’s and renault are the worst for it .
He’ll have regenerative braking, most newish vans do now.
It’ll be the “stop start” Daz doesn’t have, therefore battery level is less important as all it’s really doing is starting the van.
I have both stop/start and regenerative braking......its a euro 6 engine
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It was the old original van starter battery that let me down just once Dazmond as it was only capable of being charged to 60% of its original capacity. I had the van from 1 year old & system has always worked fine. I fitted it all myself except for bolting down the tank cage.
I have exact same setup in another 16 plate Vivaro for employee but his is lower spec & doesn’t have stop/start.
Yes I know something’s wrong because as said all thread the starter battery is not getting charged enough for the stop/start to work.
Not sure there’s much I can do though except bench charge all batteries in situ more often.
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Just an update... Stop start worked immediately this morning less than a mile down the road at the first set of red lights. Worked fine all day. I actually quite like it. I did 16 jobs, mostly dotted about and covered less than 10 miles.
I'm not bench charging either battery (starter or leisure) tonight just like normal. I'll try & remember to note my mileage each day for the rest of the week or until the stop/start stops working.
I've renamed the thread in case it's of any use to others.
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Grippa do a split charging unit for stop start vans.
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The Sterling one I have is also, but thanks.
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Grippa do a split charging unit for stop start vans.
The trouble with stop start is that when the engine stops the alternator stops charging. But the connection between the b2b charger and the starter battery remains for a bit. The b2b charger continues to draw power from the starter battery to charge the leisure battery during this period.
When I switched my engine of last night I monitored both batteries. The b2b charger remained on charging the leisure battery at 4 amps until the starter battery dropped to 12.5v under load. At that point the starter battery climbed back up to 12.6v. It's at 12.62v this morning. So over the course of the day yesterday my starter battery has lost 0.1v . As my starter battery was fully charged on Monday morning 12.6v means it's now 75% charged. My leisure battery is showing 12.93v which is 100% charged, although again its 0.1v down on what it was yesterday morning from fully charged.
I did 10 miles yesterday. As the batteries were both fully charged the only real charge the leisure battery got was the 5 miles home.
That battery is original with the van so could well be that its on its last legs and has lost capacity, but it tells me that some of its loss is due to the b2b charger. If I was in traffic yesterday with a van having stop start then I would be worse of with regards to my starter battery.
Later on this week I'm going to fully charge both batteries again and then switch the b2b charger off for the day and see what the van battery does.
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Would fitting the optional ignition wire or reducing that timer to zero in the settings help?
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Would fitting the optional ignition wire or reducing that timer to zero in the settings help?
It won't help you with stop start as the ignition will still be on triggering the unit to remain connected to the starter battery.
This is why I was thinking about the trigger wire to be connected to the alternator.
If you have your ignition on to listen to the radio at least the B2b charger remains disconnected.
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Is the trigger wire the ignition wire? I wouldn’t know where to fit it at the vehicle end.
My stop/start stopped working after lunch today. Hasn’t worked since. I had the radio on for 20 mins or so, my phone was charging & the dashcam was on. I’ve only done 7 miles.
Does the dashcam eat much battery do you know & would it help to piggyback it onto a position ii fuse?
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Is the trigger wire the ignition wire? I wouldn’t know where to fit it at the vehicle end.
My stop/start stopped working after lunch today. Hasn’t worked since. I had the radio on for 20 mins or so, my phone was charging & the dashcam was on. I’ve only done 7 miles.
Does the dashcam eat much battery do you know & would it help to piggyback it onto a position ii fuse?
The suggestions are that a dash cam uses between 1.8 watt and 2.5 watt. (12w is an amp over an hour. I think my starter battery is 90 amph.) That's not very much but over a period of time it will flatten a battery. A customer has a Ford Ranger and he accidentally left his dashcam on whilst the vehicle was parked on his driveway for a 'few' days. The battery was flat. He called the AA who charged it a bit and then jump started it. They eventually had to reprogram the ecu as it had lost a few settings, according to the AA guy.
If you are prepared to recharge your leisure battery every night you might try and switch the b2b charger off and see if the stop start reactivates without that additional draw.
They warn you that having the b2b charger linked to the ignition switch is the only way if you have regenerative braking but that it will be active with the ignition on and could flatten the starter battery.
There will be plenty of fuses in the fuse box that are only active with the ignition on, radio, cigarette lighter/ auxiliary power socket, wipers, reverse lights, etc so a piggy back fuse can be linked into any of those fuses with it own low rated fuse. Ive done this with my reverse camera.
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Ok thanks for all your time Spruce. Lots for me to think about.
I've got a double outside socket right next to both vans, two extensions made up & two ctek chargers but I'm reluctant to bench every night, even in situ, as I just know I will drive off forgetting to disconnect! :-\
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Ok thanks for all your time Spruce. Lots for me to think about.
I've got a double outside socket right next to both vans, two extensions made up & two ctek chargers but I'm reluctant to bench every night, even in situ, as I just know I will drive off forgetting to disconnect! :-\
Tie a towel onto the steering wheel so you don't forget.
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The b2b will automatically drain the main battery overnight to charge the leisure battery in normal automatic setting unless you wire the b2b through the ignition feed. The only way around it if you don't plan to wire b2b through ignition would be to fit an isolation switch before the leisure battery to stop the b2b charging it overnight or any time your vehicle is switched off.
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The b2b will automatically drain the main battery overnight to charge the leisure battery in normal automatic setting unless you wire the b2b through the ignition feed. The only way around it if you don't plan to wire b2b through ignition would be to fit an isolation switch before the leisure battery to stop the b2b charging it overnight or any time your vehicle is switched off.
The sterling b2b unit doesn't remain constantly on. Sterling says it should switch the unit off when the input voltage drops to 13.0 volts. I've watched mine on my battery monitor and it only disconnects when the starter battery drops to 12.5v under load.
Once the unit has switched off there is no charge input from the starter battery to the leisure battery.
The instructions say that with vans with regenerative braking you must have an ignition trigger wire which disconnects the unit when the ignition is switched off.