I was walking our dogs one night and noticed that there was a high pitch noise coming out of my motorhome. The noise was not originated from a fire or security alarm. I opened the door and looked under the table. IT was the inverter and there was an orange warning light on. The warning was about low battery voltage.

The battery voltage was so low that the electric step or lights did not work anymore. I had forgotten to turn off the inverter after our last trip. Inverters have typically high idle current consumption. It took five days until the battery voltage dropped under the warning level.

Good test for electroblock

I though that this was a good test for the electroblock module that is located under the passenger’s seat. It takes care of controlling the charging and discharging of vehicle and leisure batteries. This means that the leisure battery gets charged while driving and the vehicle battery is separated from the 12 V leisure network most of the time. This separation should guarantee the inverter cannot drain the vehicle battery. The electric step and the main ceiling light are normally powered by the vehicle battery if 12 V is turned off from the control panel.

The engine started with ease so the vehicle battery was fully charged. Carado’s electroblock passed the test, so it operates as it should.

What about the leisure battery?

Too deep discharging may harm a battery. Discharged battery also freezes more easily than a charged one. That’s why it is always good to keep batteries in a charged state even if they are not used for a long time. I connected Carado to 230 V mains to let the 85 Ah leisure battery charge. It takes 5 hours to fully charge the battery with a 17 A charger in theory. A bit longer time is needed in real life due to charging losses.