What should your battery voltage read?
Sometimes I just find these things and make a blog post for my own reference! But also know if its of interest to me then it will be of interest to others.
We recently fitted a new leisure battery to our van. The old one was over 6 years old and of unknown condition as at that point we had only had the van one year. The battery warning light had started to come on and it was not holding charge very well.
I researched a new battery and found this web page which was very useful: http://www.aandncaravanservices.co.uk/battery-technology.php
Following this advice we bought a Bosch S5 110Ah battery which is the same as the Varta Silver. The Varta seems to be slightly cheaper price. These batteries are slightly more expensive than the usual batteries but you get what you pay for!
The new technology in these new batteries mean they are a hybrid type so they could be used as starter or leisure batteries.
The battery has performed fantastically. It appears to charge much faster than normal batteries and just keep giving and giving. It comes highly recommended.
Back to battery voltages: I found this chart when researching for the new battery.
Just to be clear I found this chart on another web site and cannot remember where so I don’t place any ownership to it.
My own battery voltages
I made a note of my battery voltages when on and off charge when the battery and system is in a known good state so if a problem happens later it can aid in fault finding:
On 240v – 13.7v when full – 14.2v when charging
Engine running – 13.9v when full
Engine off with no charging – 13.7v when full, settling to13.2v after about 10 mins
On solar – 14.4v