Hello all

Well we’ve had our Triton 430 for around 4 months now. It’s a 60 edition from Automotive Leisure. Been away in it 4 times. A few teething problems but all in all it’s going ok.

The only thing that’s playing on my mind at the moment is battery related.

It’s got the autonomy pack: a gel leisure battery and the csv 409 charger that also handles all the 12 v switching.
I’m not an expert on battery charging. On our previous van, an Abbey Iona which was 18 years old when we changed over to this current van, I’d got into habit of turning off the charger when on site and going out somewhere. My reasoning was that as I didn’t know if the charger was a maintenance charger then I’d better not let it run and run for fear of overcharging the battery. There was never any power where we stored it so there was no decision to make when not away in it.

The Eriba is set up differently, there is no separate control of the charger. If the charger is off then so is the 240v
So that had lead me to believe that it must be ok then to charge constantly otherwise they wouldn’t take that choice from you in not giving separate control.

But back home I now have to decide since we now have power.
Should I keep the csv409 on constantly? I suppose what I’m asking is, is it a maintenance charger or could it cook the battery if I keep it running and running when we’re not away.

I’ve just this minute read about CTek chargers. Maybe that’s the answer?
Unless the csv409 does the same?

Any comments gratefully accepted.

I leave mine on 24/7. This is a trickle charger similar to CTek.

Stewart

I don't think the internal CSV charger is as intelligent as the C-TEC variety which kick in when they recognises a voltage drop. I use my internal charger the same as you would it you were using the van.
Over winter approximately every three weeks I turn on the power to the van for three days, this method has always given me a topped up battery for whenever I need to use the battery for my motor mover.

I prefer not to keep a charger on continuously in case it develops a fault and fries the battery. I just do a top up charge up every month or so. Easy when the caravan is on your property.

Page 5 of the CSV409A manual gives details of the charging. This indicates that it will automatically switchover to trickle charging at the appropriate time. So it should be safe to leave it on.
Having said that I tend to ensure the battery is fully charged, then switch off the mains power. I will switch back on every couple of weeks over the winter to run a dehumidifier for a day or so which also gives the battery a quick boost.

Battery fully charged then I turn off the mains and then put it back on for a couple of days every three or four weeks to keep the battery 100% do this all the time when we are not away in it etc seems to work fine for us ( 2018 Troll ) so far so good