Leisure Battery

just wondering if anyone out there has fitted a leisure battery to a Toyota Hiace and if so how did you go about it ?

i've been meaning to for months. I'm sure someone will be along shortly, i'm sure its been done...

I know this thread is an ex-thread but a it never got an answer I thought I'd stick in something and see if it generates some useful feedback.

We have a leisure battery on ours but we didn't fit it! Its wired into a device that will take a mains feed and wired to the alternator through what I think I was told is called a splitter. It basically gives preference to the main batteries when charging.

In looking into solar charging I've found out that leisure batteries need a different type of charging cycle and and commonly use a charge controller to achieve this (this maybe because solar charging is by its nature a feast and famine affair)

I've don't think our battery is connected to the alternator in this way and you should think about putting one of these boxes if you go ahead. My logic is that the alternator must be set-up to maintain ignition batteries not a leisure battery.

Anyhoo I'm not an electrician (can you tell?) so I hope someone with some knowledge will be stirred to correct my piffle if nothing else!

Marko

Hi Marko,
I'm not an electrician either, but I also would be interested to find out how the leisure battery is fitted as I want to be able to run a fridge.

My mechanic set up a charging system on my 4WD so that the fridge battery was charging once the engine was started and isolated when the engine was switched off. Never had any hassles with that system at all.

Not sure whether that system would work in the Hiace, but I'll certainly ask the question once my mechanic returns.

cheers,

Werner

I wired one of these up and it works perfectly. no problems at all if you follow the instructions.
h**p://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CAMPER-VAN-SPLIT-CHARGE-RELAY-KIT-30-AMP-12V-/160818283068?pt=UK_Car_Accessories_Touring_Travel&hash=item257184423c
Note I have replaced the link http with h**p just type in tt where the ** is

Hi,
@wernerk: you may want to look into alternatives to a 12V fridge. They are not generally very efficient and a 12v battery has quite a limited reserve of power. A gas fridge might serve you better?
It depends, of course, on how it's installed (makes a big difference) and how it is used but (AIUI) generally the 12V feature is effective for keeping an already-cool fridge down to temperature when driving, less so for keeping things chilled for long periods on battery power. I'm struggling with this myself, and I live in Scotland, where the need for a good fridge is substantially lower than in SA!!!

Cheers,
W.

Hi W.

I've been using the same 29L Engel since 1996 and haven't had any problems with it apart from one trip when it stopped to function because I had put in a crappy reconditioned battery instead of a decent battery.

In my 4WD, I had 2 N70ZZ's (720CCA), one for the car and one for the fridge. The battery running my van now is actually the fridge battery from my 4WD and seems quite adequate to happily start the van.

I am looking at possibly a 40L fridge, maybe an Engel again as I have had a good run out of them.

I will have to look at a different type of battery for the fridge as I don't wish to have acid splashing about or potentially explosive hydrogen circulating around inside the van.

When I travel, I don't tend to sit in one spot for very long, so probably a 12V fridge would be adequate.

regards,

Werner

I have a small waeco condensor fridge/freezer....uses less than 1.5amp per hour....