Any ideas where the leisure battery charger is hiding ?

Hello,

I've been trying to sort out the leisure battery wiring in my camper so I can swap over to a lithium battery. I've worked out a lot of it so far and removed some of the redundant stuff but I can't find the leisure battery charger that charges as you drive along.

I appreciate that all these campers have different set ups and have been added to over the years ( mine is no exception ) but any clues as to where to look would be appreciated as so far I can't find anything. My camper's a 1993 Cruising Cabin.


Thank you.

Sorry to bounce this post back but I removed most of the wiring I don't need for all the DC camper things ( lights, fridge etc. ) which was all running into some sort of battery protector under the sink area which is now gone. However I found one wire that is a mystery and it went from the same cupboard and disappears into the side of the van.

I put one of those electrical screwdrivers in the connector and it shows no electricity but when you run the engine it supplies intermittent power so this is probably something to do with the VSR and charging but I haven't got a clue where it goes after it enters the panel at the back of the cupboard. It is also part of a group of wires that were for the rear heater and in conduit so it's impossible to wiggle it up and down and see what happens.

I really want the whole VSR system out, would like to be able to identify the other end of this wire, pulling out the kitchen unit isn't an option and I really don't want something supplying electricity to a redundant plug so any ideas about what is it that I'm looking for would be appreciated. Or even a clue where I can get hold of the other wires it's attached to could help.

Thank you.

No idea what it may be, but if it ran to the heater, is it worth finding a manual for that heater model's installation (or similar) and see if they say what needs to be connected to the unit?

g00se.. Thanks but it didn't run from the heater it's wire just arrived with the heater's wires, they're taped together and stuck in that ridged plastic conduit stuff. No doubt it branches off somewhere further down the line but I don't know where and it could be doing it in a body panel out of sight.

I suppose it was to save on conduit etc, they were all heading to the hole at the back of the cupboard and got linked up which causes me a problem as I can't isolate and trace the origin of the one I want to get rid of.

You could try pulling fuses and identify when the power is isolated? They may give a clue?

Good idea that could help find the wire again if it goes to the fuse box. I'm just really not happy about having something putting electricity into a wire to charge a battery that doesn't exist. It's probably not good for the new charger too as it'll be in competition with it.

I thought swapping the leisure battery for a lithium one would be a straight swap but none of my other components are compatible eg. you can't charge a lithium battery with a VSR. It's not easy, I found all the wires I needed to keep and labelled them but this little $%*&er sneaked off and hid in the panels, I guess it knew it was on death row !

If it's not raining tomorrow I'll have a look underneath and hopefully it went that way because that should make the search easier. At the moment my van's got no front seats and the engine covers are off but there are no clues regarding it's whereabouts that I can see. It's probably part of the original install and mixed up with the normal stuff which makes it a lot harder to find.

I don't even know if these things run off the alternator or battery.. Or both !

Late to the thread but are you sure you had a VSR and not just an ordinary relay and the wire you have is live when the ignition is on and was to power the relay coil.

From my limited knowledge for lithium you would use a battery to battery charger

You're right lithium does need a battery to battery charger and that's what I've got now. The mystery wire is still a mystery and I just blanked it off but it definitely only put out power when the revs went up so wasn't a permanent live on the ignition thing.

I took out all the camper electrics ( except for that wire ) and rewired it all to a completely new system which is all working well. I gave up on hunting for an old charger or what the wire did as I figured that without a load it won't do anything now.

Hello

The leisure wiring on my CC hasn’t been messed about with though the previous owner fitted their own (temp) mains hook up as they couldn’t get the leisure battery (under the rearmost seats) to charge, nor could they use the leisure system from the vehicle’s charging circuit.

I’ve added a Japanese version of the CC’s leisure electrics to my show us yours page. The previous owner sourced this when he was trying to work out why it didn’t work but neither he nor an auto electrician could find the problem so they fitted a hook up system. Not an elegant alternative, I think. The owner said he’d written to Toyota Japan and this was faxed through and it has some English translations and comments.

What neither the previous owner nor the auto electrician could find was the fuse for the leisure electrics. This is an 80A (green) fuse that is in a normal Toyota fuse holder and sits (on my van) inboard on the right hand chassis rail close to the front suspension. You need to remove the driver’s seat to find it.

As far as I can tell the charging system is very simple. It just takes the current at charging voltage from the alternator to the front vehicle batteries under the passenger seat (I have 2 here, but they are both vehicle batteries) and uses the normal chassis earth. It also feeds the charging current along the wire with the 80A fuse under the driver’s seat to the leisure battery and then to the leisure electrics. Again there’s a normal chassis earth. There’s no VSR, but I don’t know what this means anyway.

The fuse under the driver’s seat is a real pain as it’s easy to blow and very hard to replace. Sound like yours is live, but I’d replace this with a resettable trip (not in the same place obvs!). I also think the leisure wiring is far too thin and just not up to task.

Clearly if you want lithium, in any form, you’ll need a completely different system but there’s nothing better storage-wise. My original system works perfectly fine but I will be making changes. Exactly what these are, are yet to be worked out. I’d rather incorporate a removable system that can be used in other circumstances (out of the van) than permanently fit lots of relatively expensive charging, storage and consumption modules that take space and permanently add weight but I’ve yet to decide.

Can you upload any pictures of your leisure wiring? Mine is dead simple and I didn’t have any ‘factory’ mains supply nor any >12V consumers or sockets, but I think my van is a year older, maybe? It originally just had 12V leisure charged off the alternator to run fridge, sink, various lights and cig sockets that would run off the alternator and stored ~65Ah in a battery under the rearmost seat.

Hope that’s clear?

p.s. With whatever you do I’d very strongly recommend the various YT vids from Greg Virgoe.

Hello,

I haven't got any pictures of my leisure wiring apart from these..




The B2B charger is behind the driver's seat on the back of some sort of cupboard thing. When I got it my van had a solar panel and a campsite power hook up along with some sort of charging system ( probably what you mentioned ) from the battery. All that's gone, so is the diesel heater and the original switches for fridge etc along with the bits/ controls that were on the side panel ( where the new ones are now in the second photo ).

I figured there was no point in fiddling about, ripped the whole lot out and started again. It looked a bit shocking with wires everywhere and my neighbour ( who's an electrician ) took one look at it and said "you're on your own" but it's the only way to go. My original system was made up of bits linked together at the battery which is wrong and not really sound electrics. If it's done like that it means that if the battery goes down you lose the rest, mine now runs off a busbar that everything joins to and each component can be switched off at any time but it will still work even if the battery is flat so long as there's some sun or your engine's running. You can also reverse the charger and charge the starter battery from the leisure one or solar if that goes flat.

It's got a new solar panel and charger, inverter, battery, b2b charger and diesel heater along with extra sockets for AC and DC. It's all at the back now and set up for total off grid electrics. I think the only things that are the same as when I got it are the fridge and three lights but they're all wired up differently and to a new fuse box ( at the back not under that six switch thing which hides the fuses ).

It doesn't weigh much at all and if you wanted a removable system you can use elsewhere then you could just get a generator and plug it into a hook up. You won't even need a battery with that and you'll have a lot of watts. You could rewire the lights to the main battery and use LEDs they won't drain your starter batterys and stick in an AC fridge job done.. Unlimited power but a bit noisy.

LH119V... I've drawn the positive connections for an off grid system so you can see that it is not that complicated and actually simpler than the original wiring. Everything works independently for the cause and you can add as many things as you want to either fusebox ( DC or AC ).

Think of the national grid you have various power stations all linked up, it doesn't matter if one is switched off and they all feed the same thing so are therefore linked together to help each other if necessary.


The negatives are even more straightforward and have their own busbar that goes to the chassis, the inverter and AC fusebox are each earthed again too but that's about it. I may have missed out a fuse somewhere but you should get the general idea. If you want shore power then you need an inverter/ charger not just an inverter so it can charge your battery when plugged in but that's not strictly necessary with the solar and engine and not something I wanted mine's only for off grid.

What solar panel(s) have you fitted, please? Options seem to be quite limitless and there are good and bad points for solid and flex in perms of performance, fit and looks.

Be good if you can post a link and any thoughts on your choice. No urgency, but it will either dash or reinforce my look into this. It's the vehicle-specific stuff that's key I think.

I fitted a 200w flexible monocrystaline panel. It's siliconed to the pop top and the wires feed straight out the back under the pop top, through the canvas under the "bed" and through the roof to the controller in the side/back cupboard thing. Very easy to fit, no external holes and it's about as big as you can go without hitting too much of a bend in the roof and because of the top vent.

I think the downside of flexible is only when you want to replace it, that's a lot of scraping ( I had to take off the old smaller 100w I had on there ). But there's no wind resistance and you could actually just stick another same sized panel on top of the old one if you couldn't be bothered to remove it. You also have to be careful when putting it on.. Don't bend it and make sure it's in the right place before it lands on the roof.

As far as vehicle specific goes, our roofs are fibre glass, I'm not drilling that for brackets and didn't want them coming all the way from the side gutters.

edit.. I forgot you can only really fit brackets from the side for a solar panel at the front because the roof pops up. You could glue brackets onto the pop up roof if you didn't want to make holes but that's not really ideal.