Motorhome power supply.

Dave Plowman (News) · 2018-04-05T22:47:51+00:00

The mains to 12v power supplied failed in a mate's motorhome, so although he got it replaced I offered to look at it to see if it could be repaired as a spare. It is branded PowerPart, and is a 20 amp 13.8v device which charges the leisure battery as well as running any 12v things when on mains. Cost about 100 quid. It was well and truly fried. Only heatsink for the power Mosfets was the thin ally case - and a small cooling fan. Not that much for a device likely mounted inside a cupboard of some sort. Rectifier was short circuit and a transformer burnt with half the laminations lying loose inside the case, so gave up.

Apr 05, 2018 48 Replies

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The Other Mike 8 years ago

I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of what people regard as sealed cells are actually Yuasa's or clones of Yuasa designs. Drop one on its corner and no liquid actually spills out, actually there is no leakage of anything at all

Compare to a dryfit 'gel' cell from Sonnenschein and you'll see there is little difference in the charging regime.

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Yuasa (from the reference previously given page 23)

1st stage is 2.4-2.45v per cell 2nd stage is 2.27 v per cell

Sonnenschein

1st stage is 2.4-2.45v per cell 2nd stage is 2.3v per cell

30mV per cell difference when on float or 180mV per 12v nominal battery

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Brian Reay 8 years ago

Obviously a Playstation isn't the gizmo I thought it was (never played with one).

Thankfully, our offspring never expressed any interest in computer games.

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Dave Plowman (News) 8 years ago

2.3v per cell on float just happens to be 13.8v So using 13.8v at all times just means it won't re-charge quite so quickly. Also using 13.8v only means you can use a lower power supply than one which can deliver the maximum current into a low battery.

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Fredxx 8 years ago

This is one I purchased recently, though not from this seller:

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Dave Plowman (News) 8 years ago

It certainly looks better than the one I have here. Which looks decidedly home made, case wise. ;-)

But wonder if that unit could be used as a stand alone power supply for

12v stuff in the van, with no battery present? The current one can.

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Fredxx 8 years ago

I haven't tried that. I always have batteries in situ. It's the only way I can provide the additional power for a microwave through a 3kW inverter.

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Dave Plowman (News) 8 years ago

It does say reverse polarity protected, so may not even fire up if the battery is totally flat.

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bert 8 years ago

In article , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

Get a Zig. And I don't think any of my leisure vehicles including, 2 campervans, one motorhome and 5 caravans having a cooling fan.

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Jim.GM4DHJ ... 8 years ago

or ham radio ...

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