I’ve changed the leisure battery but to no avail, outside of that I don't know what to do.
Response
We get a number of queries regarding this and there are a couple of things that you should do to prevent the battery discharging unnecessarily when the caravan is not in use.
- Ensure the Alde heating and therefore the 12 volt pump is OFF as this will flatten the battery.
It's not sufficient to shut down the gas and mains electric to it, the 12 volt supply must be off or, as the caravan temp drops, it will call for the pump to circulate, and your battery will be discharged over time. You can generally hear the pump when in operation, open the wardrobe door, the pump is located on top of the fill point at the rear.
- Turn the Control Panel off by holding the button for 2 or 3 seconds until the panel turns off.
For 2008/2009 Heritages you should also check that the self-adhesive cover that is fixed on the outside of the solar cell (that is designed to charge the battery when the caravan is not connected to the mains) has been removed. The solar cell is located on the roof.
If you find the cover has been removed check the in-line five amp fuse that is located in the cluster of two (the other being 20amp) which is physically located between the battery box and the PDU.
The five amp fuse protects the solar cell.
This has also been raised on our forum, extracts responses below:
We have a 2008 heritage 640ES/6 sometimes our caravan would run the battery very low, until one day we we're out in the caravan and I was bored so I started to read the hand book. Do you turn the control panel completely off or just leave it with "Fleetwood Heritage" showing? If you press and hold the square button for 2 or 3 seconds it turns the panel off, since we've been doing this when we take the caravan back into storage we've not had any problems.
We have a 2008 640 Heritage and have had the same problem. Yet found one of our problems was if you have had your Central heating on at any time you have to disengage the pump icon on the display otherwise it will keep going as I found even when you get the Heritage logo up as mentioned previously.
If you turn your main display on you should see that the battery is charging or discharging. If you go into cupboard you can also hear the pump
Another thing to look at is the main display module can be out of sync with the solar cell, if at any time you have fitted a new battery even by the dealer from new. You will eventually find the display module looks like it totally dies or it can stay ok but same fault until battery totally drained. In fact all you need to do go on the roof cover the Solar Panel with a piece of thick card or a newspaper make sure it’s totally covered, pry off the surround to the main control module inside the van, then unclip the connector block leave disconnected for a few minutes or so then re connect, clip back the surround and then remove newspaper / Card from roof. Apparently the module uses a very small amount of electric and if the solar cell is not working it seems to work backwards discharging the battery when everything seems off
Make sure solar panel is completely covered before attempting this as otherwise you risk blowing your module
Let us know if you need any further info
We have progressed a bit we now know this van although a 2007 model doesn't have the solar panel and therefore the back-up battery, and having left the alarm off and the leisure battery fully charged, it was flat again within a fortnight.
I understand from the alarm people that the alarm system takes as much current whether set or not so we need to actually check what current it is drawing.
