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Q Is it possible for me to fit a second lithium leisure battery easily?
Having now had no luck finding an easy correct way to fit a lithium battery, I thought the best option was to fit a second leisure battery alongside the existing one. I think our payload can take this.
Do you think the smart alternator will charge or replace some energy in this via the Schaudt? By that I mean on, say, a 100-mile drive on motorways and 50 miles on A-roads with little braking? Will the existing Elddis BCA 230V charger cope with the extra load and eventually get to 80% charge on grid?
Or will another battery just give more storage and reduce the damage to the standard leisure battery that the fridge will do over two nights off-grid on overcast shorter spring and autumn days?
Paul Sparks
A Fitting a lithium leisure battery should not be a problem. You must use a battery-to-battery (B2B) charging system specifically designed for smart alternators and there are many to choose from.
The wiring is straightforward. The mains hook-up charging via the BCA system should be OK. If set to WET, the lithium battery will get to 95% charged. If set to AGM, it will get to 100% charged at 14.6V, eventually stopping at 14.7V before reverting to a lower voltage. Most lithium batteries give a margin of +/- 0.2 volts.
Elddis recently started to fit the Schaudt B2B charger on Fiats with the smart alternators.
CTEK also offers a small B2B. The CTEK D250SE is a 20A B2B unit to buffer these extreme voltages from your leisure equipment. You can configure this to limit the charging voltage to 14.4V (see the CTEK D250SE manual).
Schaudt offers two sizes of suitable B2B. The WA 121545 is configurable for lithium as well as lead acid, while the smaller WA 121525 is easier to accommodate in a small motorhome.
Clive Mott
Q How do I find a replacement pump
We need to replace the water pump in our campervan. The present one is a Posiflo 3000-151-2101 16 psi. The original was a Shurflo Trail King 7 16 psi. I cannot find a 16 psi online and wonder if a 20 psi would be OK to replace it with – we don’t know what ‘psi’ stands for!
Also, do you have any idea where we might obtain a suitable replacement? We have tried Marinestore and it has neither a 16 nor a 20 psi in stock!
Margaret Hirst
I think the Shurflo Trail King pump 7-16 has been superseded by the Shurflo Trail King 7-20. Both have a pump rate of seven litres per minute and the only difference is the setting of the internal pressure switch, which is now set at 20
