Would a kind soul give me a guide to looking after the mover battery? It came with an "intelligent" charger.
There isn't any leccy where she lives, so Yann has bought the battery home and put it on snail charge. There doesn't seem to be an indicator of how charged the battery is. Do you use a tester? should we get one? How much charge do you need on your battery before it stops working? Any advice would be most welcome! - may I add please don't use words of more than one syllable

an intelligent charger will handle the charging of a battery in whatever state it is in: it will take the necessary actions to charge the battery amd keep it topped up.

Most intelligent chargers indicate what state they are in eg charging, trickle etc - this indicates the status of your battery.

If its trickle charging then the battery is fully charged

if your charger has no indicator then youd need a voltmeter to check if the battery is charged: theyre not necessarily expensive or difficult to use

Thanks but I don't understand. Yann set the charger to snail so it's not the charger telling us anything! help! You're dealing with someone who has a brain the size of a pea!

"snail" sounds like trickle charge - the battery is being charged at a snails pace (or trickle charged, just like a just turned on tap)

It will charge the battery eventually but will take a very long time (eg a day or two)

i am assuming "snail" charge is referring to a mode of charging that your battery charger has?

I just googled "snail charger" and it came up with a snail-shaped charger - just checking its not one of those is it?

Looking at the charging units on Amazon . I suspect that a "snail charger" is not made for charging car batteries . It seems that they are for lightweight charging such as phones, tablets, and such like . If your mover battery is dead why not try charging It with a normal car battery for a few hours and see if it holds a charge. This could also explain if the snail charger works or not .

There's not a problem with the charger that was given to us. Apparently it's better for the battery if it charges on trickle which I suppose what snail is. What we need to know is
1. At what level of charge is the battery useless - at what charge do we need to recharge? We need to know as there isn't electricity at the storage facility and we need to bring it home.
2. Do you use a tester - is it an essential piece of kit?
3. about how many manoeuvres should we get out of a charge?
Thanks - I obviously wasn't clear with my first question.

Thank you for your help.

Our problem remains that we can't leave it on a trickle charge as there is NO ELECTRICITY!!! where the caravan is stored. So when do I know to take it out of the van and take it home? Or do you leave it charging when you're on a campsite?

Colin thank you.
In fact Yann just called the bloke that fitted it and it turns out the bossman told us a porky - snail is for over winter and it should have been on rabbit! Dang froggies!

There's not a problem with the charger that was given to us. Apparently it's better for the battery if it charges on trickle which I suppose what snail is. What we need to know is
1. At what level of charge is the battery useless - at what charge do we need to recharge? We need to know as there isn't electricity at the storage facility and we need to bring it home.
You need to keep the the battery fully charged .Does the battery charge from the site hook up . If not best to bring it home and recharge it after you have been away.

2. Do you use a tester - is it an essential piece of kit? If there is no other form of indication as to whether the battery is charged or not then this will tell you .

3. about how many manoeuvres should we get out of a charge? Depends on how many manoeuvres you make , length of manoeuvres , and whether you are plugged into the site hook up . by the way I have been told that not all Eriba caravan batteries are charged from the hook up . So check that too .
Thanks - I obviously wasn't clear with my first question.

Hope this helps Islay best of luck sorting it all out.

In the absence of electric on site you need a voltmeter to measure the status of your battery. A normally charged lead acid battery has a voltage of 12.7V

As the battery is used it’s terminal voltage (the voltage across its + and - posts) will decrease

At 10.5V you can consider the battery flat

You should never let a battery become flat : it will damage the battery beyond repair

Under normal use you should not discharge a battery by more than 50% before it needs to be recharged.

You should therefore take the battery home and recharge it whenever the voltage reads 12.0V.

Ideally recharge the battery when it reads 12.42V which represents 80% depth of discharge since a battery left in a non fully-charged status for long will quickly have it’s useful lifetime drastically reduced

If you ever have access to mains (on site or at home) you should always connect the charger.

The intelligent charger you have will always bring the battery up to full charge as optimally as it can and then will maintain the battery’s fully charged status.

If you have no electric on site you may consider using a solar cell to keep your battery topped up thereby negating the need for the voltmeter and disconnecting/charging/reconnecting the battery.

You would of course need access to the sun for the solar panel and would need a charge regulator but there are plenty of other posts on this if you’re interested in this option