Power conundrum

[Arwen]

I have a high top motorcaravan which I have had for nearly two years. Its has two leisure batteries, but most sites I use hook up. Never had a problem until I went to one caravan club site whilst touring Scotland.

 

I arrived in the afternoon, connected to hook up and as the weather deteriorated holed up to nurse a streaming cold.

 

Everything worked fine until come 11pm everything went a bit pear shaped. The TV picture stopped, though the sound continued, then the blown air heating went off. Lights still worked - and the fan heater still worked off the kitchen power socket which I assume was 230v. I have three power sockets, which I assume are all 230v. I changed gas cylinders, but still no heating. Checked the fuses, and RCDs and nothing. I turned in for the night, not knowing what was going on.

 

Next morning -kettle on the kitchen power socket worked, as did the toaster, TV worked, but as soon as I put water heater on, or a light, the picture went off. Blown air heater would not work despite changing cylinders, I wondered if I was hooked up to a faulty socket - but then surely the fan heater/kettle/heater would not have worked. With only the TV and fridge on (no lights, no nothing), the panel showed that I was discharging at 4.5amps. Fortunately there was another mains hook up socket I could change to, and once I had, everything seemed to work normally - though I was very careful with power useage, in case of further problems.

 

I assume that the problem was a faulty mains hook up - but if so, why didn't everything fail when the leisure batteries depleted - why did some things work and others not - a fan heater is quite heavy in power use. (I am very glad it continued working, cos twas cold)

 

As I was only at the start of my touring holiday - I kept a close eye on my control panel for the rest of the trip. Most sites it showed 0 - neither charging nor discharging, but at one other caravan club site, it indicated discharging when I switched on the halogen lights with little else on.

 

Any suggestions on why I ran into problems would be gratefully recieved so I know what to avoid.

 

PS - when your on hook up, does it power the 230v plugs, and charge the leisure battery to replace what your using on the 12v system?

 

 

 

 

 

[Dave Newell]

Arwen, your kettle, toaster and fan heater all work from 230 Volts, as they were all working then you can deduce that your hookup connection was OK. Your blown air heating and (I'm guessing) your TV are 12 Volt units so I deduce that you ran your leisure battery voltage down. Get someone to check if your on board charger (if you have one) is working. When plugged in to 230V hookup the 12V power would normally be supplied by the charger, if that is not working then you are drawing the power from your leisure battery.

 

D.

[Mick H.]

Arwen - 2007-08-26 4:47 PM

 

I have a high top motorcaravan which I have had for nearly two years. Its has two leisure batteries, but most sites I use hook up. Never had a problem until I went to one caravan club site whilst touring Scotland.

 

I arrived in the afternoon, connected to hook up and as the weather deteriorated holed up to nurse a streaming cold.

 

Everything worked fine until come 11pm everything went a bit pear shaped. The TV picture stopped, though the sound continued, then the blown air heating went off. Lights still worked - and the fan heater still worked off the kitchen power socket which I assume was 230v. I have three power sockets, which I assume are all 230v. I changed gas cylinders, but still no heating. Checked the fuses, and RCDs and nothing. I turned in for the night, not knowing what was going on.

 

Next morning -kettle on the kitchen power socket worked, as did the toaster, TV worked, but as soon as I put water heater on, or a light, the picture went off. Blown air heater would not work despite changing cylinders, I wondered if I was hooked up to a faulty socket - but then surely the fan heater/kettle/heater would not have worked. With only the TV and fridge on (no lights, no nothing), the panel showed that I was discharging at 4.5amps. Fortunately there was another mains hook up socket I could change to, and once I had, everything seemed to work normally - though I was very careful with power useage, in case of further problems.

 

I assume that the problem was a faulty mains hook up - but if so, why didn't everything fail when the leisure batteries depleted - why did some things work and others not - a fan heater is quite heavy in power use. (I am very glad it continued working, cos twas cold)

 

As I was only at the start of my touring holiday - I kept a close eye on my control panel for the rest of the trip. Most sites it showed 0 - neither charging nor discharging, but at one other caravan club site, it indicated discharging when I switched on the halogen lights with little else on.

 

Any suggestions on why I ran into problems would be gratefully recieved so I know what to avoid.

 

PS - when your on hook up, does it power the 230v plugs, and charge the leisure battery to replace what your using on the 12v system?

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Arwen , Keep trying to answer this but got a problem somewhere.Lets try again. Re your power prob.As with Dave,if your electrics are working then it is probably your charger or batteries.Have you checked that the on/off switch on the charger is ON, because this isolates the battery system from the incoming electricity.This way you can have electric power in the van without overcharging the battery.If this is ok then either your charger is naff,the batteries have died or perhaps there is a fuse gone somewhere.If you can't sort it and live near Swindon a company called AUTO ELECTRIX are very good I can find the address if you let me know.

 

Good luck Mick H.

[Arwen]

Thanks Dave and Mick - am due to have my TV switched over to a combi digital/analogue - so I will arrange to have the charger and batteries checked at the same time prior to toddling off to the Lake District for a few days.

 

I wondered whether there could be a problem with the 12v system when things went wrong - but when I changed hookup point, everything went back to normal and continued OK for the next two weeks of touring - so assumed twas the hookup.

 

My thanks for your assistance - will let you know what the people at Heart of England find.

 

As a PS - I understand that there is a split charging relay under the bonnet and I had previously been advised to check the fusese there, which I had done. Just taken another look - the two blade fuses, on wires connected to the battery looked fine - and I assume these are the relays. There are a futher two blade fuses, one 25 amp, that I can not check as I won't come out of the socket the other a 10 amp blade fuse, and that looked like it had blown, so I changed it.

 

I must ask Heart of England to explain what does what when the van goes in.