Preventing Caravan/Motor home Electrical overload
Hi All,
We caravan all year round and generally go to sites with electric hookups. Thus for the heating we enjoy ample warmth provided by the electric heating of the trumatic fire (which blows the warmth throughout
our 2005 Bailey van).
The trouble is that to have it on in the midst of winter requires using the 2kw setting, which uses up all the capacity of the mcb (trip) and wiring which is shared with the sockets. This means that to be safe you must turn off the heating before doing
something like boiling the kettle or putting on the toaster.
Now this is where my day job started to flow into my favored hobby. You see by day I am a 'Master Inventor' for one of the worlds largest multinationals. I design and patent solutions to everyday problems which the company either implement themselves or
sell rights to other companies. I also have a degree level background in electrical engineering.
Suffice to say I have solved the problem and built myself a unit which simply wires inbetween the heater and its power supply. it also has a small clamp like the ones on smart maters, that monitors the power the rest of the caravan uses. Whenever you put
on a high load appliance it reacts and turns off the heating instantly (faster than a trip switch reacts!). Once it notices that the high load has gone it swtiches the heating back on (with a delay to prevent lots of on-off upsetting the heating). It is
a 'smart' unit in that it learns what setting you have the heater set to (eg 500w/1kw/2kw) and can tell when there is spare capacity to switch the heating back on.
My question for the forum is whether I should productize this and sell it - would anyone be interested in it if I did.?? I have to be sure that it would be worth it because I would have to pay upwards of £3000 just to get it electrical emmissions (EMC)
tested and certified. I can get this done at work, but I'm not convinced I will get much of a discount.
Also please do let me know if any of those who are interested would like to go on a beta program to give the units a try and evalluate them for me.
So far we are loving it in our caravan.
Thanks
James