Hook up cable
hello I am a complete novice camper and have just brought a camper van . Can anyone tell me if you have to own your own cable , or are they supplied on the pitch .
Also my van has an inverter and leisure battery fitted but I'm not sure how they work or the actual purpose of the inverter . Does the leisure battery only get charged up when it is hooked up to the mains .
Thanks for any help
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You need your own mains cable, usually 25m long available from any caravan accessory shop.
The purpose of an inverter is to convert 12vDC from your leisure battery to 240vAC.
Depending on the make and model of your camper the leisure battery is usually charged when the vehicle engine is running.
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Thanks . The inverter has an on and off switch . Do I leave this switched on all of the time . The sockets don't appear to work . Does this mean the leisure battery is faulty or discharged . If so is it ok to charge leisure battery as you would normally the car battery etc .
Where would be the best place to go for a new leisure battery if needs be . Cheers .
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If things other than the mains-style sockets work then you leisure battery is working. But I would check you do actually have one, as some manufacturers in the past have economised and run everything off the vehicle cranking battery.
You engine should charge the leisure battery when it is running. It's quite possible the inverter has an additional switch you have still to find, or a fuse in the 12v supply to it is blown. If it is a big power inverter it may only work if the engine is running. Your inverter should be powering different mains-style sockets from those supplied by the EHU cable. In fact, I wonder if it is an "inverter" at all or is in fact the unit that supplies 12v from the EHU mains and charges the battery on site.
If you are going to buy a cable you might like to conside getting at the same time one of the short adapter cables that lets you use your EHU cable at home. It has a normal houshold 13A plug on one end and a blue in-line socket on the other. You can then run your outfit on mains at home.
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Could it be that the sockets don't appear to work because the van is not hooked up to mains electric?
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More than likely
it's question been asked before. If ..... the OP does have an inverter, rather than a 12v charger, I'd have thought it would just supply a single socket, rather than all. Otherwise some would try to take power from them all at the same time.0 -
do remember that if your hook up post is just behind your van , DO NOT coil it up, as it will overheat,
we also a 10 metre one, if its long enough we use that in not we use the long one
but we are now going towards off grid sites
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You do not say what make the camper van is and how old. A dealer will always provide the orange mains hook-up lead and if bought privately the seller should have given you it.
An inverter is fairly rare and would be a retro-fit. As stated above, maybe it's the charger you are referring to. Seems a long read of the manual is in order!
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The inverter should normally be switched off. Have a look and you will see it has 1 or 2 power sockets of the domestic 3 pin type. These can be used for low power 230vAC appliances when your camper is not connected to a 230vAC supply, by converting the battery voltage from 12vDC to 230vAC. Look at the inverter and you will see the output rating - likely to be very low i.e. 100watts or so. The 3 pin sockets elsewhere in the camper will not be powered by the inverter, so they will only work when the camper is connected to a 230vAC supply.
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agree with the above....
unless you have a system whereby all the sockets in the van switch over to the inverter (usually a large one) when no ehu cable is present, it will be a small device that has one female 3pin socket in one side of it.
this is to allow you to run a small mains device when no ehu is available, perhaps a mains charger for a computer or electric bike, or a mains only Sky box as we have...
however, one other thing not touched on is does your charger charge your vehicle battery (as well as your leisure battery) when on hook up?
if not, its possible for alarm, immobiliser, cab radio etc to drag the cab battery down over a couple of weeks on a site....not good when ypu come to leave....
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This sounds like there's a whole lot of confusion going on. I'm going to wade in and see if I can cover all the bases in one go. (wish me luck, bet I miss something)
1. You'll need to get an EHU cable. If you do, try to get one that is 25 meters long and capable of 16 Amps. Normally it will be orange in colour. (this is so people don't trip over it)
2. Get a bag to keep your EHU cable in, over time, it'll get dirty laying outside when in use, so this will help to keep the inside of your van clean.
3. Electrical safety. You can get a small device for testing the sockets. It will tell you if the socket is wired up properly, or not. It's worth spending the £5 or so on one of these, as when you hook up to a new site, you can test to ensure that everything is 100%. In the UK it's a safe assumption, but if you go abroad don't count on things being wired up the UK way.
4. You can get adapters for plugging the cable into normal mains sockets, and for that matter you can get one that provides a normal socket too. So with both you can turn the cable into a normal extension cable.
5. To work with the device in no.3 you can get an adapter (I made one) that will allow you to reverse the polarity of the EHU cable. This will correct a poorly wired up site, but should not be used normally. This is helpful as some UK Appliances make the assumption that Live and neutral wires are the correct way round, if they're reversed, bad things might happen.
6. When you connect the EHU cable the 230v sockets in your van should become active, also the leisure battery should be charged. Other things like 2000w heaters if you have them will also start working.
7. An inverter, if you have one of these, it's job will be to transform the 12v of the leisure battery to 230v to power appliances. It will have a watt rating and will be able to run appliances up to that wattage and no higher. So a 150W inverter will run a laptop, TV etc. a 1000W inverter should run a kettle, a 2000W inverter will run most of your van. However, the higher the wattage of the inverter the quicker the battery will be flattened.
I would expect that if you have an inverter, there will be specific sockets that are supplied by the inverter rather than the normal sockets powered by the EHU.
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Impressive! I like to have a bit of old towel handy when coiling up the cable to move on. They are usually wet from grass/dew in the morning so running a towel along it keeps it and your hands clean! I travel with mine in the car on top of the picnic chair the original bag now houses the tv aerial extension as that fits in more easily!
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No disrespect but if you don't understand what you are doing so either take the van back to the dealer who sold it to you and get them to explain, should have done this at hand over. If you brought it privately get an electrician to take a look for you, this is probably a good safety check as well.
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Wow what a great comprehensive reply. Even I get the gist of how it all works and that takes some doing. I've always believed electricity arrives by magic and looked after by magicians 😂😉. Thank you.
Wonder how the OP is getting on?
Very good advice on wiping the cable and from Oneputt about getting an electric check. Can't see or smell the magic power but you can feel it, sometimes it's the last thing you feel 😲
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The EHU cable does get dirty what with mud, birds dropping things, and even the previous pitchers dog(s), so I transport mine inside the rubbish bin.
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@Pippah45 Don't know why the idea of using a cloth to clean the cable had not crossed my mind. Learn something new every day
I'm going to see if I've got a microfibre cloth at home that I can donate to that cause. it'll be thin enough, that I'll be able to feel if the cable is damaged (which it really shouldn't be)
My clean up routine is to unplug from the bollard, then unplug from the van, and coil the cable back up from the van end. It'll now be cleaned and inspected as I go, instead or just coiled and inspected.
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My hook-up cable came with a mitten. Wear the mitten and pull the cable through as coiling. The cable is stored in the normal circular bag to stop the cable dirtying other stored equipment.
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