Leisure battery not powering sockets or fridge
Hi all, we’ve had our Abbey GTS Vogue 516 van around 2 years now and have always been to sites with electric hookup.
We’re going away this bank holiday weekend without hookup so have purchased a 12v (110amp) leisure battery. However it only seems to be powering some of the lights and the water pumps / toilet flush. It does not seem to power the sockets or fridge. Can anyone advise please? We’ve hooked it all up again I check and all works fine that way, just not with the battery.
hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of this issue with the help of the club.
thanks in advance,
Dan.
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Are you saying that there wasn't a battery before then?
As I am aware using a battery to power a ridge would quickly run the battery down, the battery symbol on the fridge is to run it while the caravan is being towed.
I'm puzzled by the sockets? are you talking about the 240V ones or do you have 12V sockets?
When you say you hooked up you mean the EHU?
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Hi DougA, thanks for that. We (naively) thought it would power the sockets too, like a camper van battery does.
Any idea why it doesn’t power all the lights, or is that similar to the situation with the sockets? And any advice on why the fridge isn’t powered either?
thanks again
Dan
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Hi Cornersteady, no there was no battery in the Van when we purchased it.
We (naively) thought a leisure battery would power everything but DougA has explained differently above.
thanks to you we now understand the electric power to the fridge is mainly for travel, however it’s not coming on at all. Can you advise on that please?
thanks again
Dan
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Most if not all lights will work from the 12v leisure battery.
The fridge works when hooked up to electric or gas when no electric. The fridge will work from the towing car or motorhome battery while traveling. It does not work from the leisure battery.
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It’s been explained that the fridge only works off the 12v car battery when connected to the car with the engine running.
240v lights will never work from a 12v source. It’s likely you have some 240v lights and some 12v lights whereas the camper only had 12v lights.
Similarly, 240v sockets will never work from a 12v battery.
If sockets and lights were interchangeable in terms of power source, we’d all have our houses running off 12v batteries in the event of power cuts.😀
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I assume you have 240V lights (they look like household lights) and 12V lights or tubes?
If so the 240V will only work from a 240V EHU. The EHU will also power the 12V lights but there will be a transformer between it and the 12V lights to reduce the 240V to 12V. Likewise for your other 12V devices like the toilet.
You can get inverters that will power some 240V devices from 12V but you will quickly run down your battery.
Post edit sorry cross posted with TW, wot he said
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Two minds are better than one, Mr C. 👍🏻
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If you do not have a caravan handbook, that explains how to use and power the van equipment, then it would be a good idea to get one.
Abbey vans are part of the Swift Group, so if you visit their website you will find that you can download a generic handbook for your model year.
here.....
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as above, the gas will provide the cooling but you still need some sort of electric to power the control panel....this will come from yout 12v battery.
simlarly, any hot water you require needs to be from your gas setting, with again, 12v controlling the panel.
if your TV iis mains only this won't work either, but if it's 12v, it will.
any phone or tablet charging needs to be done fron a 12v socket so if this is important, you may need an adaptor, thought for one day you'll probably be ok.
good luck.
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I do worry a lot these days !!!!!!!
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