Vehicle power supply and fridge issues
Hi, hoping someone can help! We are fairly new to caravanning and have a Swift Ace Viceroy (2013). We have a power indicator panel above door inside van, showing if van is connected via mains and also leisure and vehicle battery levels. When the panel is first turned on, all lights come on initially, so we know all displays work. We can view leisure battery levels, but once our car is hooked up (its a 13 pin connection), we cannot get the vehicle battery levels to display at all, although I think we had got it to display at some point. Is this normal? Or could it be a fuse issue? We do know there is a connection, as all external indicators, lights etc then work on the caravan. We have also had the caravan serviced and the car connections checked, and we are told all is fine, but we are still puzzled!
Also, we have a thetford fridge in the van, and when plugged into the mains we can set the fridge to run off mains electric. However, once we connect to our car, the fridge won't stay on (power light flashes red) and won't let us select any power source at all, (the light displays just flash). We do pre-cool the fridge on mains and pack the freezer bit with ice blocks before we go, but again don't know if we are doing something wrong. Any advice would be much appreciated! Thank you! 😊
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Your fridge requires a 12v supply to allow its control circuitry to work. Additionally, your car engine needs to be running to energise the fridge in 12v chilling mode.
So, either switch on your van’s 12v services at the master switch, or, if your fridge has an option to run its control with AA batteries, you can use that.
And plug in the car and start the engine.
The, switch the fridge to 12v on its control panel. Some models of fridge will do this automatically.
Remember that a fridge will do little more than hold an already low temperature when ringing on 12v.
We have a fridge thermometer in ours, which tells the stark truth that our fridge struggles in warm or hot weather. The absolute maximum storage temp is 8deg C, but really needs to be 5deg C for normal use. Having dialogues this with the manufacturer it’s clear that we can expect little more.
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To verify if there is a fault, and start to identify where it might be, connect your caravan to a different vehicle where the towing electrics are known to work correctly. You can then observe whether there is any change in the lights or cooling function and eliminate the car or the caravan from your quest.
Not all fridges are wired internally to power the control panel when switched to 12v DC from towing vehicle. A couple of minutes search on the Internet should turn up a circuit diagram for your fridge, and you can follow the circuit to find if contol panel is supposed to be powered or not. Mine isn't.
Conversely, some caravans are wired such that turning off the 12v caravan power master switch does not turn off the fridge control panel - yet others do.
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Hi! Thanks for your reply! Sorry to ask a silly question, but how do we tell it to run off 12v? Is that the battery option on the fridge? Also, on the main power unit, we just keep all the buttons on for power, including charger one. We also have tried running the car and revving the engine before trying again to set up the fridge but still to no avail..... thanks again! 😊
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Yes, battery = 12v. Mains hook up = 240v. Engage battery function when connected to car with the engine running.
Do you know an experienced caravanner who can talk you through these things and show you how it all works?
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There are two quite seperate 12v connections for a fridge.
One is part of the caravan electrics and comes from the leisure battery via a dedicated fuse - which is sometimes not in the main fuse panel but hidden away where it suited the manufacturer. This runs the controls, light, etc.
Other 12v supply should come direct from the tow vehicle and is completely seperate from the caravan electrics. It is fed from a relay in the tow vehicle which only supplies power when the engine is running. Recently car builders have tried to get clever about electrical load and even if the 12v caravan fridge wiring is present it may not come on when you expect. A friend with a test meter or bulb can verify that at the 13-pin car socket while you run/rev the engine.
So in some caravans with some fridge models you need the caravan 12v electrics to be functioning correctly to operate the control panel so it will switch to 12v operation AND the 13-pin plug in a vehicle that is actually supplying the high current 12v to cool the fridge.
It is done this way because the high current needed to cool the fridge will empty a leisure battery in no time at all. And it all needs to be done with the blue 240v mains plug removed.
As TW says, a local caravanner should be able to show how it works, and you can look at his/her caravan as well. Or a caravan dealer, or shop, or site.
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Do you have a handbook for the caravan? If not, they are downloadable from the Swift website. (Swift Ace Viceroy sounds like a Wandahome South Cave special edition based on a Sprite model)
Even if the car supply is OK, the 'black button' needs to be on, the battery symbol on the fridge selected, and even then, until the engine is started, the lights will flash, but after a few seconds, they should stop.
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Hi everyone! Thanks to you all for your replies 😊. We've managed to locate the second fuse board (under the front settee area as mentioned) to check fuses, and all is OK there. When the car is hooked up, weve tried revving it a few times to boost connection, but the fridge still won't set, despite the black power button being on, and the vehicle battery displays nothing....the manual says both the leisure and vehicle battery indicators should flash together when the car has been connected, but don't think this is happening either.
The van is going in for a small repair in a few weeks, so I think we will ask the service people to try and investigate whilst it is connected to the car when we take in the van. Hopefully, we can solve the mystery! Thanks again to everyone.
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You don't say what vehicle you are using to tow. We had an Octavia from new, factory fitted with towbar and electrics. We had exactly the problem you describe, which was due to lack of suitable power supply being fitted by continental manufacturers for some reason. We had a separate, additional power supply installed by a local towbar installer, and all was well after that. I was told, but obviously don't know how true this is, that most continental caravans don't have fridges (!!??) and thus don't need this supply.
We have just changes cars, and made sure the new towbar installation allowed for electrical supply to the van. It does, but this installation at least requires the engine to run to flow electric from the car to the van. Presumably this is so it will not run down the car battery if hooked up overnight on say a long ferry crossing. Seems strange to me that you have a wacking great domestic battery on the van, and it doesn't use this as the primary source - so the fridge runs overnight on this if required.
Perhaps someone else can answer this particular query.
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Are you sure that the car socket is actually wired for the fridge auxiliary supply? Sometimes cars are wired just for a trailer and not fully wired for a caravan which requires a relay to switch the auxiliary supply on when the engine is running. You would need a voltmeter to check the socket.
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I vaguely recall a similar issue linked to vehicles fitted with smart alternators and regenerative braking - explained here 12V Planet
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You have to specify a separate fridge feed for most cars when using dedicated electrics as european manufacturers don't include them in the electrics module.
Back in the day the towbar electrics also used to include a device that only fed the caravan fridge when the car battery was suitably charged. This ensured the car battery had priority after starting, though that was in the days when less powerful alternators were fitted.
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What food? By all accounts, you won’t be taking anything that'll go off.
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As long as you keep the door shut, the fridge will stay cool enough.
The 'small' fridge in my previous caravan drew around 10A, so at best (even if you could get your caravan fridge to run off the leisure battery) it'd only run for half a day from a large battery
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I haven't read through all the replies so this may have already been pointed out. Although you have a 13 pin plug, the 12 volt supply to the fridge, and a permanent 12 volt for ATC is an option. They are expensive extras so may not have been connected.
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Whilst slightly off topic i thought i might mention a power supply issue with the three way fridge in my Pegasus GT65 that i encountered last summer. Having been a caravanner for 28 years i am slightly embarrassed to mention it but- The 240v power supply for our dometic fridge (and cooker) is via a switched 3 pin plug and socket in the pan storage area under the adjacent cooker. In putting a pan away i accidentally pushed the switch into the off position resulting in the fridge being off overnight. When we realised the 240v wasnt working we switched to gas. We eventually discovered the simple solution when we got home. Check the obvious first!
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It is only certain continental manufacturers that regard these as an option and why people put up with it is beyond me, I have never had to beg for additional wiring on any of my Land Rovers. As for the permanent 12v supply, that has been around as long as I can remember originally as 12s pin 4 and certainly long before ATC was invented.
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