Not sure anyone will be able to help, but thought I'd do a quick post before organising something more expensive! At the weekend, the 12v circuit on the caravan completely died. Before this weekend, we'd noticed that the battery was never charged properly but when the mains was hooked up, everything ran ok. The battery appears to take a charge from a separate charger so don't think its the battery. The consumer unit ( a Nordelettrinica 193rm) houses the battery charger and the circuit for it was showing no current (someone had one of those magic pens that light up when there's power present). The 240v circuit was working OK.
If anyone has any ideas, let me know. I did have a quick look inside the consumer unit and there were no loose wires (although it was a bit a of pain to open up, obviously not suited to servicing). I guess I could just replace the whole consumer unit but at £175, but expensive way of finding out thats not the problem. The caravan is an 2007 Ace Jubilee
My guess, if it works on hookup but not without it, I would suspect the battery. Check the batt. with a volt meter it should show up to 13volts if its any good. Make sure you are not hooked up when you do it, it would show a false reading. Too check the charger you need a person who knows what they are doing.
The battery appears to take a charge from a separate charger so don't think its the battery . Do you mean it reads fully charged on the charger ? and did it charge up quickly ? Now i'm just guessing here but i think your battery may have been on the way out ( going flat quickly when not on hookup ) and your charger had to run at full steam to try and put charge into the battery when hooked up , i suspect your charger has had enough and broken down . I would start with the battery and have it tested / replaced .
Thanks for your replies. We had the battery on charge for about 2 hours and it didn't charge up fully in that time. Suggests it was bad, it was less than 2 years old mind but perhaps I didn't charge it correctly over winter?(I took it out when we didn't use the caravan last winter and used a normal car charger to charge it up every couple of months)
Assuming the battery is dead and therefore killed the charger, in theory would there a be a way of just installing a new charger some where else and bypassing the one in the consumer unit? Sounds a bit cheaper that replacing the whole thing
sounds like a faulty battery,i had one that failed at two years old just over the warranty time.the reason the 12v works ok on EHU is because it is not coming from the battery itself.unless the battery is at 12.7 volts then it is near flat.place a meter across the battery terminals when on EHU and the reading needs to be about 14.5 volts or more.if so this means the battery is not taking charge as it should. check also for the 10 amp fuse next to the charger (red) is ok.
'Normal car battery charger'? depends what you call normal but some need watching or they will overcharge the battery and indeed ruin it.
The Nord charger is a 'smart' fully automatic type with three stages of charging, it could well also 'see' a faulty battery connected to it and refuse to switch on?
I don't actually think the pen will light with 12v, it's designed to detect mains voltage.
A quick check to see if the charger is working is to switch a few 12v lights on without the charger switched on, if the lights get brighter when you switch the charger on then it's working.
Worst come to worst, you don't need to replace the whole consumer unit, at the very least you can buy the same charger as a standalone in it's own box and by removing from the box, fit it inside your unit.
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Topic: 12v circuit completely dead
