Just bought a caravan - 10 year old, pretty good condition. all the bits that should work on 12v are perfect, however, when we plugged the hook up in (we used the one, that connects to the house mains) we have a problem, first of all the house fuse box tripped out, reset that and then we have no mains electric in the caravan.
We did have some of the 12v lights on in the caravan when we plugged the hook up on. Would anything we had on or did with the hook up cause something to trip or blow?
We have tested the hook up cable and it is fine, so it is either there is no power going from the blue socket to the fuse box, or it is getting to the fuse box and then going nowhere from there. All the fuses look ok and the fuse box is not tripping off in the caravan.
Is there anything we can check or do to test at home (other half has various metres/testing kit) before we take it off to a professional.
Nothing 'big' was on at the time of 240v connection, just a few internal 12v lights.
Have unplugged everything many a time now trying to suss this out, tried connecting the 240v with everything off etc etc. Rang the previous owner incase we were doing things in an incorrect sequence somehow or had missed a 'on' switch or suchlike, but no joy there. 240v is at the end of the blue plug as I have metered it. When the house lekky tripped out it didn't blow the fuse in the 13A plug on the other end of the mains hook up lead. Will do a continuity check from the 3 pins in the blue socket on the van to the meter box in the morning and go from there I suppose...
Try this to try and find out which circuit the trip fault is in:
On the consumer unit in your van, you probably have two 'mini circuit breakers' (a 10A which supplies sockets and a 6A which supplies fridge / 12v power supply / battery charger.) and an 'rcd' switch . Switch all three off.
Make sure nothing is plugged into the sockets.
Switch off 240v to fridge and 12v power supply.
Now, turn on rcd, followd by, 10A mcb, followed by 6A mcb, followed by fridge 240v and then 12v power supply.
When it trips, the fault is in the circuit that your finger is on at that moment.
It sounds like either your fridge , water heater , or space heater has shorted to earth ( eg. caused by a blown 240volt element or faulty wiring ) also your on board battery charger could be faulty .
It may be worth getting an electrican to check it out .
Neutral & Earth wires were swopped over in the blue plug on the charging lead. Can't quite see how the previous owner managed to use the mains lead to keep the battery topped up as he said he did, unless his outdoor garden socket thing is wired up backwards too. Will ring him and advise him to get it checked though, just in case.
Anyway, everything 240v seems to work now, so many thanks everyone for the advice.
Just to clarify, it only tripped out the house once, the first time we tried plugging it in and switching on. After resetting the house, it never tripped it again, which seems kinda odd as knowing what was wrong now, I'd of thought it would have kept tripping out every time we tried it again until being fixed.
I should have twigged on what was wrong when I measured getting 240v at the blue plug, as I was getting it not across the two small round sockets as you should, but across one small socket and the larger one, which should be the earth. Not being familiar with caravan electrics I incorrectly just assumed they use the big pin & socked for one of the live connections, instead of switching my brain on and thinking, hey, shouldn't the big one be the earth connection, doh! Got there in the end though
Not getting a voltage between L and N on the plug would suggest there was a neutral fault.
Going between live and Earth would give you 240v as the neutral is earth back on the transformer.
Indeed CandP. Unfortunatly I couldn't see any indication on the end of the blue plug as to which hole should be what, so just assumed all was as it should be when I measured 240v across two of the round holes. I incorrectly assumed it was across the two correct holes as that was how the lead came and the seller had it plugged into his garden 3 pin socket. I thought at the time surely the big pin should be the earth, but assuming it must be wired correctly overuled my logic saying it was odd somehow.
Anyway, an easy fix in the end & lesson learned, never assume, always check for yourself...
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Topic: ELECTRIC PROBLEM
