I all,
while away in Yorkshire dales I developed a problem with the 12 volt system in my Bailey Unicorn Madrid and I had to call out a mobile repair man who soon found the fault was the battery charger and he stated this was a common problem, so I was wondering how common?
The cost of the repair was almost £200.for a job that only took about 10 minutes, that I could do myself if only I could find were to purchase the new part from. Any other members had this problem?
Like everything, in time parts become worn out due to wear and tear and become defective so it's only a problem if the charger/transforener has reached the end of it's life. However, I had to replace mine two years ago which cost £95 and did the job myself. If you get the right tools such as a voltmeter for under a tenner you can test any circuit to see what volts or amps are being produced which is the first step of any problem to identify the offending part that needs replacing.
Quote: Originally posted by tango55 on 30/10/2017
Like everything, in time parts become worn out due to wear and tear and become defective so it's only a problem if the charger/transforener has reached the end of it's life. However, I had to replace mine two years ago which cost £95 and did the job myself. If you get the right tools such as a voltmeter for under a tenner you can test any circuit to see what volts or amps are being produced which is the first step of any problem to identify the offending part that needs replacing.
As a correction, the above should have read..... 'charger/transformer' as the maximum time to edit had elapsed.
just had our van serviced ,while we were away in france the 12 volt light kept flickering I suspect the charger so had it replaced while in for the service cost of charger £95 fitting cost £30 old unit returned to me had a look in side most of the components were on the point of catching fire with the look of it , glad I had it replaced
When you are replacing like with like its a pretty straightforward job, and won't need much in the way of tools.
I guess the only issue when away is actually locating and getting your hands on the replacement before having to go home from a short stay.
Given the mobile did all this and travelled from wherever at short notice, and used his expertise to solve your issue very quickly, I think your bill was reasonable.
I think these chargers now have a lot of electronics in them. They don't have a set life but rather are easily damaged by voltage spikes and maybe harmonics.
This could be caused by lightning or being near a user with gear such as heavy duty welding gear or large motors with electronic control. Our mains supplies now are no longer the lovely sine waves we used to have but are a complete mess.
My theory is that although equipment must conform to standards to prevent it polluting the mains with harmonics above a certain limit and similarly equipment in use must be resilient to harmonics up to a certain limit. The problem is that if a lot of polluting equipment is used the effect is cumulative and that cannot be controlled or restricted.
Lightning strikes are another likely culprit especially in the country with lots of overhead cables.
We even had all electronic equipment in a large office block taken out by a strike on a BT telephone line monitoring the UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) upholding all the main servers. The servers survived although the UPS was completely blown pout and all the CCTV, access control, alarms, lifts etc etc were lost.
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Topic: Caravan battery charger
