I have recently installed a Cascade water heater (gas only) into a Land Rover Ambulance.
Thanks to Gary's advice I now have a nice blue flame and all seems well with the heater itself except perhaps a rather "poppy" light up.
The problem is more to do with the electrics in than if I turn on any of the four florescent strip lights then the controller becomes erratic. If the lights are on and I select the controller on then the green light comes on but there is no ignition and the red light does not come on.
If I have the lights off then the heater will light and keep burning when I turn the lights on, but again the red light will not come on if I turn off the the gas to simulate flame failure.
There is also an overhead light with LED bulbs which did have the same effect until I put a diode in the earth wire on the advice of a friend. This remedy has not worked with the fluorescent tubes. I intend to replace them with LED spots eventually so I hope the problem will be fixable but I would really like to find what I've done wrong. The earth is good and I get a drop of about 0.2 of a volt between the battery and the heater.
Any ideas would be very welcome.
Does the power come from a separate leisure battery or from the main vehicle battery. Vehicle battery voltages can go above 14 volts when engine is running and this may be a bit excessive for the water heater which is designed for a caravan. The heater should not be operated when the engine is running.
I suspect you had some overvoltage problems causing the LED to need a diode fitting.
Is the water heater wired on the same circuit as the fluorescent lights. If so it may be worth wiring it on its own circuit, that's positive and negative cables. That will reduce the effect of any volt drop due to surges when the lights start up.
Presumably there is also a pump. These can cause voltage fluctuations when they start so again, it may be worth wiring on a separate circuit.
navver.
Thanks for taking the trouble to look at this.
The heater is connected to a leisure battery that is completely isolated from the vehicle at the moment - awaiting a VSR. There is no charging at the moment other than an overnight trickle charge.
Negative is through the chassis at the moment. I shall try a wire direct to the -ve post.
Positive goes to a fuse box off which the water pump and heater get their shared feed.
From the same fuse box the fluorescent lights have a feed of their own as does the overhead light with LEDs.
If I activate the pump the heater appears to fail but immediately lights as soon as I turn the pump off. This is different to the two lighting circuits as I have to turn the controller off and on to get the heater ignition to start
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Topic: Carver Cascade and electrics
