can anyone please tell me if when you have the mains plugged in to your caravan on sites does this charge your battery automatically like when driving in your car or not??
Modern caravans will have transformer charger, so yes battery will charge when plugged into Ehu. If caravan is old electrics could have been modified/butchered or charger may not be fitted so in that case it will only charge from car when towing.
It is very easy to tell if you have any halogen light bulbs fitted in the van. If so, then these shine more brightly as you sit in the van with them on battery and somebody plugs in a connected up EHU to the bollard.
Most vans automatically go into a battery charging mode when on EHU, I understand some need that "selecting", but I have never had such a van that was not automatically connected.
You may have a rocker switch which says.CAR.VAN make sure this is set to VAN You might also have a switch that says battery charger depending on make and year of your van switch this on.
Onboard chargers may not fully charge your battery, they keep it at a floating charge that maybe 85% full to prevent the battery gassing and losing its fluid content too quickly.
The onboard charger on our old van died slowly, leaving us with a flat battery after a couple of days. This was a pain as the battery ran the lights and pump. We bought a Ctek battery charger ( run from the EHU) after getting advice from people on here. It was brilliant and kept the lights on.
You can check if the battery is being charged when on EHU by measuring the voltage across the terminals - should be about 13.5 volts or more if charging.
A cheap £10 multimeter is an essential caravanning tool.
very true trog.
Some people seem to have a mental block when it comes to electricals, you've either got it, or you haven't.. and never will. No matter how many times you explain amps, volts, ohms, watts it just goes straight over their heads.
A few years ago me and my business partner went on a Mitsubishi AC course inBirmingham and the teacher said something about using his multimeter to check the voltage in circuit on the resistance scale and was suprised when the internal fuse went. We looked at each other in disbelief
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Topic: battery charged??
