my adria caravan has leisure battery fitted but i have to take of battery to charge it and i don't no what the condition is when on 12volt ie how much power is left in battery, i want to fit a zig unit to charge it when plugged in to ehu, my question is can one of these units be fitted by myself easily? as ni could get one of ebay, one with a volt meter so i no whats going off? thanks
Any smart charger should do. I bought one in Aldi a year or so back for £15 as a spare, the only downside is that it had to be turned on every time the power was connected. Just looked on eBay and this looks to be the sort of thing you want and a very good buy too. Basically, cut the crocodile clips off the charger and connect the wires to the battery terminals. You can either leave the charger plugged into the caravan 240 volt system or hard wire it through a fused spur. The volt meter is just connected straight across the +ve and -ve side of the battery. This can be done by tapping into the caravan wiring elsewhere in the caravan, but ideally should be as close to the battery as possible to get the most accurate reading. It should also have a fuse connected between the +ve side of the meter and the +ve battery terminal and be as close to the battery end of the wire as possible.
Quote: Originally posted by LegsDownKettleOn on 11/6/2011
Any smart charger should do. I bought one in Aldi a year or so back for £15 as a spare, the only downside is that it had to be turned on every time the power was connected. Just looked on eBay and this looks to be the sort of thing you want and a very good buy too. Basically, cut the crocodile clips off the charger and connect the wires to the battery terminals. You can either leave the charger plugged into the caravan 240 volt system or hard wire it through a fused spur. The volt meter is just connected straight across the +ve and -ve side of the battery. This can be done by tapping into the caravan wiring elsewhere in the caravan, but ideally should be as close to the battery as possible to get the most accurate reading. It should also have a fuse connected between the +ve side of the meter and the +ve battery terminal and be as close to the battery end of the wire as possible.
what amp fuse whould be goods for this? can wire straight to battery terminals then? also need a spare 3 pin plug for conecting charger to? yes?
If you don't know much about electrics I would say leave the 13 amp plug on and just plug it in, otherwise, run a wire from a nearby socket to a fused switch and wire into that. I can't really tell you what the wiring on the switch would be without seeing the switch, but it should be marked LOAD and SUPPLY with L and N terminals for load and supply. (ie two N and 2 L terminals, one of each will also be labelled either LOAD or SUPPLY) Connect the L on the supply side to the brown in a length of wire, the N to the blue and the green and yellow wire to the Earth terminal (may be marked E or have three horizontal lines of decreasing length which is the symbol for earth) connect the other end to the matching coloured in a nearby 13 amp socket.
Unfortunately, different make switches have slight variations to the layout of the terminals, so I cannot say connect the terminal on the left to such and such, but if you have a switch in front of you to look at, what I have said here will hopefully become a lot clearer.
Then cut the plug off the charger and connect the brown wire to the L terminal and the blue wire to the N terminal on the load side of the switch. There probably won't be an earth wire but if there is connect it to the other earth terminal in the switch if there is one, if not connect it to the same terminal as the first green / yellow wire.
But as I said, if you are not sure about the 240 volt stuff, just plug the charger into a socket. That way it is perfectly safe.
Quote: Originally posted by LegsDownKettleOn on 11/6/2011Any smart charger should do. I bought one in Aldi a year or so back for £15 as a spare, the only downside is that it had to be turned on every time the power was connected. Just looked on eBay and this looks to be the sort of thing you want and a very good buy too. Basically, cut the crocodile clips off the charger and connect the wires to the battery terminals. You can either leave the charger plugged into the caravan 240 volt system or hard wire it through a fused spur. The volt meter is just connected straight across the +ve and -ve side of the battery. This can be done by tapping into the caravan wiring elsewhere in the caravan, but ideally should be as close to the battery as possible to get the most accurate reading. It should also have a fuse connected between the +ve side of the meter and the +ve battery terminal and be as close to the battery end of the wire as possible.
what amp fuse whould be goods for this? can wire straight to battery terminals then? also need a spare 3 pin plug for conecting charger to? yes?
To make sure you have the correct size fuse take it out of the plug that you cut off and put the fuse from the plug into the switch. The switch will probably come with a 13 amp fuse which is a bit high for a battery charger but nonetheless does offer some protection at a guess I'd say the charger will probably have a 5 amp fuse in the plug.
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Topic: zig unit fitting to older caravan
