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Electric problems

4K views 26 replies 11 participants last post by  Pudsey_Bear 
#1 ·
The electric supply to the van tripped in the night

Both ourselves and the other van were affected

The owner put the power back on and although the other van has power we still don’t

Have checked the electric fuse block all switched on, powered up the gas generator which gave us electric to the van

Tried two different leads ,no power

Any ideas, never had a problem before

Sandra
 
#2 ·
Get site to check your output on their distribution post, and your input connection too.

Switch everything off in the van reset the sites trip if off and turn each item on one at a time to see the offending item.

Good luck.

Terry
 
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#3 ·
Don’t haveanything plugged in on electric Terry

Except the fridge as it tripped in the night , the fridge automatically sets itself to available power

Was wondering if it’s the outside input connection as it rained very heavily in the night

Nothing tripped when the onboard gas generator powered up the electric in the van

Alberts going to check the outside input, not that he’s sure what we are looking for

Sandra
 
#7 ·
If your genny is giving you power, the fault must lie with the sites supply I think.
 
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#8 ·
I think it must be our connection
The genny is AC mains, trek, 2.9 kw
It’s a bit too wet to mess with the outside plug in on the side of the van
So we’ve done without electric
Although they have a barn here with seats etc, so I’ve plugged our evening meal in there as I’d already started to prepare stuffed veg before I knew we would have no electric
So not the end of the world

As long as we can sort out what’s causing the problem so we can have electric some days on the rest of the trip , especially as sites are including electric in their pitch fees

Sandra
 
#9 ·
#11 ·
Last time mine went pop you would not have noticed any thing wrong at a glance in the consumer unit .
After a process of elimination and opening up consumer unit to disconnect some circuits I just noticed a little bit of
scorching from under connector board within the unit itself.

Stripped it and found the solder had been weak and guess upon heating and cooling just let go and bang
Had some photos but they will not attach sorry

Short circuited this connection ( pun intended ) and was up and running again.

This sort of thing might be your trouble unless you running on Generator through same supply route..

LT Man
 
#12 ·
We’re not on hookup here Drew

Hoping the fault was with the supply but I don’t think that’s the case

May need to look for an auto electrition

The generator has its own direct connection in the consumer unit , so the fault may lie in the unit as LT says

Sandra
 
#14 ·
Well it's blown on here

Tomorrow we will open the circuit breakers

Sandra
Hi Sandra

What exactly do you mean ?

Are you on a different site and tried the hook up only to find its failed again ?

So what is the difference in connection points for the genney and the external hook up? Are they both supply side of RCD AND MCB's so both go through these devices in consumer unit

How about some photos ?
 
#15 ·
Alls well

Yes it blew again when we plugged in at this stop

About to find an auto electrician, when the guy from the village came to the camper stop

We apologised and said it was our fault , we thought , so could he reset it and we wouldn’t use it again even though it was included in the 8 €

He plugged us in it blew again

He then opened the unit on the site

It’s not you he said these two are faulty

Plugged us in to another and we have electric , And taped over the faulty ones

So it wasn’t us after all, so far no problem , fingers crossed

Sandra
 
#17 ·
We carry a plug in checker Graham
It showed power at the site plug, but still blew when we plugged in

Which was why we thought the problem was us

The guy from the council said there was power but it was a faulty unit on two sources with signs of scorching , both would need replacement

We still have electric on the unit he connected us to

Sandra
 
#18 ·
Modern breakers are far too sensitive. Just checking with a lamp for live and earth will trip them.
Gimmee the old fuses you can boost with silver foil anytime.

Ray.
 
#26 ·
I must admit that nails are rather unforgiving Peter. At least with a limited amount of foil you can still just up the amperage slightly.
We used to feed 3 or 4 caravans, two RVs, make up and dining bus on film locations from one 13a outlet. We had some 30a cartridge fuses just for the extension leads. Not quite cricket but worked for the production team.

Apparently there are 20,000 vehicle fires a year in UK. So much for regulations and safer protection. As an electrician you became aware of the coefficient of utilisation and stay within acceptable limits. Regulations try to cover any and every dumb cluck user.

Ray.
 
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#25 ·
test
 
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#27 ·
Back when we ran Triple S, we had a ancient arc welder, it would only work with a nail in the plug, which did get quite hot, but we kept it on a seperate circuit just in case, 13amps just wasn't enough, we did one day put a meter on it and it topped out at 20 amps, we should have had a proper set up for it looking back, but we painted bikes, we weren't sparkies.
 
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