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Hi everyone, hope someone can help us..

Today we have had fitted the white towbar 12volt electrics to our car so we can run the fridge and charge our leisure battery while on the move.

The chap who fitted it demonstrated it all working to us with the use of lights to mimick the fridge and the battery being charged.

We have a Pennine Sterling 2003 model.

this afternoon we got the camper out and connected it up,put the 12v switch in the camper to "car" turned on car ignition switch and volt meter goes over to the green(12v present from car I assume).

Start the car...and then the volt meter needle starts going from" green" to "red" like ticking off a clock, red,green,red,green? when this happening a relay in the "camper" is "switching" ,on ,off,.I'm assuming this relay is switching in sync with the needle on the volt meter?

Turn off the car and the volt meter goes to green and stays there.

The leisure battery was new back in feb and is fully charged.

Has anyone any idea whats happening before i get moaning at the towbar man?

Thanks,any help appreciated.

thanks for your reply

a couple of points you raised have got me thinking

I'm assuming the camper can charge a battery whilst on the move?

and putting the switch in the middle, well i thought this was "off"?

in car position,ignition on (but not running)a good 12v shows and in van positition a little less from leisure battery, I'll try in the middle position and turn the fridge on.

Thanks for the advise

Just a little update with the 12v problem

Towbar man has been back and checked his work and its all ok

the battery in camper is being charged, a constant 13.8 volts with car off tickover.

the voltmeter still up and down,but the clicking relay is in the power management box in the camper, all fuses ok.

so looks like problem in there or could be fridge itself? fridge works fine on 240volts and on gas although thats nowt do with electrics.

priced a new unit up at £190 plus then the fitting so this could be something I may not fix,but i would like to know what the prob is for sure

Whats the middle position on the "car "van" switch for? Thanks everyone for your responses.

It used to be that you switch it to van if using the leisure battery and to car if you want to run the lights inside from the car - the middle position is when you aren't running anything in the camper from 12v. But I think newer caravans (and so campers likewise) have been wired a bit differently so you can't run from the car unless the engine is running - anyway, the fridge is wired separately so that it can't be. On a motorhome I had, the switch changed which battery was being charged from the EHU and when they were both fully charged I had to put it to the middle position to stop over charging.

It really does depend on what way it's all been wired, and sometimes on secondhand units you can find some very strange things. On that same motorhome I mentioned, it was wired so that the brake warning light came on in the cab if you forgot to switch the fridge on to 12v for travelling! No doubt done by a previous owner to remind them to do it.