Message Forums

My Abbey Vogue has a rocker swith that can be in 1 of 3 positions. Car/Caravan or a Central position. My understanding is that the Central position ifs fine when connected to 240 supply and will charge battery etc if charger is switched on. Caravan position for when no hook up available and Car if Caravan battery is flat. A friend tells me that the switch should be on Car when towing, Caravan when connected to EHU on site and that on Central position is not charging the battery. The handbook is not very clear.

What is correct best practice please?

I'm no expert on this new to caravanning but I'll give you my understanding of it.

1. Car . use this when towing if you have duel electricts this will also run the fridge en route

2 Caravan. When no EHU is available. Uses your leisure battery

3 Middle when your on EHU.

Remember to switch all appliances to the correct setting dependant on what is powering them.

With regards to the leisure battery re charging from EHU I don't know the answer to that one sorry !! but if your on EHU then the leisure battery won't be getting used        So it won't need charging

Hi

Your van may be different but on our old (20yr) abi we set the switch to caravan when on site regardless of ehu as this charges the battery if we are on hook up & powers the 12 volt systems.

If we set the switch to the centre position marked off it turns the battery power off to the van leaving it to run on hook up alone. Some vans will power 12v lights etc directly from the charger without there being a battery attached, others use the battery as a power store to help the charger during high demand. In our case the battery helps to boost power when the switch is set to caravan & the lights etc are on at night, the battery then re charges itself during the day when nothing much is being used

If we are not on ehu we also leave the switch turned to Caravan, this powers the van off it's own battery.

The car setting is for running the van from the car battery when on site if your van battery is flat & will supply power to the lights etc, you need to have the grey plug plugged into the car for this but it will eventually flatten the car battery so should only be used in emergency.

We leave our switch in the off position when the van is not being used as this switches off all battery power to the van, I also leave it off when towing, the battery charges from the car regardless, there is a separate switch on the fridge that you set to car to power the fridge while travelling regardless of the van power switch

So set it to caravan when on site, car in emergency if your van battery is flat on site & off when in storage or not being used

hope you understand, it's pretty hard to explain but you will get the hang of it! 

HI stuart

Dont know if yours is the same as ours looking at the switch panal 

power switch left on car 12 volt supply and electric hook-up

power switch center off

power switch right on battery 12 volt and electic hook-up to charge battery

We were told to leave it in the van position all the time. It seems to work except we can't use the electric flush on the toilet when hooked up!

David

Hi, I have an Abbey Spectrum, the way it works is, ==

       Car       =  12v feed from car

       Middle  =  12v feed off.

       Van      =  12v feed from van battery / charger

  Hope this helps.

I would agree.

On our Sterling Emerald it was ....

car....only if van battery was flat.

caravan...uses from van battery

middle...12v in van isolated but battery still charging if charger "on"

We were also told just to normally leave it in van position all the time, that way you have nothing to think about.

Quote: Originally posted by jennifernn on 17/3/2008

---

We were also told just to normally leave it in van position all the time, that way you have nothing to think about.

---

 Is that how your van works Steve?

 On our Sterling Emerald the fridge worked while towing with the switch on "van".   David's Sterling also seems to work that way.   We can only say what we know from the vans we have used.

The fridge is run directly through an ignition controlled supply from the car, so if you look at the towbar and van wiring, it is more sensible that it would be independant of the position of the 3-way switch.

Our handbook actually said to use the middle position while towing as this isolated the van 12v, but we had a habitation relay that did that anyway, so no reason not to keep the switch on "van".

Stuart, I think you should try to make sense of your handbook and follow what it says.

Quote: Originally posted by The Welder10 on 17/3/2008

---

Hi, I have an Abbey Spectrum, the way it works is, ==

       Car       =  12v feed from car

       Middle  =  12v feed off.

       Van      =  12v feed from van battery / charger

  Hope this helps.

---

Same on the Abbey Piper

Further to Jennifer's post above I would say that our system has worked fine for me during the past 4 years without a hitch and that has include some pretty long continental tows which would show up any problems. My fridge works and is kept cool and my battery is kept charged. All this governed by a relay to protect the system.

David