We headed off with our 300w inverter and 12a smart charger all connected. A new solonoid at the engine (cut iff 12.4v) and 100a fuses.
120w solar but I thought, cloudy victoria - doesnt matter. Ive got it covered.
To cut a long story short, our 100a AGM went down to 11.5v after a few days away from 240v. So into the recreation reserve powered site at Port Campbell. Hooked up the smart charger and left the van to go touring. Returned 4 hours later and...battery hadnt recovered much. Suggested to my wife we need a new AGM.
Looked at the charger and it had been switched to charge on "maintenance" 1amp !!!
Oh dear. Put it on full charge and bingo. 12amps and charged up in no time.
See, we hadnt used the van for 4 months hence the trickle charge was selected. :(
Do you recall a silly mistake?
Tony
-- Edited by Eaglemax on Thursday 23rd of August 2018 09:39:18 PM
denmonkey said
10:49 PM Aug 23, 2018
can't tell you how many chocks I've killed.
Jaahn said
10:45 AM Aug 24, 2018
Hmmm
Wot me make a mistake
I have pulled out of the driveway with the jockey wheel down, after using it to lift the rig on the ball. Ok for a short while wondering what the extra noise was. But when we 'hit' the speed hump up the road it was a bit rough. Well just required a new bracket and jockey wheel.
There may be more but I forget ??
Jaahn
aussie_paul said
11:38 AM Aug 24, 2018
A fringe benefit of losing ones memory is can't remember all my many mistakes.
Aussie Paul.
denmonkey said
12:02 PM Aug 24, 2018
aussie_paul wrote:
A fringe benefit of losing ones memory is can't remember all my many mistakes.
Aussie Paul.
Age grants bliss through ignorance
Mike Harding said
12:07 PM Aug 24, 2018
One time, deep in the bush, I was jerry-rigging a battery to charge some other low voltage item and I perfectly happily connected the red wire to the black terminal and the black wire to the red terminal. I have no idea why I did this but it seemed quite reasonable at the time!
Fortunately, the fuse saved the appliance.
JBDUBBO said
05:06 PM Aug 24, 2018
I note you have a 100 amp fuse from the car Why? surely not getting aconstant 100amp charhe to the battery mine is 40 amp but I have had a 20amp not blow.
Eaglemax said
09:54 PM Aug 24, 2018
JBDUBBO wrote:
I note you have a 100 amp fuse from the car Why? surely not getting aconstant 100amp charhe to the battery mine is 40 amp but I have had a 20amp not blow.
It happens I had the spare, manual reset type.
I think the amperage of a system depends on the cable size. Mine is 6mm thick.
What is the harm JB?
This type
-- Edited by Eaglemax on Friday 24th of August 2018 10:00:39 PM
-- Edited by oldbloke on Saturday 25th of August 2018 01:06:31 AM
outlaw40 said
09:44 AM Aug 25, 2018
Eaglemax the harm could be that the fuse needs to be the weakest link in the system so it blows before anything else gets damaged if anything goes wrong.with 100a fuse in the system i think something else may give first. can get expensive .
JBDUBBO said
10:57 AM Aug 25, 2018
What ever size fuse you have it needs to reach 125% of its rating to fuse "blow". If it was provided power for a 12 volt fridge for instant normally 15 amp current draw just imagine how much damage that many amps would do to it.
6 B&S cable is 13.5mmsq could carry 100 amps perhaps depending on length, 6mmsq good for 40 amps once again depending on length.
My new Everest has two 10mmsq twin cables one to fridge 20 amp fuse at battery, the other via VSR to house battery 40 amp fused never blown so not getting more than 40 amps through.
Recent trip away the cable came out of terminal at the fridge touched metal frame fuse simply blew . connect wire replace fuse back in business.
-- Edited by JBDUBBO on Saturday 25th of August 2018 10:59:08 AM
Aus-Kiwi said
11:13 AM Aug 25, 2018
Yes main fuse to protect wire . Then seperate protection for fridge ? Pita having fuses everywhere though !! Often no wire diagram!! Ahhh
Warren-Pat_01 said
12:39 PM Aug 25, 2018
I think the main subject was making silly mistakes -
I left the hand brake on for quite a few kms with our Eagle once in the Atherton Tablelands - REMEDY - paint the hand brake lever with the brightest paint I could get!
I left the clips undone on one side of th roof on our van - thanks to a friendly truckie, no damage was done.
THE BEST REMEDY IS TO IGNORE ANYONE WHO SPEAKS TO YOU WHILE YOU ARE BUSY PACKING UP. Talk later!
On the issue of fuses, I regret not photocopying a "Fuse Chart" that the techs at OTC Ceduna had. The smallest one on the list was a 2" nail, the biggest was a 3/8" bolt!!
Mike Harding said
02:06 PM Aug 25, 2018
Warren-Pat_01 wrote:
On the issue of fuses, I regret not photocopying a "Fuse Chart" that the techs at OTC Ceduna had. The smallest one on the list was a 2" nail, the biggest was a 3/8" bolt!!
I like it :)
Some years ago I redesigned a piece of field kit for the army, it used a powerful 12V motor powered by a 100Ah battery. The original version had an external fuse carrier and the fuse often blew due to overloading of the motor. Fortunately the fuse clips size and spacing was just right for the brass cartridge of a 7.62mm round :)
Eaglemax said
03:17 PM Aug 25, 2018
Got the fuse thing. However many diagrams on google images have 100amp fuses. Perhaps a 100 amp like I have at the car battery and prior to the van battery the a fuse block from van battery onwards with 20 amto fuses etc.
Talk about a fuse chart. My wife and I have a "pack up list". It started off because my hotch area- I'd always forget a proceedute
Wandererone said
09:02 PM Aug 25, 2018
oldbloke was that her silly mistake or yours?
oldbloke said
05:50 AM Aug 27, 2018
Wandererone wrote:
oldbloke was that her silly mistake or yours?
Ha, she would certainly say hers. After 40years she still confuses me. Lol
Craig1 said
08:35 PM Aug 27, 2018
" I thought I made a mistake once" , but I was wrong!
StewG said
02:58 PM Sep 17, 2018
As a relative newby to caravanning on our first run I managed to drive about 250 km without the safety chains attached. To avoid further extreme embarrassment, I made up detailed checklists for heading off and for setting up camp. Heading-off list runs to over 80 items to check! That includes unplugging power, releasing handbrake, stowing chocks, etc. In the past 30,000 km we've still managed to forget dozens of different items... Fortunately not fatal.
Franji said
03:06 PM Sep 18, 2018
I was cutting the lawn once and the connection came off the spark plug, I seemed to think it was a good idea to push it back on while the mower was running, silly mistake.
Travelling on the road can be stressful.
We headed off with our 300w inverter and 12a smart charger all connected. A new solonoid at the engine (cut iff 12.4v) and 100a fuses.
120w solar but I thought, cloudy victoria - doesnt matter. Ive got it covered.
To cut a long story short, our 100a AGM went down to 11.5v after a few days away from 240v. So into the recreation reserve powered site at Port Campbell. Hooked up the smart charger and left the van to go touring. Returned 4 hours later and...battery hadnt recovered much. Suggested to my wife we need a new AGM.
Looked at the charger and it had been switched to charge on "maintenance" 1amp !!!
Oh dear. Put it on full charge and bingo. 12amps and charged up in no time.
See, we hadnt used the van for 4 months hence the trickle charge was selected. :(
Do you recall a silly mistake?
Tony
-- Edited by Eaglemax on Thursday 23rd of August 2018 09:39:18 PM
Hmmm
Wot me make a mistake
I have pulled out of the driveway with the jockey wheel down, after using it to lift the rig on the ball. Ok for a short while wondering what the extra noise was. But when we 'hit' the speed hump up the road it was a bit rough. Well just required a new bracket and jockey wheel.
There may be more but I forget ??
Jaahn
A fringe benefit of losing ones memory is can't remember all my many mistakes.
Aussie Paul.
Age grants bliss through ignorance
One time, deep in the bush, I was jerry-rigging a battery to charge some other low voltage item and I perfectly happily connected the red wire to the black terminal and the black wire to the red terminal. I have no idea why I did this but it seemed quite reasonable at the time!
Fortunately, the fuse saved the appliance.
I note you have a 100 amp fuse from the car Why? surely not getting aconstant 100amp charhe to the battery mine is 40 amp but I have had a 20amp not blow.
It happens I had the spare, manual reset type.
I think the amperage of a system depends on the cable size. Mine is 6mm thick.
What is the harm JB?
This type
-- Edited by Eaglemax on Friday 24th of August 2018 10:00:39 PM
Got married.
-- Edited by oldbloke on Saturday 25th of August 2018 01:06:31 AM
What ever size fuse you have it needs to reach 125% of its rating to fuse "blow". If it was provided power for a 12 volt fridge for instant normally 15 amp current draw just imagine how much damage that many amps would do to it.
6 B&S cable is 13.5mmsq could carry 100 amps perhaps depending on length, 6mmsq good for 40 amps once again depending on length.
My new Everest has two 10mmsq twin cables one to fridge 20 amp fuse at battery, the other via VSR to house battery 40 amp fused never blown so not getting more than 40 amps through.
Recent trip away the cable came out of terminal at the fridge touched metal frame fuse simply blew . connect wire replace fuse back in business.
-- Edited by JBDUBBO on Saturday 25th of August 2018 10:59:08 AM
I left the hand brake on for quite a few kms with our Eagle once in the Atherton Tablelands - REMEDY - paint the hand brake lever with the brightest paint I could get!
I left the clips undone on one side of th roof on our van - thanks to a friendly truckie, no damage was done.
THE BEST REMEDY IS TO IGNORE ANYONE WHO SPEAKS TO YOU WHILE YOU ARE BUSY PACKING UP. Talk later!
On the issue of fuses, I regret not photocopying a "Fuse Chart" that the techs at OTC Ceduna had. The smallest one on the list was a 2" nail, the biggest was a 3/8" bolt!!
I like it :)
Some years ago I redesigned a piece of field kit for the army, it used a powerful 12V motor powered by a 100Ah battery. The original version had an external fuse carrier and the fuse often blew due to overloading of the motor. Fortunately the fuse clips size and spacing was just right for the brass cartridge of a 7.62mm round :)
Talk about a fuse chart. My wife and I have a "pack up list". It started off because my hotch area- I'd always forget a proceedute
oldbloke was that her silly mistake or yours?
Ha, she would certainly say hers. After 40years she still confuses me. Lol