Towbar Electrics

[Guest lawton]

Recently had a towbar & twin electrics fitted to my Gal. I have just noticed that the fitter has connected the grey electrical socket (for caravan fridge etc) to the wiring for the 12v sockets in the load compartment.

The handbook says that these sockets are for appliances of max 10 amps and that they turn off if power drops below 12v. They are obviously not just wired straight to the battery.

Is this going to be a problem?

I don't want to find out on the way to holiday with screaming offspring in car!!

Thanks

[Ivor_E_Tower]

I suspect it's been done this way on purpose to stop the fridge from flattening your car battery, so from that point of view it is not a problem. If you want them wired in permanently, then a flat battery could result and I would have said that that WAS a problem.......

[Eddy]

The fridge is always wired into a circuit which cuts off when the voltage in the battery drops below a certain level because it does draw a lot of current and if you were to stop at a motorway service station for a couple of hours you could find yourself with a flat battery.

[galantlad]

A Caravan 12s Secondary circuit should be wired directly to the car battery via a relay which will cut of the power when the engine is stopped. The secondary supply supplies power to the caravan fridge and also to an onboard battery in the caravan if fitted so it is charged from the car alternator when engine is running. When i resently purchased a Towbar kit every supplier i asked told me not to run power from boot power supply. The Kit i eventually used was from Towsure and there technical department was very helpfull and relays supplied easy to install.

[Guest lawton]

I think they fitted it to the boot supply to save bothering to run a feed to the battery. They have taken the live feed from the back of the 12v socket and then put the relay on there. I don't want to fnd that charging my caravan battery and running the fridge are going to overload it. Should I get the power routed to the battery instead?

Galantlad - where did your suppliers say not to use the boot power supply? Any ideas?

[Ivor_E_Tower]

Think I can guess - if you now use the rear power socket for something else, eg in-car cool box, chances are you will blow the fuse as its circuit is carrying the power for the fridge too.

[galantlad]

Thats right ivor...The boot socket is only 10 amp a fridge / battery circuit on a 12s socket is usually fused as 15 amp on its own !! I suspect the 12n socket is wired to rear socket as well and this is fused as 10 amp. The trouble with wiring to the battery is getting the wire to it, I ran mine on near side under carpet / door trims and rear aircon box but getting to battery was not easy, Found a grommet on bulkhead and installed cable's through it enclosed in a heavy silicone tube to make sure it was well protected from the body shell with fuse's secured close to battery and when im not towing i can remove them.

[Guest Derek F]

:rolleyes: Hi All,

I agree with Galantlad, it must be wired direct to the battery due to power sockets at the rear 10 amps max, due to relay the fridge would be switching on and off whilst running.

:P to TOWSURE it was them who fitted my towbar and electrics, i went back to them after i discovered they had not wired up the reversing, fog lights and fridge wires, complaint soon rectified that, only to find out when getting ready to go off with caravan they had wired fridge power supply to rear sockets.

Local auto - electrician diagnosed problem and rectified it.(power supply from battery).

12 months on TOWSURE has still not got back to me due to their incompetance fitting department in SHEFFIELD.

As you may gather by above i will name and shame bad workmanship.

 

Regards

Derek.