Elddis Majestic 180 - No electricity coming through sockets - help please

[monty303]

I've never been able to get anything come through the three pin plug sockets in my van. Even when the vehicle and leisure battery are fully charged, no supply comes through them. Ive connected them to a small tv and laptop etc but nothing. Also, I have the leisure battery linked up to the house supply at the moment and still nothing. Not sure what it can be

 

[gus-lopez]

Hi & welcome. The 3pin sockets would be mains voltage & nothing to do with the leisure/vehicle battery. You need the electric hook up lead pugged in to the van & the mains rcd on ,along with any switches there might be, for the 22v sockets to work.

 

[Mikeco]

You need to be connected to mains electric through a hook up cable before they will work, nothing to do with any batteries.

 

[Eldwick Man]

Have you switched on the master switch on the control board?
Have you checked the mains fuse board to make sure the trip switch is in the on position?

 

[TheBig1]

if the electricity board dug up your road and cut your supply cable, would you get anything from the sockets in your house? same with the van, plug it in and turn on the trips to get power out. or install an inverter

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[Camping Gaza]

Find the Big orange cable with blue plugs. One end needs to be plugged in to the house, the other plugs in the van where the battery box is.

Try that

If still no joy and you have switched on your breakers in the van inc the Master breaker, all in the up position normally, test the plugs on the big orange cable for continuity, if no joy with that then

Test the fuse in the plugtop thats plugged into your house

if no joy then ??????????

 

[monty303]

Thanks all for the replies. It's embarrassing but I'm a geek and not great with all this. Anyway...turns out the trip switch inside on the board wasn't on. I switched it on and power started coming through the 3 pin plugs, which i didnt expect. Thought they were powered off the vehicle. Anyway, left the hook up to the house on and closed her up. Came back an hour later and vehicle battery dead and leisure is fine. What's going on? It's about the fifth time i've had to charge the vehicle battery. I know it must be something really simple...but then again so am I

 

[TheBig1]

with the constant parasitic drains, the vehicle battery is drained within a couple of weeks without charge. discharging the battery fully will damage it, do it more than once and you kill it

most of us have solar panels fitted to keep the batteries charged

 

[138go]

The MH Electronic Control Unit is running 24/7 waiting for you to press the button to open the door. The clock is also running so the MH knows what date and time it is. These are just a couple of the many functions that are being looked after while your poor MH sits on the drive not being used

You could leave it plugged in all the while and that will charge the habitation battery and then the engine battery or you could get a solar panel that will keep the batteries topped up. Taking it out for a run every couple of weeks will also help.

 

[TerryL]

Okay, you've now realised that you need to connect mains power to your van for the 240v system to work - don't be embarrassed, you're not the first who this hasn't been explained to on handover.

Now to the battery charging. You've basically got two batteries; one provides power to the engine side of things, same as your car. The other provides 12v to all the habitation stuff such as lights, water pump, TV etc. On some vans the charging system automatically charges both batteries when you are (a) actually running the engine or (b) on electrical hookup (van plugged into mains, via the on-board charger). However, and this I think applies to your van, some electrical systems need to be told which battery to charge by setting a switch on the control panel. From what you say this switch is set to leisure battery - you need to change it to engine battery to charge that. If you don't use your van you'll need to change this switch back and forth every week or so to keep both batteries fully charged - letting a normal battery go flat will cause it damage so this is important.

There are ways to get around this but for the moment I've tried to explain the basics. Read up on solar panels, battery-to-battery chargers and also battery master to get more info. Then ask again if you need more advice.

Remember there's no such thing as a stupid question and we've all had to learn these things. However I would strongly recommend that you subscribe and get access to a wealth of information and as many cries for help as you like - it'll be the best £15 you'll ever spend on your motorhome.

Good luck and happy travels!

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[Camping Gaza]

Just For Your Information (FYI)

I have an Elddis Majestic 135 (2016) and my on board charger does NOT charge my starter battery on hook up. I use solar and a float mains charger to charge my starter when not running my engine.

I have a voltmeter across my starter battery permanently installed in the cab so that's how I know the state of charge

 

[Richard n Ann]

Our 2014 Elddis does not charge the starter battery either. I fitted a small Lidl maintenance charger for when the van's in the garage.

 

[TerryL]

monty303 if you're going to leave it on hookup (quite safe) consider fitting a battery master as a first step - it's just a couple of very easy connections and links the leisure battery to the engine battery to trickle charge it. I believe Jim might still have some in his "shop" but they're cheap enough elsewhere anyway. Even when off hookup it'll still work until the leisure battery drops to a certain level - but by then you ought to have got it recharged anyway. We found (until I fitted solar) the batteries would last 3 weeks before becoming unusable.