You would be better off buying a lcd tv, hairdryer and kettle that are 12v or a massive invertor will zap you battery the only downside with 12v kettles is they take a long time to boil about 25mins but if your organised its not a problem or use a cooker to boil water, sorry don't know about your waste tanks

 

As Chaos really.

It is best ( for your battery ) to use 12v appliances. A hairdryer is just too power hungry.
A towel is better for that.
Also, to boil a kettle, use the stove (or a briefcase type - quick).
Does your camper have a leisure battery? If not, I would say that you would need to start the van to use the 12v stuff.
I have a 600w inverter & have used it to charge batteries, nowt else. It is also hardwired into the leisure battery.
Hope this helps.T:

 

A hairdryer is just too power hungry.
A towel is better for that.

Why is it never that simple to explain to the missus? Thankfully my wife is happy to use a towel but a mates wife is a nightmare, hair dryer, straightners etc, etc

 

get her a gennerator

 

Thanks for the replys guys

Just an update, went away to skegness at the weekend, the missis just used a towel & some gas straighteners, so all worked out ok. Mind you took her around an hour to get done I:

First night we spent in a layby, second night on a decent camp site in Skeggy!

Kettle, as someone else said we have a wistling kettle on the gas stove, also took an electric kettle for use on site, fridge worked a treat on both 12v and mains, just need to work it out on gas

We bought a 15" 12v LCD TV today (from Richer Sounds just £99) Link: http://www.richersounds.com/product/lcd-tv/visual-innovations/vi1500dvd/visu-innov-vi1500dvd just the ticket for the camper, It said it was suited for motoromes and boats so I presumed it would work off the 12v via the ciggarette lighter or something, but it has a 3 pin plug which goes into a transfomer to reduce input to 12v, So dont know if there is indeed a way to run this direct from 12v?? Or will I need the Inverter still?

 

Looks to me that you can get an additional lead (if you don't have one in the box) for a ciggy lighter plug. If you don't have the lead, try ringing up Richer sounds & asking for one.

 

Yeah I got the impression it came with a ciggy lighter socket too, little dissapointed to find it didn't, not even sure if you can source these anywhere else? anyone know of anywhere or some pointers I'd appreciate it T:

It's a super little TV, sound is a little flat but a really crisp picture, has both analouge & freeview tuner which is very handy if we are in a non digital area on our travels, well worth £99 if anyone looking for a decent set without breaking the bank, another nifty feature is it has a USB input and you can plug a usb memory stick in to it and record tv direct to it.

 

Hope you got all the bits and bobs sorted

There will be a tap on the grey water tank for drianing it

Try and keep it empty water is 1 KG per Ltr so if it is full you could be lugging 50 kg's round with you and that burns up the fuel
Same with the fresh water Don't fill it up at home and travel to a site
Fill it up when you get on site Take a legnth of hose with you with a couple of different out side tap connectors . and if all else fails take a watering can to fill up the fresh tank
Do the washing up in the sites facilitys
Many sites have an area for dumping the grey water or if in desparate need park up in a layby and open it up over a drain ???

Don't use too much washing up liquid as this can cause a very very large pile of bubbles behind your camper that takes several buckets of water to disperse rather embarasing when on a posh site !!!! :*I:

Flush the clean tank with a drop of miltons steralising fluid at the begining of the season then flush a couple of times before use
There should be an access point to get into the top of a fixed tank with the pump accessed at this point as well

Give the inverter a miss if at all possible
check the leasure battery is in good order and get the biggest one you can if you intend to wild camp for more than a few days

Please never never ever have the fridge on gas over night just in case the flue leaks c02 in side the cabin or you could wake up dead and that is a right bummer when on your holls :*

Other than all that rubbish Get out there and have fun

 

Thanks for the advice Andy

Yes I worked out the water tanks, stupid as it sounds just look underneath the side loading door and both taps were staring me in the face

I flushed both tanks out, got some puriclean from my local halford just £2.99 http://www.cleantabs.co.uk/puriclean.htm left it in the tank overnight, went for a little drive the next morning just to swill it around the tany fully, then emptied out, reflushed then filled with clean water & popped a couple of puriclean Aqua Clean Tabs in the tank.

As you pointed out, made the mistake of filling up the tank to the brim resulting in an average MPG of around 33mpg But in fairness we were not sure if we would find a campsite at short notice & intended to sleep over in a layby, laybys and no water wouldn't go down to well with the missis i'm sure I:

I got a 300w inverter yesterday & wired it direct to the 12v socket near the worktops, it will power the new TV & phone chargers etc with ease, although I realise it's no good for the hairdryer, kettles etc.

We are very wary of the gas at night, even though it was isolated in the back and everything turned off we still had the roof vent open all night We are trying to get hold of a carbon monoxide detecter that detects lpg, but quite hard to find out what type you need, found out it has to be optical & capable of detecting LPG.

 

I bought a 300w inverter from Halfords to power a small (100w) fridge in my T4 van. Every time I switch the fridge on it blows the fuse in the cigar lighter. The fuse was a 10 amp, I put in a 15 amp and it also fused. I can power a phone or laptop charger without fusing.

Could the surge when the fridge starts be over 300w and is causing the fuse to blow? The inverter came with cables to be directly wired into the vans electrics but I have no idea where would be a safe place to wire into.

the fridge would only be used occasionally, and always whilst driving. Any tips anyone?

 

100W is a big fridge! Presumably an absorption type. Mine's about 40W (compressor type) and runs directly off the cigarette lighter at the moment only when I'm driving. Last weekend I carried a fully charged 55Ah (small) battery in the back and switched onto that when I stopped. It ran fine for 36hours with the fridge running for 20% of the time (beer was verging on freezing) . I'd be a bit concerned that a 100W fridge running through an invertor (with say 90% effy) so you're pulling 111W through the *** lighter = 9amps, that'll flatten the van battery in a few hours. Its the same as leaving the headlights on!

You need a leisure battery bolted under the front seat and you can charge it using a split charger. Then you wont leave yourself with a flat van battery, but you will need a monster battery to allow you to camp for any extended period of time. Looking at the Waeco catalogue, their 110W absorption fridge uses 220Ah (amp hours) over 24 hours...

http://www.waeco.com/en/3115_2813.php

If you switch to a compressor fridge the power drops from 110 to 40 watts and then probably for only 20-30% of the time. The problem with front opening fridges is that all the cold air falls out when you open the door! Meanwhile a compressor coolbox with a lid retains its cold air when you open the lid so the power consumption is less again, i.e. 20% running time.

This is a useful document...

http://www.waeco.co.uk/page.aspx?page=powercon&s=4

 

I'm pretty sure it's 100w, I know I have a 80w one too. They are normal domestic fridges which I use at markets and events (always from mains power), I just thought it'd be handy for keeping my stock (cheese) cool on long trips.

How easy is it to install a "leisure" battery yourself, are there any wiring kits that I can buy? Thanks for the help anyway!

 

Ah, okay. If its a domestic fridge then it will be a compressor type and it will only run for a fraction of the time. I would guesstimate that it will use about 60Ah in 24hrs so you should buy a 110Ah battery or 2. I've just (like 5 minutes ago) unpacked an Elecsol 110Ah battery from Tayna. It appears to give a fair bang per buck and others on here use them.

http://www.tayna.co.uk/ELECSOL-110-Carbon-Fibre-Battery-P5553.html

Then you unbolt one of your front seats and look in the middle of the floor in the seat box. There'll be a grommet in the floor, thats where you're going to route a big cable through. I'm not sure of the routing yet as I haven't done mine yet. You'll have to make up some sort of bracket to hold the batteries in place.

For the split charge relay there are loads of options. I bought an Antares module which you fix under bonnet near the van battery. Its got 2 big terminals, 1 for the +ve of the van battery, 1 to the +ve of the new leisure battery and a negative lead which you fix to the chassis or the main battery -ve. You dont need to add any further wires becasue its clever and will only connect the batteries when it sees a charging voltage on one side or the other (I got the dual sensing version so it allow the leisure system to charge the van battery if I've got a hook up, generator or a solar panel fitted)

http://www.antares.co.uk/prod auto split charge.htm

Once the batteries are bolted in and connected up (you can connect the -ve of the leisure battery to one of the floor fixings of the seat) you can add on whatever sort of fuse block / connectors you like. Dont use a cigarette lighter socket for your invertor, it will have too much resistance. Either hard wire it or select a meatier aftermarket connector.

 

Hi Cruizingcomet,

I'd be interested to know where you put your TV in your van? I've got a 19inch household flatscreen which is a pain in the butt because I cant work out a bracket to put it up in the van, i put mine in the overhead locker but you cant see it when led down (failure of LCD tv's!)

I have a 300w inverter from argoose that i plug it into when running on battery. But I have heard that all lcd tvs are 12v as standard- the adapter regulates the 240volt to 12v (or something like that) it certainly implies on my tv that the input is 12v, so I have thought about cutting the plug off the end of the tv lead and fitting a 12v plug and going straight to 12v system. Save all the noise from the inverter and its annoying alarm when I'm using the other electrics like water pump!