Club 80-90 Forums

Hi everyone,

As per title I'm putting together the plans to wire in a completely new leisure loom. This is my first time wiring up a leisure system, a camper and a T25 so putting my current plans and questions in a thread in case anyone with more experience needs to set me straight before I dive in. Apologies in advance for the typed version of verbal diarrhoea...

The base van is a RHD 1988 Autosleeper Trooper. It's a diesel so starter battery is in the engine compartment and we plan to put a leisure battery under the driver's seat.

My first query is how have people who have done this routed the cabling? Due to space requirements I can't bring anything out at the back of the seat box into the living area. I have a swivel seat and due to neatness I don't want to come out of the top. There's such limited space the only solution I can see is to go through the bottom under the van (there are two existing plugs in the floor which I guess are for factory petrol starter battery wiring?) and bring it up somewhere behind the units, avoiding the heater and it's exhaust etc. The other major cable that will need to come from the leisure battery is power for the sound system amplifiers, but it won't be a particularly powerful system so I should be able to sort that without too much pain.

Now because of the space available I'm planning to get a 278x175x175 75ah battery. This is smaller than I would like but, to be honest, we're not going to do much wilds camping if any, so this probably won't matter to us. We'll also have a split charge system and hardwired charger for when on hook up. Regardless, does anyone have any feedback on having a leisure battery this small? Does it discharge so quickly as to be reasonably pointless? The other place I can think of putting it is under the rear seat, problem is we've opted for an M1 camper beds rock'n'roll bed with a ~ 10 week lead time so I don't know exactly how much space I have to play with until that comes. If anyone has one of these beds and can provide some measurements it would be really appreciated.

The feed from the battery will be fused (should be able to fit that into the space in the battery/seat box), run through an isolator switch and into a fused distribution unit. I had initially thought to keep the fuse box close to the battery in one of the cupboards but on further thoughts I'll position it under the rear seat with the VSR, charger and consumer unit to keep the electrics together, it will also give me more space to go for a 12 way instead of a 10 way enabling me to keep the USB power sockets on separate circuits and have a couple spare for future developments. As backwards as it is we (more Mrs8925) wants to keep the Autosleeper fused switch unit so I'll work out the wiring for that and rerun it to integrate into the system. Unsure whether to bypass the glass fuses (seeing as everything will have a blade fuse) or keep them as additional safety. What it will give us is the look of originality, switches for the fridge ignition and water pump, a battery condition indicator and fresh water level gauge, which saves a bit of money as a bonus. The USB circuits will be unswitched, lighting will be switched on each unit; unsure if we'll LED convert the originals or go entirely new at the moment - we're also questioning adding a light unit on the sliding door side of the van to get better directional light coverage, or if that will be too much, and some lighting to angle directly down on top of the surfaces for cooking, washing etc. If all individually switched we'll be able to pick and choose what we have on. I plan to wire the radio off both batteries through a changeover relay so that it ordinarily switches on and off with the ignition switch for normal driving or can be run off the leisure battery when parked up, this means it will need a switch on the leisure side of the circuit so now a case of finding a way to make it 'look right' with the original switch unit. Having different style switches would drive me bonkers!

240v hook up will go into a 3 way consumer unit; 16A RCD for two double sockets on a ring (one in standard position above the units, the other on the rear seat fascia board), one RCD for the fridge and the last for the charger (ratings yet to be determined, assume 6A). I think Mrs8925 wants to relocate the hook up socket to the rear panel to the side of the number plate but tbc.

I think that's everything for now. I welcome and appreciate any feedback, answers, comments, metaphorical slaps in the face etc etc.

I have a 1988 T25 Devon Eurovette and will soon be starting this exact process. My old wiring looked like this:





My van currently looks like this inside, so a blank canvas! :



I have made some diagrams of what I need and what the wiring needs to be below:









The actual wiring is going to have to be done as I go in terms of routing but having the van empty is going to make life a lot easier! I have sized up all the wires I need based on current demand for each circuit. Since doing these diagrams, I also now have a rear demisted screen to wire in and I am fitting a stereo with separate amplifier, CD changer and subwoofer, so quite a project!
 

I will not comment on your loom set up , other than to say the fuses should be physically as close to the battery as possible , they are there to protect the wiring not the appliances ……

Ow as for the battery , there is only one true leisure battery that will fit there , a LP75 ( eBay search it) and I used one for several years I. My previous camper , running everything , barged by a 150w solar panel
No issues at all even in winter it was good for three or four days without needing to run the engine ( I have upgraded to traction batteries on my latest camper because I had to have a compressor fridge because it’s a twin slider and I refused to be the one who had to start the engine everyday to keep the steak and beer cold )

The LP75 works just as well as a 100a dual purpose battery with a leisure label stuck on it like so many use

Keynsham1 the inside of your van is the dream for this one. It's currently completely stripped, units back in but only to mock up positioning. However it still needs welding and painting which will come early next year.

Mocki, thanks for the battery recommendation. The LP75 is the one I had my eye on so good to know it works well enough. Re the wiring and fuses, absolutely but I hope I've covered myself here...

Coming off the battery terminal will immediately be a 100A maxi fuse via 16mm^2 cable. 16mm^2 again will then run to the fused distribution box via the isolator switch. All circuits out of the box will total a max 70A so the wiring to the box shouldn't be in danger and if it is the 100A fuse should blow before the cabling (110A). The individual fuses in the box then protect each component's cabling and of course the cabling is a higher rating than each fuse.

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LP75 battery OK?

We don't have a battery at the moment so looking to get the leisure circuitry working.

I am a total newbie on this so got a question for you.

Have you got the wireing diagram of how you hooked up the stereo to both batteries? Also what switch did you use?

many thanks

Chris.

chrism589 wrote: ↑22 Sep 2021, 17:50 LP75 battery OK?

We don't have a battery at the moment so looking to get the leisure circuitry working.

That's what I've bought and fits under the seat with little room to spare, it's also what Mocki was endorsing further up.
 

chrism589 wrote: ↑23 Sep 2021, 09:24 I am a total newbie on this so got a question for you.

Have you got the wireing diagram of how you hooked up the stereo to both batteries? Also what switch did you use?

many thanks

Chris.

From looking around there's a few different ways people do it. I've chosen to use a 5 pin changeover relay, this way the radio will primarily work off the van battery (i.e. still turn on and off with the ignition) unless I flick a switch on the control panel in the back of the van to make it run off the leisure battery.

30 is the pin out to the radio switched live terminal
87a fused ign live from the van fusebox
87 and 85 fused live from leisure battery via switch
86 to earth

Permanent live to the radio and all other connections remain as per factory wiring