Club 80-90 Forums

Really new to this but not to old VW's

I have now had my 1980 Westy a few months and thought it a good idea to test it out in camping conditions, use the awning a the electrical hook up.

Plugged the hook up on the outside of the van, and plugged a small light light into the the 13am socket and all worked fine.

Next up the fridge, found some switches on the dash next to the steering wheel, pulled one of these out and the fridge went on. Next to this switch there is a red toggle switch, what does that do? when activated i can hear a clicking noise comong from the fridge/hob.

I checked round the van an hour latter and found the esbacher heater under the the rear seat was red hot, allthough not on. it usally works fine not connected to mains. My van is an import from Germany, is the voltage too high in the UK for it to work.

Also, a general question. When conected to the mains will there be any drain on either the leisure battery or auto battery?

Sorry for the noobie questions but the van does not have the instruction book.

Many thanks

Do you have a 'Zig' unit like this one?
[IMG]http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g264/ ... GP1009.jpg[/img]

If you do, the mains hook up should feed the Zig via the 240v Mains circuit breaker board. The Zig will effectively power the 12v side of things via it's tranformer. This does not include the fridge.

The fridge pulls too much current (nearly 10A) when running on 12v for the Zig to run it and will flatten a battery in next to no time. Is your fridge a three way ie, 240v ac mains, 12v dc and gas like this one?
[IMG:889:219]http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g264/ ... ntrols.jpg[/img]

The controls on the left are for the gas and the controls on the right are for 240v and 12v. The selector switches between OFF (for when running off gas), UP for 240v mains and DOWN for 12v. The knob is for temperature control on mains only.

The fridge should run directly off the mains when you are on hook up. The 12v bit is ONLY used when you are driving the van as the alternator can supply sufficient current. If you're stopped but with no hook up you should use it on the gas.

I can't really comment on the switches at the front of your van but a 'click' sounds like a relay and may be for switching your fridge to 12v while you are driving.

Can't help with Eber'; sorry

THanks for reply,

Dont have a Zig unit.

Just found out that its not the heater but the battery charger getting hot that sits under the rear seat. It also has a waring sticker in German that has 220 volt in large letters.

My fridge is a three way one that uses gas, main and 12v.

I thought that maybe the toggle switch was something to do wth the oven maybe.

What really concerns me is the battery charger getting hot when hooked up to the mains.

Any other comments would help.

I'm not that familiar with westies but I would turn off the power to the battery charger until someone who is familiar with them shows up. I would expect any transformer to run warm but not hot as such.

Can you put up photos of Circuit breaker board, battery charger, fridge etc so people can see the actual equipment itself? You'll get a better response if people have similar units fitted to their campers.

Hi, all German mains stuff in the '80s was labelled 220v, this can run up to 250v, the same as british 240v stuff can run at 220v. Europe "Harmonised" on 230v sometime in the '90s. You could have a short on the output of the charger, or a faulty leisure battery. Where abouts are you in the UK?

Regards, Graham

Thanks for the advice, I cleaned up the relay next to the leisure battery, re- earthed it all and all seems fine now.

you can easily upgrade the chargers, see this thread of mine
https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35709

also has a link to the original charger upgrade thread

irishkeet