Avan Sportliner Wiring

But be very careful if you do any drilling as the wiring can go anywhere behind the panels.
I checked a repairers blog recently and the reason no one in the industry gives a wiring diagram is because the stuff is so bad but as you can't see it.......
All up to caravan industry standards apparently which means no control or standards at all.
AlanH.

Allan, perhaps you can help me with this:
Is the fridge in 12V operation connected to the internal battery or it has to be fed externally? Important when travelling. The little solar panel can't feed enough energy for this.
The 7 pin connector from the car does not have any spare 12V pin to feed the fridge. If I bring a cable from my second battery to the camper I might feed the fridge on the road if there is a way to connect to it.
I do not plan to drill any hole, at least for now. I must get very familiar with everything first.
For waht I saw the battery and solar panel are enough for the ligthing and water pump..
I got a 100w foldable panel when camping.
Thanks
Carlo

Carlo. If it;s anything like my Goldstream it'll be wired up to the reversing pins on the connector. Plus there'll probably be no fusing either.
All to industry standards of course!
I had a camper and that type of wiring caused np probs as I didn't at the time have a fridge in it, but when I changed the camper for a van with a fridge, had lots of probs. As soon as the car was put into reverse the fuse blew which took out the aircon, car indicators, stopped the fridge running on 12v plus something else I can't remember now.
If you've got a battery in the van wire it to that not forgetting to put a fuse in the line or through a fuse box.
Why they can't do that I don't know but we've had no end of trouble with the poxy thing with no assistance from them or the retailer.
AlanH.

Hi Carlo,
I presume that your fridge is a 3way unit (12/240/gas), most are and it should only be on 12V when actually driving. 240 and/or gas are for when camped up. Gas works best but the van MUST be perfectly level to get the best out of the unit.
The 12V side is very power hungry and will flatten a battery pretty quickly (Around 5 hours max)
An auto electrician would be able to wire up a system to power the fridge from wherever you want (Second vehicle battery, in van battery.)
It should possible to wire it all up so as to charge all the batteries
(vehicle 1, Vehicle 2 and van battery) while you are driving and automatically isolate the start battery from all the others when the ignition is off. Power is drawn from the 2nd vehicle battery and/ the in van battery to power the fridge when stationary on the
road.
It reverts to all batteries once the motor is running again.

Hope this helps.

Disco.

I got a Piranha installed for the second battery so I can take the energy from there to the avan and wir appropiately.
Thanks

G'day Carlo,
I wired up some things on my friends Avan last year & this is what I did.
Let's start with the existing circuit I found..
1. The solar panel feeds the deep cycle battery to keep it charged at all times. The lighting is connected to this battery.
2. The 12V 3 way fridge NEVER draws power from this battery.
3. The fridge 12V circuit was wired to a SEPARATE weatherproof socket just near where the A frame of the drawbar goes under the van.

What I did..
Picked up a hot wire in the vehicle & ran it to a relay. The relay would then allow power to flow down a heavy cable which exited the rear of the vehicle & plugged directly into the van socket described above.
This setup means the fridge only draws 12V power when the car engine is running.
You should never run a 12V 3 way fridge direct from any battery or it will flatten it very quickly due to the large current drain of these style fridges.

Cheers
Stu

Something like this I was planning to do, now you confirmed it and gave me a great hint where the connection should be.
Thanks

My idea of wiring to the battery presumed the battery would only beused during travelling. I didn't explain that and not being a sparky didn't allow for power being drawn while stopped.
Still think it's wrong the way mine was wired though.
Thanks to the experts.
AlanH.

Carlo,

My Cruiseliner was set up as Stu described. I did much the same as him, but with a difference :-)

In the car I ran heavy cable (6B&S) to an Anderson at the back. I had no second battery, but I used an isolator to ensure the Anderson was live only when the engine was running.

In the van I ran new heavy cabling (6B&S) again) from an Anderson to the battery area. I installed a DC-DC battery charger to make sure the battery got a proper charge from the car.

I re-wired the 12V to the fridge (factory wiring was too small) and installed a change-over relay in the van so that when the Anderson was live the fridge ran off the car alternator via the Anderson, and when the Anderson was dead (car not running) the fridge ran off the van battery. I only intended that to be for short stops. For long stops we would start the gas. I think if I was doing it now I wouldn't bother with the change-over relay, but as it was the system did work really well. The secret for decent 12V operation of the fridge is BIG cable.

I also tidied up the factory wiring. Instead of having a multitude of positives and negatives going to the top of the battery, I installed +ve and -ve junction blocks (fuses on the +ve one), with one big (6B&S) cable from each to the battery.

Cheers

"I only intended that to be for short stops."

As in short shopping stops, max 1 hour.

Frank