Understanding Camper Electrics

Hello Wilko,
I have a Goldstream Crown & once requested a circuit diagram which was ignored.

The Crown has a selector switch in the boot with labels "Car", "Van", "Both". I leave mine on "Both" which seems to work ok.

Also, from what I have noticed (maybe because I use "both") the fridge wont work on 12 volts from the van battery, so if we have 240 V available we use that for fridge otherwise we run the fridge on gas.

I do not have a Goldstream but recently I was told of a charger importer that fronted a camper manufacturer to sell his product to them where he told them that the product they were using was inferior and not complied for sale in Australia.

The seller left wothout convincing them to buy but within a short sapce of time the authorities came in and delared the charger illegal.

The camper manufacturer then blamed the new seller and gave him the flick and went to the CTec charger instead.

If the charger is set up as a combined power supply and charger it is possible that maintaining the power and charging the batteries together may be beyond your chargers capability.

The CTek may have the capabilty to perform better but if it is only charging the batteries and your 12V power is running off your batteries then you are unneccesarily cycling your batteries.

A good set up is where the 12v Power can be supplied from a point that can accept vehicle power and charger power plus charge the batteries.

This is more effctive with a mutiple outlet charger where say if you have two batteries a three outlet charger can supply one outlet to the 12V supply and an outlet each to the 2 batteries which means the batteries will charge and hold while connected to mains power and the batteries will only cycle when mains power is disconnected adding ot the life of the battery and the charge efficiency.
Ian

As long as you isolate the two supplies so that you are not going through the battery but then there is the expense to consider.

Also the unit must be capable of handing both at all times.

I have multi outlet quality chargers from 10A to 60A and they are no dearer than a single outlet opposition quality unit and fully complied and legal to sell in Australia .
Ian

Wow, Still nobody answered your question correctly.

Go onto the Manufacturers website and downloads the instructions.

If it's a SeTec (I don't know of a Ctek), then I only know of a couple of versions and yes, they are designed to run your electrics in the Van while charging the Battery. If it is the case, then everything in the Van/Camper will be 12 volts. When you plug the 240volts in, it all takes place Automatically.

The later SeTecs are 15Amp max charge rate with 35 or 20 amp (Depending on the model) outputs. The Charge rate is controlled to optimally charge your batteries and switch to float when batteries are fully charged. Setecs also have an input available to allow charging from the towing vehicle.
The SeTec will also disconnect the battery if the Battery Voltage falls below 10.5 volts. LVD (Low Voltage Disconnect). This avoids damaging the Battery.

SeTecs were mainly used in the Jayco Caravans. I don't know if anyone else used them.

I don't know the Ctek charger/Power Supply.