electrical problems in france

Cathellen

Hi

In our motorhome had problems last year in France trying to hook up to electricity. No problems in Ireland but when connected in France it tripped out immediately. After switching on and off the main switch a few times it was ok but same thing happened on next site. No problems again when we returned home. Had someone to look at it in france but they didnt solve it. Anyone got any ideas ???

meercat

perhaps you had reverse polarity.common enough on the continent
http://www.shopmania.co.uk/shopping~online-surge-suppressors~buy-uk-mains-power-plug-13a-socket-tester~p-6541061.html
available in ireland also.a simple fix is to make up adaptor lead with reversed live and neutral wires and use ONLY on sites you come across reverse polarity.

Cathellen

Thanks for your suggestion. Will try that

Kikidee

vedwards

meercat wrote: »

perhaps you had reverse polarity.common enough on the continent
http://www.shopmania.co.uk/shopping~online-surge-suppressors~buy-uk-mains-power-plug-13a-socket-tester~p-6541061.html
available in ireland also.a simple fix is to make up adaptor lead with reversed live and neutral wires and use ONLY on sites you come across reverse polarity.

AC polarity reversed? Normally this wouldn't matter in a two wire system surely. RVs have two supplies; AC when on site and DC (or dry) when running from the inverter...am I correct? In Ireland & U.K (ex: 240V a.c.) the phase (Live/hot) - Neutral and Ground/Earth are separate. I think the European system has either no ground but uses the return as part of the protection system. In this case you could be correct Meercat and determining the polarity or differentiating between the live & neutral of the a.c. supply may be important. Using a standard phase tester should suffice I would have thought.

Is there any new electrical equipment added to the RV that was not there originally? VCRs for instance float at half-mains potential as a safety feature (as do TV's - no earth either) as they don't have an earth wire and use a resistor (some use varistors on the mains side) internally to the chassis. That's why when you hold your earthed coax plug and fiddle about for the cable input at the rear you'll either get a small tingle or see sparks until they are electrically mated.

There are several good books on RVs and Electrical Systems in Google Books (some with partial views) well worth a look even though they refer to the 120Va.c. 60Hz system.

Cathellen

Because system worked after toggling main switch in van and trip switch on site think you're right.... that rules out reverse polarity. What you said makes sense as T.V. and video was fitted as extras.Someone else suggested that trip switch in van could be hyper sensitive to lower voltage on french sites and reduced voltage due to surges. Have fitted new trip switch in case??? Won't know til we arrive in france. Thanks for help.

2yung2adm

Trip switches work on measuring the power in and out. If there is a difference the switch trips. Inverters will cause a difference on start up thus triping the switch but will be ok after a short time when stabilised

Remicade Man

next time when you plug in , do so with no load on your your batterys ie switch off appliances . then switch items on one by one . other thing is some site s only offer only 3 or 5 a electricity so pluging in may surge your load beyond the limit of the site circuit breaker .