Hi,

As I said in the new members area, we are excited new owners of a 1991 Triton M from Holland. This caravan has only a 12N connector to the car, and no 12S. I think it has 12V switches on the lights (unless that is for the socket on the end). I mean that each light has two switches, so I'm assuming one is for 12V. However we have no battery. When on mains hook up all the lights, the pump and the fridge work, so I think things are basically okay with the electrics, but we would love to add a battery as my husband is night blind, and we don't always have hook-up where we stay. I'd really appreciate any information anyone can give me on what we have in our caravan. I will describe it and add pictures as well. Thanks in advance!

1)There is a black box under the caravan which I can't see any writing on. It has wires coming in and out.

2) We have power coming in from the hook-up. This has two trip switches. One is presumably a 10A trip. The other is ???? any ideas? I think this says 'Schupa' on it, although the last letter is hard to read.

mains input and trip.jpg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)
3) We have a HVS20 cheapo rectifier that supplies the pump. This works okay, but I figured out you can't really expect it to do any additional work.

HVS20.jpg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)
4) There are two wires that go into the 12V input on the bottom of the the HVS20 and disappear under the floor.

5) We have a mystery connecting block under the seat. The wires from this go under the van.
mystery wires.jpg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)

I found this image in your very helpful archives:
close-up of wiring diagram.jpg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)
I'm wondered if the rectangle in the picture is a battery? If so, the two terminals seem to be connected to 12S lines 3 and 6 (although it's a bit blurry and I'm guessing a bit here) which would be earth and the car 12V when ignition was on. (Although we have no 12S cable, as I said).

I have connected to hook-up and tested the voltage across the mystery connection block and it is 0 or virtually - I think I'm getting the probe to connect properly, but my eyes aren't what they were, so I could be wrong on this. I really need glasses!

My big question is, is this mystery connection block the place where I could put a charged 12V battery and expect it to power things in a useful manner when not on hook-up? Or will I just break something if I do that? Also, which is positive? I'm guessing red, but the wiring colours are a bit mystifying. I would also put a fuse in for safety. Any advice would be much appreciated. All at our own risk obviously! We don't have much money to throw at this, and don't mind if it does not charge from hook-up or from the car. We have a solar panel anyway. We are after simple but safe.

Thanks for reading thus far!

Sarah

Hi Pete,

Thanks for your informative email. Thanks for pointing out the obvious re the fridge! I think it must have been wishful thinking on my part that that was a battery. Fridge makes perfect sense being connected to the car only when ignition on as well. You may have saved me from doing something daft there! It's really interesting to hear you say that there are a multitude of different electrical setups. That makes things complicated!

If I had a 12S cable I would happily build a little battery box with a 12S socket on it and plug into that. I'm only after something simple for a week a year, but I don't have one at all. The fact that there are wires coming up through the floor and into the input on the pump rectifier makes me think that maybe some of the 12V wiring is in place, maybe from the junction box underneath. Maybe I need to get underneath and have a look in there - lovely job at this time of year!

I will keep scratching my head...

Many thanks,
Sarah

Hi Randa,

Thank you for the link to the thread about imported Eribas. That was very helpful. Also for the wiring colour info - I think the best thing is not to rely on the colour of any wire but only the multimeter!

We also have a gas lamp - lovely!!! That would provide some light if not water. It says it's 60W. I think the mantels must have a short life being driven about though...I found a tip somewhere about spraying them with hairspray (obviously when out and cold!)

Sarah

I think the hairspray could stop you messing up your hair do when you bash your head on your Eriba.

Quote: Randa france wrote in post #6

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I don't use hairspray

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Hi, sorry to be a little late but I've not been well recently

Yes the 2 switches on the light fittings are 1 mains and one 12v if you take the light cover off you should see 2 bulbs one of each voltage

My puck had 2 wires similar to yours that disappeared under the floor see my blog here (scroll down to part 3)

blog-u31-The-Eriba-experience.html

Hi Hob,

So sorry to hear you've not been well. Hope you are feeling better soon. Thanks for directing me to your amazing blog! You remind me of my Dad, who is always finding old abandoned objects and rescuing them and making them beautiful again. He is currently restoring a 25' wooden yacht that sailed round Great Britain once. It had been left to rot, but it is going to be wonderful again in a couple of years. I wish I had that talent! When we were kids, he fabricated some sleds and put them on a couple of bikes from the scrap yard for us. They were great fun in the snow!

Did you have a blue and red wire coming up through the floor there please? If so, was red positive? Is the rest of that picture the fuses that you put in? I don't have anything like that in my underseat locker. Just the red and blue wires coming through the floor. I'm tempted to give it a go and see what happens....but I would have to guess at red being positive and blue negative. Boom!

Sarah

Yes I added the fuses bought a fuse box from ebay and put it between the positive terminal on the battery and everything else so it covered everything connected to the battery.

Zitat

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Did you have a blue and red wire coming up through the floor there please? If so, was red positive?

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I Had a red and black coming through the floor and connected them like a car red to positive and black negative the puck only operated 2 lights and a water pump from the battery and all worked ok ..............you can connect 12v bulbs to a battery both ways and they will work ......... the water pumps may be different ie run backwards and not pump water if that happens swap the wires over and try again.

Hi Hob,

Thank you SO MUCH. That is really helpful. Next time I have a moment we will be trying that...(cautiously)

Have a great day.

Sarah