Leisure Battery Charger & Yoga

So this is the bit where I describe the installation of the Voltage Sensing Relay and other electrical gubbins.

Steve from Raw Components did a bit of electrical magic and combined a VSR and conventional 12v relay to run the fridge while driving. Connecting the bits supplied was a doddle as the instructions were quite clear. The challenge was getting the wires from the engine bay into the body of the van. VW kindly installed undertrays and heat shields under the van to protect the underbody and this served to make it quite a challenge. Non the less after 6 hours of scrabbling about on my back in the gutter, scraping most of the skin off my hands and establishing that the maximum waist size to work under the van without ramps is about 36", the job was almost done.

Bad light stopped play - thats the problem with doing a conversion this time of year, so the final fit comes later this weekend - all I need now is a battery to charge and a fridge to run !

But what about the yoga I hear you exclaim ..... forget yoga for a full budy workout ..... try threading 3x cables through a VW T5 undertray and you will find muscles (and language) you thought you might never need to use!!!

Then the sun came out and the Electrical Gloom went away !

Thanks to Clive from Sargent and Steve from RAW Components we have a result !!

Voltage Sensing Relay with a conventional relay from RAW and some electro techi advice from Steve will give me a charged up leisure battery and the relay taking a trigger from the VSR lets the fridge operate while the engine is running. No mucking about in the fuse box or cofusticating the engine computer. That and confirmation from Clive that the same signal will do the business to give the engine running signal to the EC155 means it all knits together.

RESULT !!!

D-Day .... thats Delivery Day :) ... and electrical gloom.

So the fun starts on 17th Oct when the van is delivered.

I am currently tearing my hair out trying to decide which way to go on the electrics front.

I fancy the Sargent EC155 Power Supply Unit its neat and tidy all in one box with a nice control panel.

But the tech support line dude says that I cant run it with a Voltage Sensing Relay and I need a traditional relay for the split charge and as a trigger to the EC155 to isolate the camper 12v cuircuits while the engine is running. Now other folks say the traditional relay on a T5 is a pain needing connections to the alternator circuit and into the "engine running" trigger in the van fuse box or somewhere in the wiring loom. Get it wrong and the engine management computer starts to complain.