Our trip

[Tony&Kika]

We had a big trip in France this summer. Did 6000 miles and had a great time. A few issues arose however which I thought I'd share with the group. The most serious was a ruptured gas filler pipe on our new Gaslow system. A big cloud of LPG erupted from the door to the cylinder as I was filling. Fair play Gaslow sent a free replacement to a nearby friend but it was a good job no spark was passing. I would urge all members never to fit the filler to any opening door as the pipe flexes each time it is opened. I will be moving the filler to a fixed panel below the gas chamber door.
Second big worrying prob was on going over a speed bump, one of the 4 anchor points ripped through the plywood where it mounted. We have a Northstar750DL on a Ranger kingcab. The plate on the inside is a paltry 100mm by50mm plate. Luckily my nearby mate has a well equipped workshop where I made up much bigger plates on the near side . However the anchors on the offside will require removal of the fridge and the hot water unit. A job for this winter. Has anyone else had a similar problem? I don't think one could do serious off roading with a Northstar on board.
At 3 sites/Aires the incorrect polarity light came on on the panel. I chose to ignore it at one place where we stayed quite a while as the fridge worked ok. However I now find the aux battery will not charge from the mains as I think the charger has been damaged. I'm going to make up a deliberately reverse wired short lead to reverse polarity to correct way round. Has anyone had experience of this?
Lastly we need to buy new chairs as the ones we have aren't good enough for a big trip. Any suggestions? Light weight is a priority.
By the way our rig was more about 300kg over legal limit and rear axle a bit more than that! Whoops, we'll be contacting the club's replanting man soon!
Greetings to you all and happy xmas. Tony Hodgson

[zildjian]

Well, Zildjian Frith knows all about lightweight chairs and I expect he'll be able to offer advice on those anyway.


Gas pipe must have been a fright though all the same

[zildjian]

Welcome back BTW

[sabconsulting]

Hi,

"incorrect polarity light came on on the panel" - that is interesting - what does this light actually indicate? If you have an alternating current input it shouldn't really matter to the electronic which side is live and which is neutral, unlike with DC. Though you usually have the fuse on the live side to reduce the risk of electrocution should the fuse blow (otherwise everything downstream remains live).

Could it be something on the DC side is wired the wrong way around? That would definitely matter and cause problems.

Maybe someone more familiar with that warning light could enlighten me ( ) - I'm interested to know what this is.

When I got my old camper the fridge's DC input was wired the wrong way around. I only learned this after I plugged the camper into the truck's 12S socket which completed a short circuit resulting in a nasty burning smell in the depths of the camper.

Steve.

[zildjian]

Might be mistaken but I'm sure Mark was discussing this polarity issue some time back, as you say AC shouldn't make much odds apart from the fuse/death issue
that aside I can't see anything that Niche couldnt' tackle

[Big Jim]

I have a North star .I have been reinforcing my rear mounting points . Mine were 2 10mm coach bolts through the ply floor , what a rubbish setup . The force had pulled them part way through and deformed the plywood . Today I fixed an internal plate 100x350x5mm steel plate . But it is hard to tell how the floor is Fixed to anything else .

[zildjian]

Skarosser for example are a welded steel hoop/steel plate in each corner bolted through to another plate on the inside if you haven't already got something significant on the inside for the outside to pull against, then you might want to fabricate something up

[Toshbins]

Most of the mounting point problems I have read about so far have concerned the metal of the pickup failing rather than the frame of the camper. It's clear that there needs to be sufficient strength both sides. I'm also interested by what people use to tie the camper down with. Some say that ratchet straps are best, because they have some give, while others that the metal screw type are better, because ratchet straps can be over tightened too easily. I have seen in the states some springs that go on the mounting pots so as to avoid sudden stresses overloading the mountings.

[rubberrat]

Lots of European sites are slack about utility post wiring. Some transformers don't like reverse polarity and things with motors won't work as expected. Lights etc don't care.
I carry a socket tester and a well marked reverse polarity 16a power plug just to be safe.

[sabconsulting]

Lots of European sites are slack about utility post wiring. Some transformers don't like reverse polarity and things with motors won't work as expected. Lights etc don't care.
I carry a socket tester and a well marked reverse polarity 16a power plug just to be safe.

Maybe I'm still missing something. 230V AC (RMS) is going to change polarity 50 times per second between around +320v peak and -320v peak. A transformer or anything connected should not be able to tell the difference electrically.

However, if earth is wired to neutral then you have a bigger problem because everything earthed now becomes live (such as metal frames / enclosures).

In fact, if you think of double-insulated items, such as battery chargers, radios, etc. which do not have an earth, often use a figure of eight connector on the mains lead which can be fitted either way around.

But I'm not saying swapping live and neutral are good because earthed equipment probably will have been designed assuming a specific wire is live and the fuse and possibly switch will be on that wire (though I would hope to see a double-pole switch).

Steve.