Waking up at our first campground, we planned for a quiet day to catch up. Our gas and electrical systems decided otherwise.
We woke up late. Really late. Apparently we needed to sleep as we didn’t wake up until after 10. We both felt much better for having had a quiet night of sleep. With the gas working we both had showers, coffee/tea, and started our day. The plan was a quiet day at the campground. We wanted to sort out some things and just relax a bit.
And then the gas went out. Again.
Everything looks right with Amelia’s LPG regulator, but it keeps cutting out.
So, without gas or electricity working, we had no fridge, heat, or cooking. This gas thing is really starting to piss us off. So much for a quiet day.
We decided to focus on figuring out the electrical problem. The panel above our door showed the 230V being connected. Thus we hadn’t blown a fuse on the campground side of things (we thought perhaps we had overloaded their 6amp circuit). The problem was therefore inside the camping car.
Amelia’s status panel tells us there is power, but why does nothing work?
We pulled and checked all the fuses. Nothing blown. We checked the connections. All seemed ok. Alison grabbed our copy of Haynes’ Motorcaravan Manual (a general purpose book about motorhomes, not a manual for our model of motorhome) and started reading about electrical hookups. When in doubt RTFM, right?
Apparently checking the manual was the answer. Alison discovered there is a switch (an RCD switch) which needs to be flicked BEFORE you hookup to electrics. This is supposed to protect your 12V devices (not sure why or from what). This was new to us. The next question was: where was this switch? Did we have such a switch? Which way does the switch need to go?
We looked at the circuit boxes under our bench seat and took a guess (based on a similar looking switch in a photo). We flicked the switch to the other side, reset the fridge, and … Eureka! We had power! We have no idea why we have this switch or what it does, but apparently it is important. We still couldn’t cook, but at least we could have hot water, heating, and cold food.
Amelia’s electrical control box and the magical RCD switch.
We could have fought with the gas some more, but decided to just leave it. Nothing we had done so far had indicated to us the right thing to do to get it to work. It was totally inconsistent. We thought it had something to do with leveling, but that wasn’t consistent. Or after a drive. Nope. It just had a mind of its own. Very frustrating.
During the afternoon, I decided to try to get the iBoost WiFi from Motorhome WiFi working while Alison worked on downloading some of her photos from her camera. Setting up the iBoost is relatively straightforward but whatever I did, I couldn’t get it to work with the Les Cytises WiFi network. I spent WAY too much time trying to make it work (blaming my own inadequate skills) and in the end I had to give up.
Although our day wasn’t as quiet as we hoped, we did have a relaxed evening. I didn’t eat much because I’m still not feeling great. We decided to watch a movie before our final quiet night at the campground.
Andrew
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