consumer unit and 12v

Redmask09

Right guys, doing a self build,

i have a consumer unit, on the right hand side is rcd's on the left is fuses, chased the wires out the back etc, colour wires must be positive (live)
then there is a bunch of plain white wires ( negative ) - as inside they all run to 1 earth, but they have all been looped inside ....

theres a 20a charger which has a black and red wire out the back .... orange wire which is the electric hookup wire... numerous 1.5mm wires for the plug sockets on the hookup...

anyways if i put the black and red ( charger ) onto the battery then attach a 12v light to the wires nothing happens - am i missing something here or done something wrong ???

should there be another pos/neg from battery to main consumer unit rather than attaching the red/black from the charger ? ( does the charger only run/work from the hookup ? if so how do i get power from the battery to the consumer unit to run the the 12v etc

thanks danny
 
oldish hippy

oldish hippy

Forum Member
the consumer unit is only 240 volt i would imagine and that supplys 240 volt to sockets and battery charger to charge lesuire battery and then you should have a control panel which feed the 12 volt to the light and maybe a 12 volt socket fed from the lesuire battery maybe a switch to control the 240 volt

The control panel will be fed from the lesuire battery and maybe will have fuses fitted to it my control panel; has fuses for the light and water pump and a switch to switch the water pump on or off and one for the 12volt socket and one to turn off the panel itself


zig control panel manuals this might explain a bit more Zig Manuals - 12 Volts DC
 

Redmask09

oldish hippy said:
the consumer unit is only 240 volt i would imagine and that supplys 240 volt to sockets and battery charger to charge lesuire battery and then you should have a control panel which feed the 12 volt to the light and maybe a 12 volt socket fed from the lesuire battery maybe a switch to control the 240 volt

The control panel will be fed from the lesuire battery and maybe will have fuses fitted to it my control panel; has fuses for the light and water pump and a switch to switch the water pump on or off and one for the 12volt socket and one to turn off the panel itself


zig control panel manuals this might explain a bit more Zig Manuals - 12 Volts DC
Click to expand...




its not a zig unit, its basically a plugin power management unit ....
 

Redmask09

the battery charger is connected inside the the unit, then there is a wire coming out the back for the charger, 3 core - how is this wired up ? need a plug on it or what ?
 
oldish hippy

oldish hippy

Forum Member
that is just a main unit with 12volt fuses on it well that is what it seem to be so what you need to do is run a feed to it then throughth the fuse out o switches

ie one main feed in from lesuire battery take feed through a fuse then down to the switch for the item in question as regadrs the main then it is the same thing feedin through the unit then out to the sockets and you will need to fit a switch to turn on and off the battery charger well that is my thought but other will have there ideas diffcult to tell without handling the unit andseeing what goes where and what feeds what
 

Redmask09

oldish hippy said:
that is just a main unit with 12volt fuses on it well that is what it seem to be so what you need to do is run a feed to it then throughth the fuse out o switches

ie one main feed in from lesuire battery take feed through a fuse then down to the switch for the item in question as regadrs the main then it is the same thing feedin through the unit then out to the sockets and you will need to fit a switch to turn on and off the battery charger well that is my thought but other will have there ideas diffcult to tell without handling the unit andseeing what goes where and what feeds what
Click to expand...



yeah its very confusing as its already wired, feel like ripping the hole wires out and starting it again lol...

other option is to sell this unit, only just bought if from ebay for the conversion and maybe buy something else ( anyone recommend what i need ) ?
could i keep the charger out of it ?
 
oldish hippy

oldish hippy

Forum Member
the black plug on the charger come from the mains unit it is like a old kettle plug the red and the black wire are the voltqage coming from the charger probaaly through a fuse then on to the lesuire battery
mains is fed in from the top of the main switch then out the bottom and fed to the two switches by solid links it look like then out at the top to feed the battery charger and socket
 

Redmask09

oldish hippy said:
the black plug on the charger come from the mains unit it is like a old kettle plug the red and the black wire are the voltqage coming from the charger probaaly through a fuse then on to the lesuire battery
mains is fed in from the top of the main switch then out the bottom and fed to the two switches by solid links it look like then out at the top to feed the battery charger and socket
Click to expand...


on the main rcd coming out of that is the ehu,

the charger goes into one of the rcds along with 3 other wires, this is the ( 4 main 1.5mm white wires out the back ) so what do i need to put onto the end of the charger wire, or connect it too what ?
 
oldish hippy

oldish hippy

Forum Member
remove all wire from first switch as they are not connected anywhere second switch marked battery charger etc one of the pair of wire in second switch come from the lettle type plug the orang wire goes into the mains switch


so reading right to left loooking at it from the front you have mains input rcd 1 and rcd two which is marked battery charger etc rcd1 has no output going any where so remove all wire from top the blue and brown ones rcd twp battery chargeetc needs them all removing except battery charger wires which feed the battery charger
main input has orange wire which goes to mains switch i assume
 

Adria home

Could you ask eBay seller what the unit came out of? This would help you can then get wiring diagram for the sonar vehicle
 

st3v3

Forum Member
Check the other mains cables are insulated before you plug this in lol.

So, the wires that go in to the top of the RCD - that's the orange wire right? This needs 240V.

The top of the MCB with charger label should now become live. This should then somewhere loop around to the kettle plug in the charger. Is that there?

You should have a red wire that connects to one side of all of the fuses. I would expect this to connect directly to the battery. I would also expect there to be a connection from here to the red wire out of the charger.

There will be another red wire knocking about that will be from the vehicle battery that might confuse things.

Blacks to battery negative.

It looks like there is an in-line fuse for the charger - might want to check this is OK.
 

Redmask09

st3v3 said:
Check the other mains cables are insulated before you plug this in lol.

So, the wires that go in to the top of the RCD - that's the orange wire right? This needs 240V.

The top of the MCB with charger label should now become live. This should then somewhere loop around to the kettle plug in the charger. Is that there?

You should have a red wire that connects to one side of all of the fuses. I would expect this to connect directly to the battery. I would also expect there to be a connection from here to the red wire out of the charger.

There will be another red wire knocking about that will be from the vehicle battery that might confuse things.

Blacks to battery negative.

It looks like there is an in-line fuse for the charger - might want to check this is OK.
Click to expand...

orange wire is correct on the rcd, kettle plug in the charger is there, that is just a wire out the back - which i dont no what it connects to ? plug socket ??
also red and black wire from charger is there, which should connect to the battery they are there too...

the main thing is getting it to work on 12v, on its own without the charger .... i can connect it up via the 240v no problem, but need it to work 12v so what do i need to do ?
 
Debs

Debs

Forum Member
There are two kinds of chargers, one for charging the batteries, and the other type that allow you to charge the batteries and provide a 12v supply while on mains hook-up. As previously said, you could really do with knowing what vehicle it came off, so you can check out that converters way of doing stuff, and what equipment they use, and hopefully get their wiring diagrams.:goodluck:
 

st3v3

Forum Member
Redmask09 said:
i can connect it up via the 240v no problem, but need it to work 12v so what do i need to do ?
Click to expand...

One side of most of the fuses (take the lighting ones as a starting point) are all joined to the same point - and probably a red wire. This wire ultimately needs to be connected to the +ve of the battery. You might find it's routed through the fuse labelled van battery +. Just trace it through on the printed circuit board - tracks can be on both sides.

Also, the White/brown looped plug connected to the -ve side of the battery.

This should then make the outputs work.
 
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