Electrical My new van drained my car battery

[halbster]

Was getting our new starcraft ready to take out on the weekend for training, and hooked up everything in the afternoon prior as we had an early start, but when I went to start the car in the morning the battery was dead.
The van was connected to the car for about 18 hours. The van was not connected to 240v and the fridge was set to the 240v setting as we weren't going to be using it. The van battery isolator switch was ON (so battery not isolated) as we have solar panels that would always be charging it.

The car has a standard 12 PIN plug (not Anderson type) and when this was installed I thought should have been isolated in the car when the car is turned off so as to avoid this exact thing from happening.

Any ideas what could cause this? Did I do something wrong or did the autoelec not wire my car properly?

 

[expanda]

Was getting our new starcraft ready to take out on the weekend for training, and hooked up everything in the afternoon prior as we had an early start, but when I went to start the car in the morning the battery was dead.
The van was connected to the car for about 18 hours. The van was not connected to 240v and the fridge was set to the 240v setting as we weren't going to be using it. The van battery isolator switch was ON (so battery not isolated) as we have solar panels that would always be charging it.

The car has a standard 12 PIN plug (not Anderson type) and when this was installed I thought should have been isolated in the car when the car is turned off so as to avoid this exact thing from happening.

Any ideas what could cause this? Did I do something wrong or did the autoelec not wire my car properly?

Should be a relay that cuts power to the caravan battery when the ignition in the vehicle is switched off.

Sounds like the sparky who wired it just ran a direct hotwire from the battery to the 12pin with no relay in the middle.

Have you got a test light?

If so just run out it over the larger pins on the 12 pin to find it and get the auto elec to run a relay for this one so it disables at ignition turn off.

 

[chartrock]

What @expanda said. I did the same thing bringing our van home from Newcastle. I wasn't using the fridge and had switched it to the off position on its panel but it still flattened my battery. Apparently even in any other position, the fridge still pull 12 V. My tug now has a relay in the line to the fridge.

 

[Marv_mart]

My fridge is powered through Anderson when connected to the car. This is automatically disconnected whee ignition is off.

 

[achjimmy]

Yep seen to many trailer plugs melted over the years by van fridges. It's either fridge on an Anderson or not at all for me.

 

[davemc]

we put a relay in just in case.. Thought worth the extra $

 

[straydingo]

I have anderson and was always told to disconnect when not driving.
Learnt the hard way on the ferry over to Kangaroo Island in the Pathy......

Disco is wired different tho so no issues now.

 

[Delano]

My auto elec wired It through the 12pin with a relay under the bonnet to cut out when ignition is off.
Don't know if it works yet or not, so guess I'll find out next week.

 

[ShaneT]

on my swan I just cut the power wire behind the fridge and put in a red arc voltage relay. Worked a treat and took all of 5 min to fit. Could tell when the fridge had power because the LED on the relay glowed red and and looking through the vent it looked like the fridge was on fire

 

[dagree]

Wired ours through an Anderson Plug. Had a relay on last vehicle but couldn't find room to fit one in the back of the Prado with the drawers in there. I was going to fit a motion activated fridge switch. Instead after asking some questions on here I ended up fitting a Protecta Low Voltage Cutout Switch (Thanks to @Bmhdg76 for the idea)...



Tried it for the first time on the weekend but didn't stop long enough on this trip to worry about checking to see if it cut out!!!

 

[Drover]

I would like to point out that an anderson plug on it's own will not make one bit of difference, it's how the thing is wired up. An anderson plug is just a HD connection which really needs to be wired up correctly or it will corrode very quickly, having said that I think they are a great connector.
A 30amp relay wired into your 12v fridge circuit from tug which is activated by turning on your parkers is the most economical way of running your fridge from the tow ($15), if you leave your lights on then you would have flattened the battery anyway, especially as most vehicles nowadays have those mongrel bells going off.
If you hook up O/N leave the van plugged in to 240v to keep the fridge good.
All van owners should have a multi meter, electrical connectors,cable and tape in their kit, don't know how to use it ?? then get some instruction. I'll show anyone who's nearby be glad to, even though I'm not a sparky.