EHU - Where do you hide yours (and leisure battery Q's)

Just wondering where those of you with electric hook ups wired into your vans hide the socket? (pics would be great if anyone has any ;D )
I want to get one but don't want the little blue socket poking out the side of the van, I don't really want it in the engine bay eother as I don't want to leave the engine lid open to use it. I thought about getting a flush fitting one but don't really want to slice into the panels.

I also want to get a leisure battery for the van so we can use some of the smaller sites without EHU but just wondered how they work. Do they just run 12v cigerette lighter applicances or can you wire in a normal 3 pin plug socket and use it for things like a phone charger?

 

mines in the engine bay so no good to you but i like it there nice n tidy out of the way

 

Mine'll be in the engine bay (one of the last jobs left to do). But you won't have to leave the engine lid open at night to use it, because there's going to be some sort of gadget fitted whereby it can detach when parked up and flop down the side of the engine (so the wire comes out around the back wheels).

 

wouldn't leave it right open i'll just close it too... it's fiinnee x

 

underneath the van on one of the cross members. Can't see it unless you crouch down.

 

My hook up is under the bus, Matty has done a brilliant write up on leisure electrics here: http://thelatebay.com/index.php?topic=6133.0

I've used a Sargent leisure fuse box its a very nice piece of kit, and sorts out a lot of the problems with chargers and fusing and rcd's i also has an option for a remotely wired switch panel which is quite cool

 

Engine bay for me

 

The mains socket input will go underneath in front of the rear nearside outrigger.

A mains outlet socket will go in there too for the mains out from the inverter .

I have a leisure battery on the LHS and a Mastervolt MOSFET charge splitter (salvaged from previous employer) on the panel above the starter battery.

The original 55A Bosch alternator so far manages to start up and produce power even though it only connects to the battery when it produces a voltage higher than the batteries on the other side of the charge splitter.

A 600W inverter with 10A battery charger included is inside the passenger compartment on the left side behind the sink unit. (Devon style).

This powers a couple of mains sockets.

Other extra 12V cigarette lighter sockets (with added USB charger connections) are connected to the leisure battery via an extra fuse box and a relay which is controlled by the original 'sink water pump on' switch on the dash.

The setup ran about 300 watts of load today (a laptop and a spectrum analyser which is a desktop PC with a load of other bits added) for about an hour until I had to start the engine because the leisure battery was 11.3 volts.

Once the engine was running it was noticeable how hot the rear bumper was and the wiring going to the rear fog light and trailer socket was getting quite soft. Engine oil temp. was about 95 degrees after another hour or so of tickover.

 

230v


http://thelatebay.com/index.php?topic=6290.0


12vhttp://thelatebay.com/index.php?topic=16803.0

 

I put ours up under the floor

 

Hi Matty,

Yep, followed the guide on here word for word

The picture looks a bit odd because I had the van plugged in to the house when I took the photo.

 

Just realised it was your thread! Haha

Cheers for that, dead easy to follow and works a treat K+

 

The socket bolted to the van is the female.( 3 holes ) And there is a large rubber grommet to protect the cable from wear as it goes through the floor. I put plenty of marine grade silicone around it just for added protection.

 

Thats what i thought please change it as soon as you can to the socket shown in the link you will need to change the plug on the lead as this is the proplem.



The problem is
If you plug the lead into the mains the other end has exposed live pins ready for someone to touch.
Its a bit like a extension lead with a plug on each end

 

Bit slow there - as Matty said already