Electric Cable

[Jimbob1]

Hi Everyone,

I can never understand why people do not unwind all the cable which goes from the mains pillar(onsite) to the caravan,surely leaving the cable still wound up is a fire risk.

Also I do notice that a lot of people wind up there jockey wheels. Why?I've always thought that this wheel was for levelling up your caravan plus taking a certain amount of strain off the stays at each corner of the caravan,as these are there just to keep the caravan steady or in place.Your views please.Jim.

 

[Gagakev]

Hi Jimbob,

I'm with you, I always unwind the cable, and with an ordinary extension lead it is recommended to always unwind so whats the differance really?

I never lift the jockey wheel, spread the weight as much a possible. Three feet better than two!!!

Kev

 

[SirRogerFFS]

Jim bob , you are right mains cable left coiled will start to heat up very quickly if left coiled up ,wouldnt take too long to cause big problems .

As regards the jockey wheel I always use this to level front to back and set ours with front slightly high to get the waste water away quicker

Sir Roger

 

[Ancientcaravanner]

If the cable is wound on a drum and you leave part of it wound up then the cable is likely to melt, If the cable is loosely coiled lying under the van (i.e. not on any reel or former) then it will be fine.

 

[KeithJ]

Hi Jimbob

I solved the cable problem by getting a shorter one - I think it is about 10 metres. I have still got the long one, but have found that I very rarely need to use it (although we do go on sites with good facilities). The added advantage is that I have the option of joining the two together on rare occasions.

Regarding the jockey wheel, I am with Kev - leave it down and spread the weight - three feet better than two!!

Keith

 

[HenryS]

Hi all. I cut my 25 M cable 10 m from one end and put a plug or socket on the cut ends and now use whichever is most suitable with none to coil up. last year at Chatsworth I had to join the two lengths and an eagle eyed warden noticed the join and rapped my knuckles. I felt hard done by as I had wrapped a copious amount of cling film around the join to ensure it was watertight.

Henry S.

 

[Gafferbill]

..you will be hard pushed to find a site supply that will deliver more than 3 kilowatts of power to your caravan.

If you use the correct cable (by way of the dimensions of the wires) as normally supplied with your caravan or an accessory shop, then it will not heat up even if it is coiled.

For this reason I have no problem leaving the wire coiled.

I have done this on snow when electric usage in the caravan is high and the snow around the cable has not melted.

I have owned the same caravan for 15 years and have always remove the jockey wheel for anti theft reasons.

It is only ever fitted to manoeuvre the caravan when off the tow car.

The caravan has suffered no damage.

I have no problem if others want to do things differently.

 

[David.O]

Jimbob

I read what you say and what others say, and you all of course right. BUT when in France I see vans connected to MITRE reels of cable mostly using only a few mt rs to connect the supply.not just the odd one but with the Dutch it appears the norm. There are two further things firstly I have never seen a fire, and I feel the caravans have few electrical appliances.

 

[ProfJohnL]

..you will be hard pushed to find a site supply that will deliver more than 3 kilowatts of power to your caravan.

If you use the correct cable (by way of the dimensions of the wires) as normally supplied with your caravan or an accessory shop, then it will not heat up even if it is coiled.

For this reason I have no problem leaving the wire coiled.

I have done this on snow when electric usage in the caravan is high and the snow around the cable has not melted.

I have owned the same caravan for 15 years and have always remove the jockey wheel for anti theft reasons.

It is only ever fitted to manoeuvre the caravan when off the tow car.

The caravan has suffered no damage.

I have no problem if others want to do things differently.

Hello Bill,

Your suggestion is contrary to all the best and sensible advice.

From personal experience I have had to stop a caterer from operating at a school fayre, because the 20M 1.5mm CSA cable reel with they were using to run a 2kW earn was becoming too hot to touch. They had only unwound about 5M leaving 15 on the reel.

On the reel it quite plainly stated that for loads exceeding 750W the full cable should be fully unwound.

I appreciate the difference in the CSA of the EHU cable, but if anything like the full 16A is being drawn then even the 2.5CSA will begin to heat up if left coiled on a drum.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hi all. I cut my 25 M cable 10 m from one end and put a plug or socket on the cut ends and now use whichever is most suitable with none to coil up. last year at Chatsworth I had to join the two lengths and an eagle eyed warden noticed the join and rapped my knuckles. I felt hard done by as I had wrapped a copious amount of cling film around the join to ensure it was watertight.

Henry S.

Hi Henry,

I can only assume the warden might have assumed that you had connected two lengths that totalled more than 25M.

There is no need for cling film around the blue connectors which is rated for outdoor (Non-submerged) use, IP44 Protection

against grain figured foreign bodies, Protection against tools wires or similar objects with diameter > 1 mm, protection against small foreign solid bodies with diameter > 1 mm.

Splash proof and Protection against splash water from all directions.

 

[KeithJ]

Hi David O

You are, of course, correct, but most continental sites don't deliver more than 10 amps, and more than likely a max of 6, and Europeans don't usually have things such as electric kettles and water heaters.

I still think my idea of carrying two cables, a 10m and a 25m to use as appropriate is best!

Keith

 

[C_374479958]

I have read the above posts with interest and thought I'd put my 5 pence in to the discussion.

Cables heat up because of the current passing through it and the resistance of the cable.

So, very basically, if 10 amps pass down a cable and the resistance of the 25m cable is 0.4 ohms, the heat generated in the cable is 10 X 10 X 0.4, or 40 Watts.

Now 40 Watts is the amount of heat generated over the full 25m or 1.6 Watts /metre.

If you run out this cable but keep half tightly wound on the drum, then 20 Watts is going to start to warm the inner layers of the drum, the outer layers of the drum won't warm up because the air will keep them cool, so feeling the cable on the drum isn't telling you much at all as it's the inner layers that are warming up.

Is it dangerous? Electrical cables will not catch fire, they are made of plastic polymers that do not support combustion, I think the worst that could happen is the cable could get hot enough to give off smoke and fail, but the cable would have to reach several hundred degrees before this would happen, very unlikely on a caravan hook-up cable.

My conclusion would be run the whole length out and loose it under the van and when finished unplug it run it out in a straight line and coil it like you would a rope removing the twists as you are doing it. Don't forget that damage can be caused to the cable internally by bending and kinking.

With regard to using splitters, no way can you overload plugs sockets or cables as they are all protected by the circuit breaker.

My only concern is it could be construed as bad practice using too many.

 

[marlot]

A neighbour burnt down a house by having a 2kw heater on a coiled extension lead. The extension lead had thinner insulation than a typical hook up cable and was in an enclosed drum.

I suspect that a coiled caravan cable might stand a better chance, but for the sake of unwinding a bit of cable I always undo the whole lenth and put he excess under the van.

 

[C_374479958]

The problem with many enclosed, domestic type extensions they are usually 1.5mm cable, have a higher resistance and as you say are not 2.5mm like hook-up cables. This means basically they will develop more heat quicker for a given load

In the UK we now have a huge problem with electrical equipment imported from elsewhere, although the correct safety/standard logos are on the equipment they could well fall short of what is expected, thus causing fires.

So again, don't leave cables coiled tightly on a drum when in use.

 

[Jimbob1]

Hi,

Thanks very much indeed for all your comments have found the answers very interesting.I will always still unwind all the

electric cable and keep my jockey wheel down,better to be safe than sorry.Enjoy your caravanning .Jimbob