Why carry a battery?

[kevin_5096409]

I only ever site my caravan with an electric hookup, so why do I need to cart around a heavy battery? Is there a way of still running the electrics (12V and 240V) when hooked-up to site electrics, without carrying the additional weight of a battery when towing?

Also (and please forgive my ignorance about things electrical) is there any need for me to trickle charge the battery over the winter when I never actually use the 'memory' of the battery itself?

 

[Lol1]

You can take the battery out and leave it at home if you want Kevin, your 12v and 240v systems will still work on mains hookup. But what if the mains fails, no lighting (it always seems to happen at night), no water and your left with gas heating if you can light it. In the overall picture the battery doesn't weigh that much, even if it doesn't hold a full charge, it's better than nothing.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Kevin,

LOL has given some good advice, but I would like to add a few other considerations:

Your 230V supply has limited capacity (theoretically 16A in the UK - but often less) When you consider the total load you may wish to put onto the supply you may find yourself short of power some times.

The 12V system also has limits, With the battery in circuit this is uually not a problem because the battery supplies the peak demand, but without a battery you are relying only on the 230 to 12V power converter which generally will have much less peak power capacity, and also without a battery all the 12V load has to be supplied from the mains supply which might already be stretched. (It is permissable to add together the Wattages of the 12V & 230V appliances to work out the total power load).

I assume you probably have a quite young caravan, I mention this because recent caravans are fitted with "power supplies" which can safely be used without a battery, (subject to load limitations) but if you have an older caravan it may only be fitted with a battery charger, which must only be used with a battery. The battery acts as a smoothing filter to the output of the charger, which if left unsmoothed can damage some electronic appliances or cause them to malfunction.

 

[MONKEY1]

Hello Kevin,

Unlike most British caravans our German van which we brought abroad doesn't have a battery ( the identical model for the UK model does but it would have cost us

 

[RogerL]

If you ALWAYS use hook-ups, just fit a small (36Ah) car battery. They're cheap and since it'll never deep-discharge (in your case) you don't need the extra expense or weight of a leisure battery.