Yet another weird one...

TrickyDicky

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Somehow I seem to specialise in weird ones!
Now I find my Elnagh Marlin has all its cabling polarity reversed!
Brown = negative and blue = positive.
Frequently not important but when it is, its easy not to remember and get it wrong...
But why on earth wouid they do it like that....
 
Are you referring to 12v or 230v? If 12v then manufacturers can use what colours they want even if it has the potential to confuse, found that out with GM who used black(or was it black/grey?) as +ve. If it's for 230v, then in many countries they often don't seem to worry about live/neutral colours.
 
Is it an official import with 3 pin plugs? If it is, and the wires go to wherever they are supposed to it doesn’t matter.
In most of Europe, it doesn’t matter if live and neutral wires are reversed as all circuits use double pole circuit breakers and no fuses are used, or needed, in plugs.
 
If ac pos live hot side and neutral are reversed it is dangerous, live must always be on the switched side, yes many ac goods will work but its very dangerous.
 
In our Chausson they had very kindly put live and negative tags on the 12v wires. But they'd put them on the wrong way round!!. I've now learnt to test them 1st to see which way round they are whenever doing anything!!
 
Our new Carthago is like that. Most confusing. Very large blue cable goes to the positive side of the battery. I have been changing the wiring as the Germans seem to think that you need lots of lights from one switch so everything was like wow bright daylight. Not ideal for sitting watching the Tv in the evening. Only wire that seemed to be common was the brown wire. A good multi meter is essential if you don't want to fry your electrics / electronics
 
We have a large cable distribution block near the rear of our Burstner where, it looks like most of the 12v and mains cables interconnect. Every cable has its designation printed on it in German so, with google translate and my school German, I can figure out which cable goes where.
Quite obvious though, is that the + 12v cables are all blue.
 
I don't know about German Built Motorhome wiring off the top of my head, but German Vehicles (VAG and Mercedes at least) always seem to use brown wire for chassis ground/0V wiring. The +ve wiring on the vehicle side is near enough randomly chosen (there may be a pattern of how they select colours for different functions but don't know what it is)

Ref Polarity on 240V AC, it is as Trevor says - it can be very dangerous potentially! It is not just about not worrying as the applicance will work even if switched, but most UK Coachbuilt and likely a good proportion of UK Selfbuilds will have only one side protected by switches and fuses/breakers - as the expectation is the polarity is expected to be right.
All Motorhome and Campervan (and Caravan) owners should own a plug in mains tester so they can check if the supply to any socket is correct (and not just swapped polarities either)
 
trevskoda said:
Time I did a wire dia of my work on the van and keep it with her. 🤔
Click to expand...
I was considering renting my Camper out with Quirky Campers and made up a full "operators guide" (including wiring diagram) so anyone who was going to use it would know how.
Never did progress with the renting though, as he is my baby!
 
At least British cars from 50s onwards used a pretty standard range of colours for different functions.
Of course that wasn't too difficult with the limited number of load circuits 😀
 
wildebus said:
I don't know about German Built Motorhome wiring off the top of my head, but German Vehicles (VAG and Mercedes at least) always seem to use brown wire for chassis ground/0V wiring. The +ve wiring on the vehicle side is near enough randomly chosen (there may be a pattern of how they select colours for different functions but don't know what it is)

Ref Polarity on 240V AC, it is as Trevor says - it can be very dangerous potentially! It is not just about not worrying as the applicance will work even if switched, but most UK Coachbuilt and likely a good proportion of UK Selfbuilds will have only one side protected by switches and fuses/breakers - as the expectation is the polarity is expected to be right.
All Motorhome and Campervan (and Caravan) owners should own a plug in mains tester so they can check if the supply to any socket is correct (and not just swapped polarities either)
Click to expand...
Or one of these which i have.
switch.jpg
 
wildebus said:
I was considering renting my Camper out with Quirky Campers and made up a full "operators guide" (including wiring diagram) so anyone who was going to use it would know how.
Never did progress with the renting though, as he is my baby!
Click to expand...
One thing i would never do.
 
Markd said:
At least British cars from 50s onwards used a pretty standard range of colours for different functions.
Of course that wasn't too difficult with the limited number of load circuits 😀
Click to expand...
To many electrical things in cars these days, electric windows,aircon, electric head lamp trim switches satnav engine management fancy radios which drive me bonkers.
 
How do they make an electric clock so complicated to set that it's common practice to leave them on gmt and ignore summer time completely.
 
Markd said:
At least British cars from 50s onwards used a pretty standard range of colours for different functions.
Of course that wasn't too difficult with the limited number of load circuits 😀
Click to expand...
The Japanese use that method still :). Every worked on Toyota radio wiring? 30 odd wires .... All white!
 
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