Running 3 way fridge on EHU in Spain

[Talbot]

We are currently on a campsite in Spain plugged into electrics. We have a thetford automatic 3 way fridge. I plugged into the ehu and checked the fridge and the symbol displays that we have successfully connected to mains electricity. However I can check an hour later and it's running on gas. This is happening frequently. When I check the power supply on the Sargent power unit all the correct lights are lit up so I am still on electric but the fridge will randomly select gas. Is this because the motherboard is faulty or could it be that the campsite system is so busy that the current to our Motorhome is not supplying enough amps? I have tried selecting mains only on the fridge but it says it can't find a power source. During the evening it seems to be happy on electric but at various times during the day it selects gas. Very confusing and I've never noticed this happen before. Spanish electrics seem dubious at best.

 

[wineciccio]

If the fridge is a A.E.S. (automatic energy selection) I would suggest you turn the control knobs to zero for about 5 minutes, in other words the fridge should not have any power at all, electric or gas, after the 5 minutes turn the AES on again to AUTO, select setting of the thermostat and see what happens, I found mine sometime played up in very hot weather on out recent trip to Italy and doing that it sort of resets the AES to work properly, of course yours could be a different problem, if so ignore the above. have a nice holiday, we are looking forward to our trip to Benidorm at the end of September:wave::wave::wave::wave::wave::wave::wave::wave::wave::wave::wave::wave::wave::wave::wave::wave::wave:

 

[yeoblade]

Could well be a voltage drop to your van and the AES seeing it below the threshhold voltage so switching to gas. Have you got a meter to check it , though it may just be a short blip of low voltage when a high current motor on site starts ( Pump or AC maybe )

 

[vwalan]

might even be the campsite turning the leccy off every now and again . very often they are very low power to the plots .

 

[Talbot]

The polarity is the wrong way round but I called Craig Foot at Sargent before I turned any devices on to check what to do. He said just plug in and everything will work fine. He said it can't do any damage to appliances and the only reason I would need to be concerned is if I was intending to do any electrical maintenance as the neutral would be live. I think I've explained this as he described but I'm no electrician.

I hope the problem is due to low voltage at peak times. The same experience has happened on the last two sites and both were wrong polarity.

 

[vwalan]

thats interesting you know its got wrong polarity.
i did plug my ehu lead in at home the other day . but couldnt find the uk connector . i used the eu two pin one in an adaptor .
my 240v house hold fridge wouldn't work. after doing checks here and there i changed the two pin connector round in the house and bingo the fridge worked .
it was the first time i have used ehu for years and it was only to show a friend how it worked . but the fridge was the only thing that was effected as far as i could tell.
interesting wish i knew more sometimes .
the two pin adaptor i used could be put together either way in fact it was only one of those shaver style but with a bigger fuse.

 

[TJBi]

The polarity is the wrong way round <snip>

Why not correct the polarity (short lead with male connector one end, female connector other end, deliberately wired L to N and vice versa) and see what happens then?
If that doesn't solve it, and you say that it happens more during the day than the evening, (and I don't see why the fridge should be more temperamental about polarity at some times than others, but it's nice to rule it out) could it be that there's a lot of power going to aircon units during the day, resulting in low voltage?

Tom