The Caravan Owners Club

[andrew5150]

Hello all!

I'm totally new to this board and even newer to caravanning. We just bought a Hobby 440 De Luxe Easy this week and having cleaned it all up we love it! Slightly surprised to see it has no leisure battery but having read up lots about Hobbys now we realise that this is (generally) completely normal. I was checking all the electrics tonight and noted that I couldn't get the pelmet lights to work (everything else seems to work though) and when I looked at the fuses, the middle of the 3 had totally melted. I needed to use a pair of long nose pliers to remove it and the force completely pulled it from the circuit board. I think the shock broke the solder for the fuse to the right of it too so now I need to solder them back on. I'm wary about removing the board although if I photograph it first at least I can re-connect all of the spade connectors again...

Before I attempt this tomorrow night I wanted to check whether anyone has any words of caution? I believe Roy Armstrong is very knowledgable about Hobby elctrics and is also Milton Keynes based? Roy - if you're out there, can you help?

I'm hoping to become a regular contributor as my wife and I become fully fledged Hobby enthusiasts - I just wish we'd got off to a better start than me clumsily pulling the fuse holders from the electrics!

Best,
Andrew

[esdave]

Hello Andrew esdave electronics engineer here, I have posted many fault finding items on this forum and others on the DOMETICS ,go 3 below your post and you will see , I also repair all types of dometic converters and others to component level, but If you can solder you do not need my services for this , please tell me model number ie SMP190/192/214/CON214 etc , and I will give you 100% correct information to do the job correctly ,there are some safety issues which I will explain,
regard Dave

[andrew5150]

Hi Dave,

Many thanks for posting. To my surprise I managed to resolder the fuse holders back on to the PCB. All three were loose and the previous owner had even put a 20A fuse in the holder for the 7.5A fuse!

All seems OK now but the transformer certainly looks old & worn. I'm not sure how long it'll last.

I've put the caravan into storage now so I can't check the details you ask for but I will in a couple of weeks and let you know.

All the electrics seem to work now except for the pelmet lights but I'm not sure when they're supposed to come on. Do they come on with the main roof light? I can't find a switch elsewhere for them.

Thanks again,
Andrew

[esdave]

Hello Andrew, good you have done the repair, the safety issue I was going to tell you about was the 4X 100Mmfd 400V parallel high voltage capacitors STAY CLEAR for 1 hour till they discharge very DANGEROUS even with mains unpluged ,I discharge them with a 240v 60w bulb before I repair them , now back to your lights the pelmet lights usually come on with the awning lights because if you have a SMP190/192 these are on fuse 2 now if your awning lights are off as well go back to the fuse holders with the burnt and stuck fuse in because if the fuse holder was stuck and damaged it would have been best to replace the holder because it could be high resistance ie will not pass current although when this occurs the red led should light up if there is a load on it ie your lights/appliances etc but I have had the leds go open circuit so you do not know when a fuse or a +12.7v has gone, note the leds should only light when you have a fuse gone all other times they should be off,also in circuit from the dometic converters there is a microprocessor controlled 7 relay board which can give the fault of some lights not working please see my posts on circuit board 1 and 2 If you andrew or any other person would like information on the dometic electronics please pm or post , regards Dave

[esdave]

Hello Andrew, good you have done the repair, the safety issue I was going to tell you about was the 4X 100Mmfd 400V parallel high voltage capacitors STAY CLEAR for 1 hour till they discharge very DANGEROUS even with mains unpluged ,I discharge them with a 240v 60w bulb before I repair them , now back to your lights the pelmet lights usually come on with the awning lights because if you have a SMP190/192 these are on fuse 2 now if your awning lights are off as well go back to the fuse holders with the burnt and stuck fuse in because if the fuse holder was stuck and damaged it would have been best to replace the holder because it could be high resistance ie will not pass current although when this occurs the red led should light up if there is a load on it ie your lights/appliances etc but I have had the leds go open circuit so you do not know when a fuse or a +12.7v has gone, note the leds should only light when you have a fuse gone all other times they should be off,also in circuit from the dometic converters there is a microprocessor controlled 7 relay board which can give the fault of some lights not working please see my posts on circuit board 1 and 2 If you andrew or any other person would like information on the dometic electronics please pm or post , regards Dave

[esdave]

Hello Andrew, good you have done the repair, the safety issue I was going to tell you about was the 4X 100Mmfd 400V parallel high voltage capacitors STAY CLEAR for 1 hour till they discharge very DANGEROUS even with mains unpluged ,I discharge them with a 240v 60w bulb before I repair them , now back to your lights the pelmet lights usually come on with the awning lights because if you have a SMP190/192 these are on fuse 2 now if your awning lights are off as well go back to the fuse holders with the burnt and stuck fuse in because if the fuse holder was stuck and damaged it would have been best to replace the holder because it could be high resistance ie will not pass current although when this occurs the red led should light up if there is a load on it ie your lights/appliances etc but I have had the leds go open circuit so you do not know when a fuse or a +12.7v has gone, note the leds should only light when you have a fuse gone all other times they should be off,also in circuit from the dometic converters there is a microprocessor controlled 7 relay board which can give the fault of some lights not working please see my posts on circuit board 1 and 2 If you andrew or any other person would like information on the dometic electronics please pm or post , regards Dave

[andrew5150]

Hi esdave,

Thanks for your continued interest. To confirm, I've now ensured that all 3 fuse holders are obviously secured soldered back to the PCB and that there are correctly rated new fuses inserted. The melted fuse had obviously blown because the awning light (above the door on the outside) now works which it didn't before. However the pelmet lights still don't seem to work.

The strange thing is that my PCB doesn't seem to have any LEDs attached to my PCB. My PCB is very simple in deed. Its exactly the same as what you see in this photo here: http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/pho ... 5232CEwXXr

I can't find any other PCB boards in the caravan although I might be checking the right places.

Thanks & Regards,
Andrew[/url]

[esdave]

Hello Andrew sorry when I saw your picture of your system I realized your confusion because I gave you information on the Hobby SMP types, so disregard the information on the capacitors/ leds/ relay board that is for the SMP types only , what you have is the very simple duel 12v centre tap ie two 12v of different amperage the one on the RHS is 10amps and the LHS is 7.5amps and 240v in at the top, sorry I do not have any data on where the connections go but if you have a wiring diagram I can trace the fault and tell you where it could be and how to test , regards Dave