Posted on 28 Mar 2013
Hello Mark. I bought my first caravan in 1971 and that didn’t have an on-board battery either. I used to run the 12 volt equipment direct from my car battery, but my car did have the luxury of a cranking handle just in case I ever flattened the battery. The easiest way round your lighting problem is probably to buy one of those rechargeable fluorescent lanterns. I bought one years ago (at a time when we got lots of power cuts) for about £15- It lasted for about 3 hours and was very handy. You could charge it up via the mains or your car cigarette lighter. The best way round the problem though is to buy a small auxiliary battery for around £30- and a split charger relay for about £17- which is fairly easy to wire in. (a split charger relay will enable your car to charge your auxiliary battery and also prevent your auxiliary circuit flattening your car battery). It might be worthwhile to have a separate circuit and just run LED lighting which will have a negligible effect on battery consumption. It is also worthwhile to remember that a water pump will pump water through another water pump. On my campervan my water pump sits above the tank and it used to take a fair while to pump the water up. I bought a cheap “Whale” submersible pump for around £20- which fits on the end of the pick-up pipe in the bottom of the tank. Whenever I remove and replace the tank for filling etc I prime the main pump by turning on the water tap and then running the Whale for a couple of seconds. Perhaps you could do something similar or perhaps even use a manual pump if you don’t want to muck about with your wiring to much. I do not have any experience of electric toilets (in fact to be honest I didn’t know they made them) so I cannot help you there. Kind regards Alan
