Hook up cable

agree with the above....

unless you have a system whereby all the sockets in the van switch over to the inverter (usually a large one) when no ehu cable is present, it will be a small device that has one female 3pin socket in one side of it.

this is to allow you to run a small mains device when no ehu is available, perhaps a mains charger for a computer or electric bike, or a mains only Sky box as we have...

however, one other thing not touched on is does your charger charge your vehicle battery (as well as your leisure battery) when on hook up?

if not, its possible for alarm, immobiliser, cab radio etc to drag the cab battery down over a couple of weeks on a site....not good when ypu come to leave....

This sounds like there's a whole lot of confusion going on.  I'm going to wade in and see if I can cover all the bases in one go.  (wish me luck, bet I miss something)

1. You'll need to get an EHU cable.  If you do, try to get one that is 25 meters long and capable of 16 Amps. Normally it will be orange in colour. (this is so people don't trip over it)

2. Get a bag to keep your EHU cable in, over time, it'll get dirty laying outside when in use, so this will help to keep the inside of your van clean.

3. Electrical safety. You can get a small device for testing the sockets.  It will tell you if the socket is wired up properly, or not.  It's worth spending the £5 or so on one of these, as when you hook up to a new site, you can test to ensure that everything is 100%.  In the UK it's a safe assumption, but if you go abroad don't count on things being wired up the UK way.

4. You can get adapters for plugging the cable into normal mains sockets, and for that matter you can get one that provides a normal socket too.  So with both you can turn the cable into a normal extension cable.

5. To work with the device in no.3 you can get an adapter (I made one) that will allow you to reverse the polarity of the EHU cable.   This will correct a poorly wired up site, but should not be used normally.  This is helpful as some UK Appliances make the assumption that Live and neutral wires are the correct way round, if they're reversed, bad things might happen.

6. When you connect the EHU cable the 230v sockets in your van should become active, also the leisure battery should be charged.  Other things like 2000w heaters if you have them will also start working.

7. An inverter, if you have one of these, it's job will be to transform the 12v of the leisure battery to 230v to power appliances.  It will have a watt rating and will be able to run appliances up to that wattage and no higher.  So a 150W inverter will run a laptop, TV etc.  a 1000W inverter should run a kettle, a 2000W inverter will run most of your van.    However, the higher the wattage of the inverter the quicker the battery will be flattened.

I would expect that if you have an inverter, there will be specific sockets that are supplied by the inverter rather than the normal sockets powered by the EHU.

Impressive!  I like to have a bit of old towel handy when coiling up the cable to move on.  They are usually wet from grass/dew in the morning so running a towel along it keeps it and your hands clean!  I travel with mine in the car on top of the picnic chair the original bag now houses the tv aerial extension as that fits in more easily!  

If  you  do  as  Pippah  does,  but  with  a  thinner  cloth  or  even  something  like  a  wet  wipe,  you  can  even  FEEL  if  there  is  any  damage  to  the  cable  sheath  as  well  as  keeping  clean  !!

No disrespect but if you don't understand what you are doing so either take the van back to the dealer who sold it to you and get them to explain, should have done this at hand over.  If you brought it privately get an electrician to take a look for you, this is probably a good safety check as well. 

Wow what a great comprehensive reply. Even I get the gist of how it all works and that takes some doing. I've always believed electricity arrives by magic and looked after by magicians 😂😉.  Thank you.

Wonder how the OP is getting on?

Very good advice on wiping the cable and from Oneputt about getting an electric check. Can't see or smell the magic power but you can feel it, sometimes it's the last thing you feel 😲

Deleted User reply after making an invalid point about wet wipes and cables which of course have been unplugged from the bollard before you start both visual and touch checks!  

Perhaps  I  should  have  made  that  point  Pippah,  sometimes  I  forget  that  others  may  not  be  so  highly { over }  trained  like as  wot  I  is   

Never mind the wet wipes, Pippah, tell 'im about the Lotus instead.

Go on! Go on! You know it makes sense......