Hi Barry and everyone else
Thanks for the excellent link, Barry. I shall take my time choosing after talking through my needs (potential and present) with my son.
Returning to my point about the socket (mine is not C line) in my shower room cupboard. Of the 6 Exsis owners I’ve met 3 did not know of this socket. For each when I showed them they found a socket like mine – just a simple socket with a spring loaded cap. When I use it the friction of the cap on the plug keeps the plug in place even when it is slightly tugged.
Wired to my leisure (your habitation) battery are these 2 sockets and all my lights bar one. My test to prove that they are wired to my leisure battery is easier than disconnecting an earth – I merely have to switch off the leisure battery circuits on the control panel Hymer fitted to my van!
Again I can only reference my van but on it the 2 things that work without the control panel leisure battery switched on are the strip light above the side seat behind the driver and the step. The strip light switch is set beside the step switch low down just in through the door on the left. With the first production run of vans this was done so that having been away from the van all day and returning in the dark it would be possible to reach these 2 switches and they would work irrespective of whether or not the leisure battery switch is on or off. This was Hymer’s generous nod to safety. In later production runs a light was fitted above the entrance door which may have allowed them to wire other lights differently for those vans.
I don’t want either to impress or bore anyone by constantly making references to my van. Some owners who are fairly new to their van may not know of the literally huge number of small changes made to these vans as Hymer strove to make them profitable. Thus it’s quite possible that some owners on reading of the 12v socket in my shower room cupboard will think that it could be useful to them and look in vain to find it should it have become part of Hymer’s cost cutting. This would be very frustrating. So I will always when referring to Hymer’s standard fittings on my van make it clear that that’s what I’m doing. It doesn’t mean it’s replicated on their van.
Keith