Motorhome Electrical Systems

Motorhome Electrical Systems

Terminology for campers - Need help?

Air - The most commonly used for parking or trailer official service points in France can also be called Air Service. Note that the areas of the freeway Good service and rest stops are also called, or Air Repos.

Air Scenic - Proprietary name for assisters spring fitted on the rear axle, said to improve handling characteristics of motor home.

Black water - waste hygienic storage tanks.

Cassette Toilet - A very common type of latrines, if the waste is held in a removable container, which amounts to a CDP to empty, see below for more details on health.

CC - Club Caravan.

CCC or C & CC - Camping and Caravanning Club.

CDP - Chemical o'clock, for emptying toilets.

CL - Certificate of Location, small sites often on farms that are limited to 5 caravans or motorhomes open to CC members only. Motor Club of the caravanners' also uses this name to identify the sites approved by them, usually open to all the motorcaravanners.

CS - Site Certificate, as before, but open to the CCC (Camping and Caravan Club) members only.

FSH - Service history complete.

Greywater - Waste water from sinks and showers.

GVW - Gross vehicle weight shown on the vehicles VIN plate. Means maximum amount of vehicle and all its contents can weigh. MMA is now generally referred to as MAM or MTPLM. It is illegal to operate a vehicle in excess of the maximum marked on VIN plate.

LWB - Long Wheelbase.

LPG - Liquid Petroleum Gas, comes in two types: Propane, good for all season use; butane, not good in winter as it does not produce gas below 0 ° C.

MAM - maximum permissible mass, see GVW.

Marine Toilet - Toilet with a tank fixed retention of waste, see below for more details on health.

MTPLM - Maximum technically permissible laden mass, see GVW.

MVWP - Motor Van Waste Point, dump point road level for campers with holding black board or gray water tanks.

PAS - Power Assisted Steering.

Load - The weight of the items, which can lead to the motorhome after an allocation is made for the driver, passenger, water, fuel, gas and some other essential items.

PIR - Passive Infra-Red, safety device that detects heat sources.

RV - Vehicles recreational use in the U.S. to refer to any type of camping vehicle, often used in the United Kingdom to refer to the big American motorhomes.

Silver Screens - the property name of isolating the cabin windows covered.

SOG - A ventilation system for cassette toilets, see below.

TD - Turbo Diesel. The engine is equipped with a turbocharger that uses the energy of the exhaust gases to drive a turbine that forces additional air into the air intake motor. This is an increase in power. Many diesel engines are equipped with a turbo as standard, which can not be provided to them by specialized companies.

Top Box - A, usually plastic or fiberglass storage box fixed on the roof of a motorhome.

Zig - property name of a company that produces caravans and motorhomes electrical equipment, often taken to refer to a mains charger powered by a 12V battery RV.

About the Author

Feel free to browse our selection of motorhome articles including reviews, buyer’s guides and news at Sureterm Direct. Obtain a competitive Motorhome Insurance quote from one of the UK’s most competitive insurance specialists.

I would like to power a light ,tv and vcr in my motorhome I?

believe the mh didnt come with a seperate 12v power supply to run items after the mh engine is stopped! I want to run these items seperately from the mh engine 12v system if possible. The mh has its own stock inverter but i am unable to locate a pwer supply other than the 12v battery in the engine compartment which is used for the primary engine power supply. Does this sound right. For instance are their electrical systems that rely solely on the main or engine battery power supply(without a secondary seperate accesories battery or power supply) and are totally reliant on charging only from the engine charging system. I do have a 2500 watt external generator but i am limited on the hours of usage. Mainly i am interested in running the light ,tv and vcr without assistance of my external generator. How the hell do i set this all up??

what you basically need is a motor home generator for that one,i own an older one that did not come with a generator,and we addd one to it,plus we also added a 24 volt power system to power it with and an inverter,you can run the the lights for about 6-8 hours on the inverter system but when using the generator to keep the 24 volt batttreies charged you can literally run it all night long ,we put this one though a test to see how long it would run for and it never died out,first you have to increase the battery box size to hold two more batteries then you run all this through a switch that changes it from generator power to battery power,i got mine as a kit throug rv,s of america,they sell a complete kit for doing this,it took days to get this on and get it working right,but now i have a switch up front by the driver area that you throw that switches it to generator and then you use the invertor that came with the kit to run the tv vcr microwave,and just about all the lights are now on 12 volt dc,i got 3 batteries one for the main part of the rv and the other two power the invertor,its not hard to do they send complete insructions with the kit,its calle an update kit and works on all older model rv,s.it cost around 900 bucks though but it remidies the problesm of not having power,when i first looked at all the stuff it came with i freaked out,i thought there was no way i would get it to work,but we did,you dont get the generator with the kit though,that you have to buy seprately,you get the hook ups for it though,and you get a choice of getting gas or a diesel generator now,when i bought mine all i could get was a gas one,check their web site out on this ,go to the accessory part when you click on it it goes to power,you can sullpy your own generator though and it still works right,they just like to sell you a generator if they can,good luck with it.

1999 Georgie Boy Cruise Master 3510XL Class A Motorhome