# First motorhome electrical help



## Robelly (Jun 27, 2009)

We have just bought a motorhome (our first) and wondered if anyone could give us some help with the electrical board in it.. picture atached
I t has 4 fuses at the top 
one switch in the middle which says day / night on it,
3 switches at the bottom
left is 12v on
middle is car / aux
and right is water pump
it is mostly the middle switch i am unsure of, above the switch it says battery changeover
do i need to do anything with this for charging the bettery
not sure what the day / night switch is for as well
an i right in thinking when the 240 is pluged in it just works ie you dont have to do anything.does pluging into mains charge both aux bettery and engine battery

Many thanks


----------



## GerryD (Sep 20, 2007)

No attachment. Obviously it is a Hymer, but year and model would help.
Gerry


----------



## safariboy (May 1, 2005)

Firstly welcome to Motorhome facts. I hopoe you find it useful.
I do not have a Hymer but it is likely that this switch should normally be on the leisure battery not the engine battery.
If you turn it over to engine battery that is the one that you will be using and you may end up being unable to start the motor.
It is possible but not certain that if switched to engine battery and hooked up the the mains you can charge the engine battery. This can be useful as the engine battery may discharge slowly when you are not using the van.
When you plug in to 240V everything should be OK. There may be a switch on the battery charger which should be ON. Modern battery chargers will detect if the battery should not be charged an reduce the current. It should be all automatic. Somewhere there will be mains circuit breakers. If anything does not work on 240V they are the first thing to find and check.
If you do not have a leisure battery make sure that it is charged when you put it in or there is a possibility of it causing a fuse to blow.


----------

