Northern Spain in Dandy

Off to Bilbao early Aug touring the northern Spain coast and Picos de Europa mountains.Will post pictures on return.
Anybody toured the area in their Dandy?

kadders wrote:Off to Bilbao early Aug touring the northern Spain coast and Picos de Europa mountains.Will post pictures on return.
Anybody toured the area in their Dandy?

Sounds fantastic.

We had plans at one stage to take the ferry to Bilbao and then tour through northern Spain and up the west coast of France but haven't got to do it yet.

Looking forward to your trip report and photos

I'd love to see the pictures.
2013 a friend and I flew to Bilbao then travelled by bus to Pamplona. See [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
None of that relevant to you as it's in the wrong direction. Likewise with being really impressed on a day trip to San Sebastian which is a lovely older seaside town.
For various reasons I didn't post much about the holiday on my return but I could raid my laptop to find some pictures of Bilbao which as port cities go is a damn sight nicer than any I can think of in the UK.
Lovely shopping centre (probably not your first concern if your touring the mountains) nicely preserved older architecture and some interesting modern buildings. Not least of the modern buildings being The Guggenheim but to be honest between spending €32.00 on admission for two or on a nice lunch there is no competition for me.

Having a great time in Spain, but unfortunately heading home tomorrow

Not a great start two weekd ago: left Dandy fridge on and drained car battery do needed jump starting in Bilbao on ferry. Then Dandy got hit as we exited port by someone not realising we had a trailer on back, so it got scraped and dented. Nobody hurt so not the end of the world.

Beautiful beaches on northern Spain coast. Loved Playa De oyambre campsite.

Now in Picos de Europa. Amazing scenery and seen alot of birds of prey including circling Griffon vultures.

Will post some photos on return.

Not a good start by the sound of it. Do we need a flag so the dandy can be seen like the old Sinclair C5s had.

How is the fridge wired. Is the car standard with 12n & 12s sockets.

Is the fridge a built in type in a destiny or a standalone just plugged in

Navver
Both black and white electric sockets in Qashqai car and dandy. The fridge is built in (Dimension) and stays on when driving with red light on (powered by car). I think I'll disconnect both cables from car on ferry back to be safe.
Navver, I have a leisure battery charger by the fusebox. Does that mean if I bought a leisure battery I could run lights and fridge off it and charge via the car or site EHU?

We turn off fridge red light and put on green one when connected to EHU on site.

I'm really sorry to hear about your difficult start to the holiday and the damage to your beautiful Discovery. I hope it can be repaired. I'm happy to hear that you were able to have an enjoyable holiday nonetheless. How was the long ferry crossing by the way?

One of the things that put us off our original idea to take our Destiny into mainland Europe was the risk of towing related incidents. At the time we had a barely capable towcar and in discussions on here regarding the degree to which the Destiny exceeded its declared weight, one member reported coming to grief through a snaking incident in France, which led to him having to abandon the Camper completely.

Now that we're back to a small unit (and a more capable towcar) we may consider more far-flung adventures.

Regarding the electrics, a 'proper' installation has a 'habitation relay' that only allows the fridge to be powered when the car's engine is running. Dandy never did proper electrics however so it's a case of either getting one retrofitted or remembering to unplug the towing electrics when stopped.

The type of fridge fitted to the Dandys can only be powered on 12V from a vehicle's running alternator. The load will quickly flatten any battery so on site it's 230V EHU or gas only. A leisure battery would however allow you to have lights and water pump running when not on EHU and would charge from the car when towing (assuming your Dandy is wired correctly - they're all a bit 'individual')

Looking forward to the photos

The fridge should run on gas when not on EHU.

This link shows the wiring for the car 12s socket.

Pin 2 is for fridge and battery charging and this should only be live when the car engine is running.

Pin 4 will run the dandy lights and water pump etc from the car battery when plugged in with engine not running.

I think Dandy have a habit of connecting everything to pin 4. You might find you can change the dandy wiring to suit. It should be in one of the kitchen cupboards. This will stop it happening again.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Our whale water pump packed in on our holiday. It clicks when turning tap but nothing happens. Do I just buy a new whale and electrics connection complete at about £43 or just change the pump-£13 on ebay and link into into existing electric connection into Dandy. Not sure how I can check if the electrics are OK so it's the pump as I'm no electrician. Tried researching online with no success.

I would check you have 12 volts present first. Could try the pump connected direct to the car battery. Can be a wiring fault or the pump or the micro switch or the 12 volt supply unit.

Yes if you have a mains 12volt unit by the mains unit it is probably what we had. A 12 volt power supply unit which will run lights and pump from the mains.

Dandy have a funny arrangement where they will sell you a short piece of cable with battery terminals one end and a 12s (grey socket the other end.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The idea is you connect this to a battery in the front gas locker, where it shouldn't be, and plug the dandy 12s (grey) plug into the socket. Because all the 12 volt on the dandy is connected together this will charge the battery and probably run the fridge on 12 volt if switched to it, and run the lights and pump. Peridot may confirm this as he had a Destiny.

I didn't have a battery and only used 12 volt for light and pump from that mains supply unit.

Personally I wouldn't like to use that Riva connector because it is not fused. There should be a fuse to everything connected to a car or leisure battery.

Ignore my previous comment regarding the involvement of the habitation relay in the supply to the fridge. The habitation relay controls the charging of a leisure battery and ensures that the car's electrics are not connected to the camper battery until the engine is running, as otherwise the vehicle could draw power from the camper.

As navver has pointed out the fridge supply is ignition switched from the towing vehicle.

(My wooly thinking at the time was due to the fact that the local supermarket sold a perfectly acceptable bottle of rum for less that €5 - one of the benefits of a Spanish holiday   )

Regarding the water pump, when you say it clicks do you mean at the tap control? If so that is the microswitch operating and probably means that it's okay. The most likely fault is corrosion on the connection between the pump and the camper. If you look at the block that plugs into the camper you'll see two bronze coloured squares on either side. Inside the socket on the camper there are two corresponding leaf spring connections. Give both the pump and camper connections a rub with some fine emery paper and you will hopefully be back in action.

If however it is the pump that is 'clicking' but not running then it is seized and you will need a new one.

Regarding the leisure battery wiring, I also had the power supply unit / charger located under the bunk but, if I recall correctly had battery terminals hard wired within the front storage box for the leisure battery. I'll check back to see if I have any photos of the original installation before I rewired it and moved the battery inboard.

I absolutely agree with navver's comments regarding the Riva connector. Any connection to a battery MUST be fused as close as possible to the battery itself.

Navver and Peridot thank you so much for your helpful comments. I've bought a new whale pump on Amazon so that should sort it. I'll get the electrics checked out sometime as it sounds like the fridge should not have drained the car battery as the ignition was of course off.
Forgot fridge can run on gas too, so I'm going to investigate a leisure battery do we can camp if necessary without electric ehu.
Photos to be uploaded this weekend

I have posted some photos from our holiday. The first 3 are from the Picos de Europa campsite, the next 2 from a lovely walk I did with my wife and youngest daughter.
Then you have my attempt at a wildlife photo-a dragonfly from the botanical gardens in Gijon-a wonderful place to visit.
Finally some snaps from my favourite place-Camping Oyambre campsite near Comillas (not that far from Santander) our Dandy Dimension in-situ and local beach where my daughter fell in love with bodyboarding. The waves are like Cornwall's as it's the Atlantic, but the sea temperature is about 5-6 degrees warmer so whilst fresh a wetsuit is not necessary.
I cannot recommend the Oyambre site highly enough-immaculately clean and the site manager/owner (I assume) Francis (photo in my batch) was very helpful-nothing was too much trouble.