Bongo Fury

Just back from our first, brief adventure in our new Bongo.

I plan at some stage to get a leisure battery fitted and a mains inlet to the Bongo but for this trip I just took our camping hook up lead (funny blue plug at one end and 3 x 3 pin sockets with a cut out switch).

When I got to the camp site our electric cool box (which has both a 12 volt and a mains lead) was plugged in to the rear 12 volt socket, albeit the ignition wasn't on so it wasn't working. Without thinking, I pugged the cool box in to the mains before unplugging the 12 volt socket.

Upon doing this, the Bongo radio came on an indeed every electrical device; windows, blinds etc. normally dependent on the ignition, was working.

My initial thought was that this was a great way of powering the van from the mains so we could use the lights, maybe the heating and other stuff without troubling the battery. It then occurred to me that it might be terribly dangerous so I unplugged the cool box.

Does anybody know if I've stumbled across a feature or a hazard?

No, but it may have worked because when the cool box was switched to 240v and by leaving the 12v plug in, it converted through it's own 12 volt circuit into the bongo, in reverse.

I stand to be shot down in my AFT, hope you had a nice time.

I think it could possibly overload the transformer in the coolbox . Also, the quality of the 12V supply, e.g. voltage regulation, smoothing and rectification might cause problems with some electronic devices in the vehicle so I personally wouldn't do it deliberately.