3 way fridge on 12v

[Bellbirdweb]

We have the 180l 3 way Dometic fridge.

Does anyone know how Jayco wires them up to operate on DC ?

I have a dual battery in the tug, and my dealer fitted an Anderson plug wired to the caravan battery, but from what I gather the fridge does not connect to the battery.

So where does the DC power for the fridge come from ?

The wiring in the 15 pin connector is not sufficient to handle the current draw of the fridge, so I'm a bit puzzled.

Is it even wired up for DC ???

 

[Antman]

They are usually wired to one of the normal trailer plugs pins however travelling along they will drop to about 30% power.

We had ours changed to run directly from the anderson plug so that it gets full power from your battery. Make sure your anderson wiring to car battery (hopefully 2nd battery) is correct cable.

 

[dagree]

Jayco usually wire the fridge into pin 9 (power) and pin 10 (Earth) on 12 pin plugs.... Had ours changed to 7 pin and an anderson plug by the dealer prior to pick up. The anderson also charges the van battery and now powers up the ESC.

 

[Bellbirdweb]

Thanks @dagree, Jayco refused to fit an Anderson plug to my van as they said it would cool the batteries (how they determined this I'm not sure) but the dealer fitted it for me when I told them I have dual batteries in the car.

So looks like I need to rewire the fridge to the Anderson plug, which is currently going direct to the van battery.

Reading the Dometic install guide they recommend cable that can handle 25A, so I'm fairly sure you wouldn't be getting that via the trailer connector.

 

[Griffo]

Have same fridge. Power on 12V when attached to car from one of the 5 large pins with HD wiring. Does not operate on 12v from caravan battery

 

[Bellbirdweb]

Thanks @Griffo might need to get out the multimeter and see what sort of voltage drop I have

 

[Crusty181]

Jayco usually wire the fridge direct to the large pins on the 12 pin plug. It doesnt connect to the van battery at all.

The larger fridges such as yours draw around 18amps and the large plug pins on the 12 pin are rated at 35amps. The Anderson plug is without question a better option, but that said we had our 150ltr fridge drawing 15amps through a 12 pin for 35000km without issue.

The most important component is a heavy guage cable from the car battery to the car socket to reduce voltage drop; my research suggests 6 b&s which has about a 6mm core. Unfortunately that size cable wont fit in the 12 pin plug .... only an Anderson

 

[Marv_mart]

They are usually wired to one of the normal trailer plugs pins however travelling along they will drop to about 30% power.

We had ours changed to run directly from the anderson plug so that it gets full power from your battery. Make sure your anderson wiring to car battery (hopefully 2nd battery) is correct cable.

When we had the Anderson plug installed on the van and the Beast, we specifically asked for the fridge to run through this plug when travelling and that it isolates when ever the ignition is turned off. Checked this some months ago and works.
When camping either run it on gas or 240V if available. It does this.
When I connect my portable solar up, I connect it through the Anderson plug on the van, it then also powers the fridge when switched to 12 V I think. Not sure what happens when on 12 V, no portable solar, no 240V, no gas and switched to 12V.
Will have to ask auto elec that did my work. What do others do?
My van solar keeps my van battery charged. My 12 pin keeps my van battery charged when driving.

 

[Griffo]

Have done a number of longish trips with the last being 22oook. No issues with running via 12 pin plug.

 

[Crusty181]

When we had the Anderson plug installed on the van and the Beast, we specifically asked for the fridge to run through this plug when travelling and that it isolates when ever the ignition is turned off. Checked this some months ago and works.
When camping either run it on gas or 240V if available. It does this.
When I connect my portable solar up, I connect it through the Anderson plug on the van, it then also powers the fridge when switched to 12 V I think. Not sure what happens when on 12 V, no portable solar, no 240V, no gas and switched to 12V.
Will have to ask auto elec that did my work. What do others do?
My van solar keeps my van battery charged. My 12 pin keeps my van battery charged when driving.

Ive just ordered the wires, relays, breakers etc etc to set up as you have, minus the solar. If you plug your solar panels into vans Anderson and the van wiring is standard, the solar will be running power to the fridge, but i dare say nowhere near enough to run it.

 

[Marv_mart]

My van solar charges the van battery
My portable solar runs through the Anderson and I assume provides power to the fridge as does my car when connected and driving. Like I said, reasonably sure that when not connected to 240v or car, no portable solar, then have to use gas.
Will have to ask Auto Elec to check. Van solar probably not sufficient to run fridge and not connected that way.
Rarely if ever do I have fridge on 12V when camping, would assume that if somehow it was driven by van battery, would flatten it pretty quickly. I believe fridge runs on gas, 240v, 12v via Anderson plug only, not connected in any way to van battery as others have said in other threads.
Only time I have had fridge on 12V when camping is when portable solar connected to van via Anderson plug.
Nearly always run on 240v or gas as have no problems with Annnexe, fridge is on the Off side.

 

[Racer]

I had a big issue with my salesman telling me I had to run a 12pin, I wanted to keep my 7pin and Anderson plug set up. In the end they wired up a 7pin and left the fridge wires taped up for me to fit my owner Anderson plug.

The fool (no longer with Jayco) also told me they trickle charge the battery. A simple test with the multimeter ruled this out. I placed a power supply to the pink & white wire which showed 13.8v at the rear of the fridge and nothing different at the battery.

My next task is to link the fridge wire to my batteries to maintain the charge whilst travelling.

17.56-2 OB

 

[achjimmy]

If you want to run the fridge through the 12 pin for convenience but want to get max cable size to prevent problems. You can run 8 B&S (approx 10mm2 ) and split the cores at the plug to not only use pins 9&10 but the two other spare pins as well . ( using two pins for + and two pins for - ) But the Anderson will give least trouble long term IMO . Any time I have ever seen problems with van plugs it's been down to being caused by current being dragged through the plug.

 

[Expanda12]

I had a big issue with my salesman telling me I had to run a 12pin, I wanted to keep my 7pin and Anderson plug set up. In the end they wired up a 7pin and left the fridge wires taped up for me to fit my owner Anderson plug.

The fool (no longer with Jayco) also told me they trickle charge the battery. A simple test with the multimeter ruled this out. I placed a power supply to the pink & white wire which showed 13.8v at the rear of the fridge and nothing different at the battery.

My next task is to link the fridge wire to my batteries to maintain the charge whilst travelling.

17.56-2 OB

On my 2007 O/B the black wire from the plug runs the fridge and also runs thru the Setec to charge the battery whilst driving, it was the same on my previous 2007 Finch O/B. I cant remember which way but the battery switch has to be on the correct setting for it to charge the battery, i have rewired mine directly to the battery now with the fridge running from the anderson as well.

 

[Crusty181]

If you want to run the fridge through the 12 pin for convenience but want to get max cable size to prevent problems. You can run 8 B&S (approx 10mm2 ) and split the cores at the plug to not only use pins 9&10 but the two other spare pins as well . ( using two pins for + and two pins for - ) But the Anderson will give least trouble long term IMO . Any time I have ever seen problems with van plugs it's been down to being caused by current being dragged through the plug.

I preferred the simplicity of 12 pin I had in the last Expanda, but this time Im using an Anderson. Although I do like your idea of running 2 x 8b&s twin cores.

 

[mfexpanda]

I had a big issue with my salesman telling me I had to run a 12pin, I wanted to keep my 7pin and Anderson plug set up. In the end they wired up a 7pin and left the fridge wires taped up for me to fit my owner Anderson plug.

The fool (no longer with Jayco) also told me they trickle charge the battery. A simple test with the multimeter ruled this out. I placed a power supply to the pink & white wire which showed 13.8v at the rear of the fridge and nothing different at the battery.

My next task is to link the fridge wire to my batteries to maintain the charge whilst travelling.

17.56-2 OB

I wanted to keep my 7 pin and Anderson plug so I made this and it works great

 

[Antman]

The fool (no longer with Jayco) also told me they trickle charge the battery. A simple test with the multimeter ruled this out. I placed a power supply to the pink & white wire which showed 13.8v at the rear of the fridge and nothing different at the battery.

Hey @Racer
I wonder if they jayco person meant that it only trickles to the fridge when fridge on 12volt and not through a higher capacity cable so you don't get voltage drop?

I looked up the 90lt fridge and they draw around 12-15AH's. The larger as another member said are about 18amps. So you can work out how long your battery will last on 12volt if not charging whilst on 12volt. We don't leave ours any longer than 1-2hrs if we are stopped somewhere looking around etc.

Our setup is currently an 80AH second battery in the car connected via anderson plug with 6B&S cable. It is charged by a CTEK D250s DC/DC charger setup. On our last trip (past 4wks) our second battery (4mth old powercrank marine battery that was recommended by powercrank at Rocklea Brisbane) did not keep the charge up whilst running along for anymore than an hour (we never left it plugged in whilst stopped). We had the engel (max 2.75ah) connected along with the van fridge (max 15ah) and charging both batteries. The CTEK says you can run battery banks of around 300ah. Im not a battery charge specialist or anything so not sure if the drain is too much for CTEK? Anyone have any thoughts on this setup?

I did call powercrank whilst away and they didn't want to know anything about it at all. My thoughts are that they are importing cheap batteries that take a very very long time to charge. I would not recommend them for service nor their batteries. Not only my battery would not charge on this setup, but my father in laws 2nd battery (powercrank marine 100ah) would not keep voltage up. His is charged direct from alternator with same wiring setup on his car.

Cheers
Ants

 

[dagree]

Forgot to mention that I have also fitted a Project Low Voltage Cutoff Switch to our fridge 12V wiring.

 

[Racer]

Hi Ants

I run a the D250S too with an Exide battery. It's pretty good, I run a 40l engel with it and no issues. With our Flamingo I ran 2 x 100ah AGMs, it always maintained charged with a slight increase over time. That is all i am after, I installed an additional 100ah AGM which leaves me with 200ah. This time I'm running a 3 way fridge this time as opposed to the Waeco CR110 in the Flamingo, so the 310w of solar should keep it topped up when off the grid.

 

[Antman]

Thanks @Racer that is great to know. All my research told me that it should be fine. I have not had this setup before so it was a little unknown. I had to do it this way as we bought a new pajero with a smart alternator so i had to find a solution that i didn't really know much about.
I was thinking about replacing the battery with an Optima as they claim to charge very quick. I will check the exide ones.
Cheers
Ants