Electrical Overheating wiring for fridge

[steen rasmussen]

howdy all,

I have an overheating wiring issue and looking for some assistance. I have a 12 pin plug on the car and a 184lt fridge on the van which is 14 months old. I have driven from Melb to Bris, Bris to Cairns and back as well as many other weekend trips all running the fridge when towing and no issues.

However last time out when uncoupling noticed the connection for the fridge on the car plug was starting to melt. Towed the van back home again a couple of days later and the plug itself was extremely hot and the fridge point had melted even further.

I have no idea on electrics and why this would just start happening now. The van does look to have allowance for an Anderson plug but would need to be extended and the car updated as well. Anyone got any ideas before but I go throw a few hundred dollars on fixing.

Cheers

 

[dagree]

Have heard of this happening quite often @steen rasmussen and could be caused by one of few reasons. Main one being insufficiently sized cable. Others could be loose connection, corroded connection, bad earth etc.

Dependent on the size of cable going to the vehicle plug you may be able to disconnect the existing cables from the 12 pin and connect them directly to an Anderson plug?

 

[Base23]

My 12 pin plug was also getting warm and I also noticed that the fridge was not getting cold enough on 12 volt.
Checked all the wiring and found the problem to be loose wiring conections at the 12 pin plug itself.
Just remove the plastic covers from the plug and tighten all the terminal screws.

 

[Tone]

Mine did the same with the 12 pin. They are suppose to take 35a but that is under perfect contact, after a while they get dirty and corroded that's when they get hot and melt. Now run an Anderson.

 

[NoWorries]

I am in the middle of replacing the cable to the fridge.
It is only about 4mm max and the voltage drop once loaded is about 2v.
For the length of the run I think that I will do mine in 6 B&S. (Do Not Mistake this for 6mm cable)
as stated in the manual "To avoid a voltage drop, the cross section area of the connecting cables between battery/alternator and the refrigerator must be 10 mm2 ."
This would equate to cable somewhere between 6 B&S and 8B&S all the way from the battery in the car.
4mm is 1.81mm2 with that run and the joins they probably have made along the way (scared to look in the birds nest)
I would think that it really is in danger of melting (not to mention not running your fridge properly).

The 12pin plugs should have never been allowed to wire up for a fridge as they will not take wire anywhere near that size.

Do yourself a favour and change over to a Anderson Plug as David said and then replace the cable to your fridge with a much heavier gauge wire.
You will have peace of mind that you wont melt plugs or start a fire and also that your fridge is likely to actually work on DC.

 

[Drover]

Mine went for ages before it ended up in a meltdown and I went to an Anderson plug connection. The cause as stated is usually the pins end up closing up a bit or depending on the movement in switch caused by cable drag get poor connectivity and heat up.
If the socket isn't too badly distorted you can still use it just remove the fridge cables to an anderson, I found my cables were heavy enough but had been paired down to fit the plug connection.
There is a very detailed thread on this subject.

 

[steen rasmussen]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I think I will change the plug over just to be safe and looks like Anderson plugins the way to go, wish I had this knowledge when getting the car wired as never has an issue in 4 vans. Anyway we learn as we go I guess.