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  • Caravan Fridge Wiring

    Curious to know how people have their caravan fridges wired where the van has it's own battery. 12v of course.

    When I leave home I have my van battery fully charged and fridge running on 12v whilst travelling. When I get to my destination the battery in the van is dead, so the fridge must be drawing from this as I travel. Prado is wired up with 12 pin Anderson plug and intended that van battery would be charging as I went but charge to van battery appears insufficient to match fridge draw down.

    Something is not right here. How do other people have their fridges wired. My neighbor has his wired straight to the car in parallel with the car battery and must turn the fridge off every time he stops to avoid flattening the car battery. His does not run off the van battery at all.

    What is the norm and how should it be set up for optimum power use conservation. When I get to camp of course I put my fridge on gas or AC power if in a caravan park.

    Thanks

    Jeff

  • #2
    Re: Caravan Fridge Wiring

    Hi Jeff,

    Not an expert by any means........

    Originally posted by mildew
    Prado is wired up with 12 pin Anderson plug
    12 Pin..... Not familiar with that.... 2 pin maybe.

    I have a direct coonection from the 2nd battery in the Prado to the anderson plug at the rear (handy to plug the compressor into as well) and then a direct connection from there to the van battery.

    Works well for me. I don't even bother charging before I leave, always arrive fully charged.

    PS, I do also have a 120ah solar panel on the roof of the camper, which is also connected via a regulator to the van battery, more for prelonged stops than for use whilst travelling though.
    [color=#0040FF]Rob[/color]
    [color=#0040BF]2012 Altitude D4D &
    04 Jayco Eagle Outback[/color]

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    • #3
      Re: Caravan Fridge Wiring

      You are probably using the standard wiring and a flat plug. Anderson plug is here
      .
      The standard wiring is only good for about 2amps at best (most likely a lot less). Even the smallest Wayco will draw about 2.8amps on average, slowly flattening your battery. I run a 4mm square wire (about $2.65/m from either Dicksmith ) from the main battery via a solenoid and a fuse to the back of the car. Even this is fairly small. The larger the better. I also run the same lead from the earth to make sure I have the maximum voltage at the plug. The main issue is the voltage drop along with the Prado's CPU limiting the charging voltage to 13.1V on the car. In my case the voltage drop at charging rate of ~10A from the front of car to the back of the camper trailer is 0.7V. At that rate you will only be able charge the battery to less than 50% without the fridge running. I am looking at diferrent options such as the Ranox unit to increase voltage. Unfortunally it's not waterproof. I only run LED lights of the trailer battery so it's not a major issue in my case.

      To solve the problem, you will have to run solid wiring from front to back (remember fuse at each end to pretect you from accidental earth and fire) and a voltage increaser such as Ranox unit to increase the charge above 50%. The standard charging voltage of the prado will only charge a battery to about 70%. The other option is still run this and instead of Ranox unit run a solar cell to boost the voltage and charge as was mentioned before.
      [size=7][color=#0000BF]Late 2008 GXL D4D 6sp man, white, Sovereign bull bar, 2.5t tow bar, Head light protectors, Bonnet protector, Cargo mat, Front side window weathershields, Roof rack & bars, Dual bateries[/color][/size]

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      • #4
        Re: Caravan Fridge Wiring

        Hi Jeff,

        You didn't mention an auxiliary battery in the Prado, so I will assume there isn't one!

        I had almost the exact same problem as yourself. After a fair bit of research, a lot of it to do with the Prado's reduced alternator output, here's my fix:

        I am assuming your van fridge is a 3 way, which means that on 12 volt it draws a lot of current. Mine (a 90 litre Dometic) drew 15 amps. With that in mind, if you do it my way, you need

        - A Redarc Isolator,
        - an Anderson as shown in peteandkyles post,
        - a trailer plug and socket with fat pins rated at 20 amps or more with one spare pin (I used a Narva 12 pin, which has the standard 7 small pin flat configuration, plus 5 fat pins for heavy duty auxilliary use. There is also a large round 7 pin Utilux - not to be confused with the small round Utilux, which has only small, light duty pins) and
        - a RanOx in the van.

        There are alternatives to the RanOx, but in my opinion, none are as good. I will use RanOx here, you can replace it with your choice.

        The Anderson is wired via the Redarc. Then you need a second cable on your van from the Anderson on the car back to the van battery area. This will power the RanOx, which should be mounted near the van battery to keep its output leads short - that is important.

        On your car, in addition to the cable from the Redarc to the Anderson, you need another, this time 8 gauge, from the Redarc to the spare heavy duty pin in the trailer socket. Then run an additional 8 gauge wire in your trailer harness from the matching spare pin to the 12 volt connection on your fridge.

        I used 6 gauge cable from battery to Redarc to Anderson and also in the matching "Anderson cable" on the van. For the dedicated fridge wire I used 8 gauge, as this fits the heavy duty terminals in the trailer plugs/sockets and is perfectly adequate to provide 15 amps/12 volts AT THE FRIDGE. AT THE FRIDGE is important - use a multimeter to see what voltage the fridge is getting UNDER LOAD.

        You need 6 gauge to the van via the Anderson because the RanOx will want 30 amps at greater than 10 volts and the only way to get that after a long cable run to a van is with lots of copper, ie big cable. Do it right the first time and you won't regret it.

        Your fridge probably wants 15 amps at nearly 12 volts. 8 gauge over a the average cable run to a van (say 10 metres) will do that. You COULD feed the fridge from the end of your 6 gauge in the van, but consider that the 6 gauge cable will have to carry up to 45 amps (up to 30 for the RanOx, 15 for the fridge) AND keep the voltage up around 12 volts to keep the fridge working, in which case 6 gauge might not be enough. I recommend the two separate feeds.

        DO NOT run your van fridge on 12 volt from the van battery while driving. Its load on the battery will change the battery voltage which will confuse the RanOx. It will also steal much or all of the RanOx's output and will in all probabability stuff up the charging. You MUST run the fridge directly from the car while driving.

        To complete the circuits, you need a 6 gauge earth from the van battery to the van chassis, and a 6 gauge earth from the Prado's Anderson to the Prado chassis. It is preferable that you do a 6 gauge negative run from van battery negative to Prado battery negative via the Anderson (ie, do not use chassis earth), but then have a negative "spur" from van battery negative to van chassis. This is almost never done, but it is the better way. The idea is to keep earth (negative) currents in the car inside copper wires. Stray earth currents through the chassis have been known to get diverted through the engine and cause electrolytic corrosion, particularly of the cooling system. Aluminium radiators can perforate in a couple of weeks, I've seen pics of a water pump rotor all but gone - all it takes is one connection to go bad and you won't know about it until disaster has struck - ie your engine has cooked because an important part of the cooling system has corroded away. Also, I have read (but have no technical detail or proof) that stray earths MAY interfere with vehicle stability systems, traction control, etc.

        You should also run an 8 gauge negative from the fridge negative to the van's chassis or to the 6 gauge negative because most van fridge wiring is inadequate. It's no use providing a fat positive supply if the return is not equally fat - the performance of your wiring depends on the weakest link in the whole circuit.

        If you want to use your Anderson cable to power the fridge as well, I recommend bigger than 6 gauge cable in the Anderson wiring and its associated earths, mostly because of the length of cable run.

        What all this will do is this:

        When your key is off, everything is off, as it should be.

        A few minutes after you start your car the Redarc will kick in. This will supply power to the RanOx in the van to charge the van battery. At the same time, 12 volt power will be supplied to the fridge at sufficient amperage and voltage to guarantee proper refrigeration. Correction - to guarantee that the fridge will do the best it can do. Sometimes they're not that good on 12 volt

        When you switch the engine off to go shopping on your way to your campground of choice, the car battery will keep this system going FOR A SHORT TIME, until the Redarc drops out, as it's designed to do - probably only a couple of minutes. This behaviour will ensure your car battery is full and will start your car when you come back with a trolley full of stuff you probably don't need . However during that time your van fridge will just be an esky - it will not be refrigerating.

        We always switched to gas for stops because Mrs 4xx4 always seemed to turn a "short shop" into a long one!! You have to remember to switch back from gas to 12 volt before setting off again.

        If you have a second battery in the car it's a little more complicated, but not much.

        Cheers
        2007 D4D GXL.Suspension by Ultimate, Minto - modest lift.DIY shelf unit (help from ORS, Narellan).Polyairs.Dual batteries with RanOx smart DC-DC charger.Towing a Kimberley Karavan with another RanOx.

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        • #5
          Re: Caravan Fridge Wiring

          Wow so much information. Although I'm confused I appreciate your help. Have printed this off and will be heading off with the Prado and van in tow to my Auto Electrician shortly. By the way what I called an Anderson plug is actually a 12 pin plug. Big van 2.5 tonnes.

          Thanks again. ops:

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