can you disable voltage protection on fridge?

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Originally Posted by threedogs

Good call Mega wire size plays a big part in how your fridge operates

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Yes it is a good point. However if the fridge is cutting out when set at the 10.5v threshold, even with thin wire induced voltage drop, there is still every chance that the battery is is being discharged lower than is good for it if a long life is desired. But yes quite possible it won’t be as low as 10.5v at the battery. As far as the battery goes the voltage drop could be seen as giving it a little more protection. ;) If good heavy cable has been used the news is worse for the battery.

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Originally Posted by megatexture

Are you running the batteries that low !?? Testing the battery with a multimeter Or is the fridge saying the battery is low? I'm just wondering if it could be insufficient cable size and suffering voltage drop

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6mm cable was used as supplied by my local auto electrician. Don't know if this is correct just went with his advice. Basically I was just trying to squeeze more life out of my battery without having to purchase solar panels etc, but it sure seems that this is the way to go. I don't want to run a third battery as they are expensive and heavy!

Replacing batteries regularly will be costly and it potentially could drop a cell or die while your needing the fridge? You can buy decent panel's on ebay for under $200 and in the long run be cheaper then replacing batteries.

Use a panels and if its cloudy run jumper leads to the battery and run the car with idol up if you have it if you get desperate

In most instances 6mm2 cable is sufficient if the fridge is not too far from the battery. If in doubt go heavier. Or if you have a multimeter measure voltage at battery terminals & then again at the fridge end of the cable.
A common trap folk (including auto electricians) fall into is assuming that 6mm cable means cable with a 6mm core. 6mm auto cable includes the thickness of it’s insulation & it’s copper core is only about 4.5mm2. Usually in solar & low voltage installations recommended cable sizes given are the size of the core. It is not uncommon for fridges, including those installed by some RV manufacturers, to not work as they should because their supply cables are not heavy enough.

Thanks cuppa, I have learnt that trap and now make sure it is mm2 not just Xmm cable.

Not a great idea to be disabling the low voltage cutout for many reasons.

Quite a few have been mentioned already.
Yet another is that the lower the voltage the more current a given load will draw so voltage drop gets exponentially worse and can possibly damage the fridge.

Exotic technologies aside there are bugger all batteries that can handle regularly being drawn down to 10 volts and survive very long.
If the battery terminal voltage is getting that low then you need more capacity or more frequent charging
If the battery voltage is staying up but the fridge voltage is that low then you need to sort out the voltage drop issue