Fridge cutting out

[cass_cass94]

Hi

I've got a Waeco cf40 fridge and I went to put in the the back of the patrol today to cool it down to chuck the lunch in for a picnic. When I plugged it in and turned it on the display said it was at 20 degrees but after about a minute or not even the fridge cut out then after a minute of it being off it turned back on and did the same thing again. So I connected the fridge to the house power to cool it down first then once it was at about 2 degrees I connected it to the car and it worked good for the the hours drive and while we were away.

My question is, does this mean that the wiring from the battery to my rear cig socket for the fridge is not big enough and is loosing too much power on the way.

The socket was already in the car when I purchased it too.

I'm not the best with auto electrical stuff so Thanks in advance.

[threedogs]

Make sure ALL your connections are good ,
CIG sockets are bound to fail ,
either use a twist lock Baintech, or 50amp anderson
Make sure the wire is adequate to carry the load to the rear of your Patrol too

[Bacho86]

Hopefully some of the more experience elec guys will be able to point you in the right direction, but Id be having at look the gauge / thickness of the wiring used, as well as the quality of the earth connection - good practice to run an earth from the battery negative to the fridge to get a good quality earth.

What type of socket connection do you have? Whilst looking into things it'd good idea to replace with an engel / merit / Anderson plug. The standard 12v ciggie plugs are known to fail


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[the evil twin]

Hi

I've got a Waeco cf40 fridge and I went to put in the the back of the patrol today to cool it down to chuck the lunch in for a picnic. When I plugged it in and turned it on the display said it was at 20 degrees but after about a minute or not even the fridge cut out then after a minute of it being off it turned back on and did the same thing again. So I connected the fridge to the house power to cool it down first then once it was at about 2 degrees I connected it to the car and it worked good for the the hours drive and while we were away.

My question is, does this mean that the wiring from the battery to my rear cig socket for the fridge is not big enough and is loosing too much power on the way.

The socket was already in the car when I purchased it too.

I'm not the best with auto electrical stuff so Thanks in advance.

Will almost certainly be a voltage drop issue.
Pulling down from a high temp is when the fridge wants the most power which is when it is the most susceptible.

You could check that the low voltage cut or battery monitor or whatever they call it on the fridge is set to the lowest value if that is selectable (pretty sure that the CF40's have a choice but could be wrong).
My Waeco 80 had a choice of low, med, high... you want it on low

Apart from that you will need to make sure that the wire gauge and connections from Battery to Socket on the vehicle are suitable.
Finally the plug, easily the best plug is the engel style twin pin screw on style (more correctly known as "posifit").
Next best is Anderson or Merit and least preferable is the good old Ciggy Plug
There are others but they are the most common

[cass_cass94]

Cheers the evil twin.

Yea the cf40 does have the low med and high choices. So I'll make sure it's on low. And what gauge/thickness wire should it be over that distance. Also I agree that the cig style sockets are not the best. But I'll proba leave it on for the trip I'm doing in early January and change it after that.

Also is it a good idea to chill the fridge down on mains power before plugging it into the car so it doesn't put so much pressure on the battery. Or does it not matter too much.

[AB]

Cheers the evil twin. Yea the cf40 does have the low med and high choices. So I'll make sure it's on low. And what gauge/thickness wire should it be over that distance. Also I agree that the cig style sockets are not the best. But I'll proba leave it on for the trip I'm doing in early January and change it after that. Also is it a good idea to chill the fridge down on mains power before plugging it into the car so it doesn't put so much pressure on the battery. Or does it not matter too much.

always run the fridge on 240v bight before a trip for sure.

I had 6mm cable which caused the exact problem you have.

I now have 2 b&s which is overkill but I have never had a problem running ridiculous amounts of accessories off the rear sockets.

[cass_cass94]

So would 8mm or more be enough to stop the voltage drop over that distance?

[the evil twin]

So would 8mm or more be enough to stop the voltage drop over that distance?

Probably... without seeing how the vehicle is wired.
The heavier (within reason) the better.
Many people will run heavy cable to an Anderson on the rear bumper for Trailers/Camping/etc and feed a short run back from that usually to the rear panel over the jack.

[AB]

So would 8mm or more be enough to stop the voltage drop over that distance?

As ET said its hard to give an exact answer but from my set up with 6mm cable worked fine even starting the fridge from scratch in summer but adding any other accessory to that would cut the fridge out so at a guess I would say you would be fine...but, consider what other accessories you may want to run from the back one day too.

[MEGOMONSTER]

I was having the sameish problem and found it to be the fuse was not fitted all that well.
Just happened to grab the wire from the battery to the fuse and it was hot.
Looked at the fuse and holder and all looked fine until you pulled the fuse out and found slight charring.
I use to get three to four days fridge life at 1 degree but not lately.
Found this problem and fixed it, changed the fuse and holder, made sure it was in correctly , all the way and tight.
Now the fridge has lasted 4days no charging.