12v lights not working

[Brian Tin]

I just got back from a weekend camping with the family and tried to turn on one of the 12v lights and it didn't work. They had been working all weekend so I figured a light had been left on and the battery was dead so I hooked up the charger and still nothing. So I started looking at the battery connections etc and everything was good. there is two switches on the side of my fridge, one for 12v and one for 110, when I bought the trailer the guy said make sure they aren't both on because you'll fry the fridge. I noticed that some thing had shifted on the way home and switched them both on, the fridge seems to work fine on 110 but the lights still don't work. All of this to say is there a fuse or fuseable link somewhere from the factory? I'm ok with tracing wiring, I used to do car audio and alarm installs for a living, but it would be nice to have a little guidance on a possible location
Thanks!

[Roy in TO]

Every fridge I've seen has an interconnect to prevent both 110 and 12V from being on at the same time. Figure out what model fridge you have and check the Document Center on the Left Side Bar here to find a service manual.

If you can't find your fridge, post the model and someone usually will pipe in.

Most bolers had an inline fuse under the front bunk forward of the fridge.

[Brian Tin]

Cool, I will check that out
Thanks!

[Brian Tin]

Looks like it was a false alarm. I hooked up the multi meter to the battery where I had my friends brand new battery charger hooked up over night and it showed 2.3 volts, that seemed odd so I hooked up a charger that is older than the hills and it shows 12.2 volts. It ends up my friends charger is a "smart charger" and it won't charge anything under 3 volts, that doesn't seem to "smart" to me, it won't charge a dead battery like an old guy once told me "they don't make them like they used to"

[Roy in TO]

OK then, run some stuff off battery for a while to drop the voltage down a bit to about 11V. Then hook up the smart charger.