Running my frig

[Christian in FL]

Hi, I am traveling with my Boler 1300. The fridge runs on shore power or 12v. Can anyone tell me how to run it on 12v? I have no idea as I have never done this. I have an inverter in my truck but......help please. I would like to run it on 12v while towing, shore power when camped. Thanks

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[cmartin748]

Depending on the model, it should have a switch to change it from 110v to 12v. Mine is located in the outside access panel. The make and model of the frige would be of great help.

[Carol H]

Lisa, it depends on what the size of the charge line from your tow vehicle as to how well towing while on 12V works or does not & the age of your fridge. If its a an older fridge the 12V function takes a lot of power. Many have found that their tow vehicles can not keep up to the drain the fridge puts on the battery. In other words you can arrive at destination with a very depleted or dead trailer battery and a warm fridge. What ever you do, don't park someplace and leave the trailer attached with the 12v running on the fridge..... not only will your trailer battery be dead so will your vehicles battery if you do not have the charge line on the vehicle set up to stop working when the vehicle is shut off - many vehicles do not have that feature.

Putting a frozen jug of water or a freezer pack in the fridge while underway and do not open the fridge while traveling works well. Have have traveled for some pretty long hot days using that approach. Works fine - just put the freezer packs right beside the most perishable items - milk, meat etc.

[Christian in FL]

Cmartin, my fridge does have those switches. My question regards how to supply 12v power while towing. Carol, I think your suggestion of adding cold packs/ice is how I will go, given that I do not have a way to monitor my TV battery until it is dead. Thanks for saving me from another problem.

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[Bob Miller]

The usual manner is to:
Using a 7 pin, flat blade, RV connector on your TV, route a #10 stranded wire from your vehicles battery, via a fuse or circuit breaker, to the charging line pin, here's a pin layout for a 7 pin connector:
http://www.countrytrailer.com/uploads/7wayplug.pdf


Then use the same size wire on the trailer side to connect to the coach battery and to the refrigerator.


As mentioned, anything less can/will result in the refrigerator sucking down the coach battery while you are under way. The addition of an RV isolation solenoid under the hood, in the charging line will prevent the refrigerator drawing from the TV's battery when parked.

[redbarron55]

I don't know what kind of refrigerator you have, but I have a Norcold DE704 and it automatically switches between 12 and 120 volts.
The 12 volts runs an oscillator that goes through the transformer to produce 22 - 24 Volts ac for the swing compressor. The same transformer converts the 120 to 22 - 24 volts on shore power.
My Norcold consumes about 40 watts of power from either source ~3.7 amps when running the compressor on DC and about .35 amps on A/C.
Since the reefer runs about 50% of the time that would average around 20 watts / hour or 2 amp hours on battery.
My hope is to one day have solar panels that would produce enough power to take care of this and the LED lights as well.

As an aside for Lisa ---- Did you want the last long cushion that I forgot to put out when you were last here if you swing by mobile?