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cochise49's avatar
cochise49
Explorer
Mar 06, 2014

Residential Fridge Stopped then Restarted

The Kitchen Aid refrigerator in our new coach was running on the inverter along with the regular outlets. No Generator or engine or hookups. It ran on batteries/inverter only for three hours in the morning then I drove 50 miles. It then went on battery/inverter for another 4 hours at which time the fridge went black and non functioning. I started the generator (was getting low on fuel so had been trying to conserve). All 120 worked except for the fridge. I assumed a circuit needed reset because the inverter power went low. Could not get to the breakers as they are under the bed and the slide couldn't be opened. I finally got fuel and drove home 50 miles. When I got home the fridge was working. I touched nothing to make that happen. Found nothing in the manuals about this. What happened? Is this normal? Is it a malfunction or a safety thing?

6 Replies

  • cochise49's avatar
    cochise49
    Explorer
    Mar 07, 2014
    Thanks for the replies....all good advice/input. The rig was in a bay at Camping World for much of the afternoon so solar panel was blocked. Should have shut the fridge down for the day since the doors didn't need to be opened. Temps were optimal in fridge and freezer. New rig so having fun(?) learning the technology. Thanks again.
  • MrWizard's avatar
    MrWizard
    Moderator
    Mar 07, 2014
    Might have been the "thermal overload" switch in the compressor
  • Matt_Colie's avatar
    Matt_Colie
    Explorer II
    Mar 07, 2014
    Bev&Keith,

    It is quite possible that the reefer was down on high temperature. There are two problems that I find are poorly addressed in RVs. House reefers are not designed to be run in a tight box as they often use the sides for cooling and for the most part, they do not like running on modified square wave inverters. Either of these could cause it to over heat the compressor and shut down. Only the better ones let you know by shutting down the interior light as well.

    What can you do about it? Not much. But the first thing I do when I run into this on an owners coach is to make sure that there is cooling room around the reefer and if there is not, I try to get some.

    Matt
  • pianotuna's avatar
    pianotuna
    Nomad III
    Mar 07, 2014
    Hi,

    I'd be adding enough solar to at least carry the fridge.

    It is not good to discharge batteries as deeply as you have. I'd suggest plugging into shore power for about a week.

    Costs for materials for solar are well under $2.00 per watt.

    Driving for an hour is not going to recharge the battery bank.
  • Roadpilot's avatar
    Roadpilot
    Explorer
    Mar 07, 2014
    I would guess your batteries got too low for the inverter to deliver the correct AC voltage. 7 hours of running the fridge probasbly means it wasn't cold to start. That's a long time to run constantly on batteries. Eventually the batteries were recharged when you ran the genset. I expect the reason the fridge din't start right away on the genset is the batteries were still to low for the inverter to deliver the correct voltage for the fridge, but enough for lights. Either that or a thermal fuse or breaker tripped and then reset when it cooled.

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