wiring res fridge

csamayfield55 wrote:
You guys agree making this way too hard.

Plug it into the inverter behind the fridge. Leave it plugged into 12 volt power. It will power it directly off the batteries when no 120. When 120mis there your converter will power it indirectly through the action of charging the battery. No switches, no unplugging or replugging. It works just like the 12 volt lights in the trailer

Chris

Wrong.

Doesn't work that way.

Doing it your way will overwork the CONVERTER not to mention waste a lot of power when you do have 120V.

A home fridge will have a rather large start up surge, I measured that on mine. Mine has .9A (at 120V) run current but start up surge was 10A-11A at 120V. Translate that to 12V and you will have 9A-10A at 12V run current and 90A-100A at 12V.

This means just to cover your fridge you will need a converter of a MIN of 100A at 12V! YES, I realize the batteries will "buffer" the fridge load" but in reality a small converter (35A-80A) is not going to cut it.

Doing your way also will wear out the batteries much faster due to all the surges if you do not have a converter of sufficient size..

I personally don't care two bits if RV manufacturers are doing the way you have suggested.. It is a CHEAP way to do it and CHEAP often comes around an bits one in the rear..

ATS for automatic switch over is not all that expensive nor have possible bad side effects (such as forgetting to turn off the inverter when in storage)..

I made my own MANUAL switchover for my home fridge, it was simple and require only a handful of cheap parts which are easily sourced in Home Depot or Lowes.

I used a double pole toggle switch which has ON/OFF/ON, one plastic surface mount work box.

One blank cover for the switch box.

Two six foot power cords with plugs attached.

One short cord with a single outlet socket (think female end of a extension cord).

Wire the cord with female end to the center common terminals and the two power cords with plugs to the outside terminals.

Plug one male plug into the shore power and the other into the inverter.

Plug the fridge into the female end from the switch box.

Total cost, $15.

I mounted my box under the fridge.

Operation is simple, when plugged into the shore power I have the switch set to shore.

To change to inverter I move the switch to OFF, wait 5 minutes (allows time for the fridge to reset) then switch to the inverter.

Just reverse the order to go back to shore power.

When on shore power I simply turn the inverter off.

Running fridge from inverter even when on shore power really wastes a lot of energy due to the double conversion.. I am not about to pay double for my shore power..