Lance Camper Wiring to Truck
I have never been thrilled with the Lance plug but it came with the camper and the dealer wired up the truck. This was 6 years ago. I have struggled on and off with continuity and had to move the ca...
Forum Discussion
pjay9 wrote:
Why run refer on inverter? Doesn't yours have a 12v selection? Mine is 3 way, 12v 120v gas. I have always run the refer on 12v while running down the road and never had a battery low charge issue, unless I stop someplace for a few hours and forget to switch it to gas. The Lance has a heavy charge wire from the factory. Pls repeort on warm start. How long to cold compared to plugging in at home to get it cold. Do you know...when on 120v is it a different heater sustem than the 12v system...if it is that could be a substansial difference in cooling faster...interesting...wish I knew more about all the refer stuff.
I've run my fridge from an inverter for years after giving up trying to keep the LP flame lit on the road. My fridge is also 3-way, but down here in the south when the ambient temps get up above 90 or so, the 12v element won't keep up and the fridge would gradually get warmer while on the road. The LP flame works fine when parked, and while driving at low speeds. It just gets blown out at interstate speeds.
The AC heating element in my fridge is (IIRC) rated at 325 watts. My inverter panel and my Trimetric both show closer to 350 watts when the fridge is on AC. The DC element is considerably less, and is really only intended to "hold" a pre-cooled fridge temp. But, as I said it really didn't do a very good job of even holding the temp so I quit using it. The AC and DC heaters are completely separate systems, and in fact I've unplugged the DC heater on mine so I don't accidentally put it in DC mode. I always pre-cool the fridge on LP or AC. It's been my experience with the 3 absorption reefers I've owned that they seem to cool best on LP, slightly less on AC, and substantially less on DC.
The heavy-duty charge circuit on my truck consists of 6 gauge wires run from the alternator through a CB and a continuous-duty solenoid all the way to the dedicated TC plug in the bed. The solenoid separates the truck from the camper when the engine isn't running. The wires in the camper umbilical are still the Lance 8 gauge, so I could probably get a little more out of it if I upgraded those to 6 gauge as well. It's on my to-do list.
:):)
