Does anyone know if you need Battery power for Refrig...

[nelsonraymond]

Hi
Does anyone know if you need any power if you have the refrig set for Gas. We have our unit sitting without any power and the battery is not connected so that it will not draw down. We want to turn on the fridge the day before we get ready to head out and were wondering if we need to have the battery on or if it strictly runs on the gas for power. If it does need the battery does any one know if it draws much?
Janice

[berghild]

yes you do need the battery for the frig....even if frig is on propane. we found out the hard way. and no it does not draw much.....i think it needs the battery for ignition of propane. cyndy

[rdunk]

Quote: ".....i think it needs the battery for ignition of propane. cyndy"
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I am not an expert on this either, but I believe 12V power is needed for the fridge control panel, the fridge interior light, and also for the fridge external cooling fan(s), which are there if you have a side venting refrigerator. Also, 12V would be necessary to power the temperature thermostat for turning the vent fans on and off, and also to power the "thermister" on the inside of the refrigerator, that is attached to the cooling fins. If you have an ice maker in the freezer, then you also would need 12v power for that, for dumping the ice, and for releasing more water into the "ice tray:. Plus, as you say, power for gas ignition.

8)

[larry_electricguy]

The ice maker is ran off 120 volts.

[RustyJC]

12VDC is required for the refrigerator's control circuitry.

Rusty

[rdunk]

Quote; :The ice maker is ran off 120 volts".
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Hi Larry. I am surprised that the ice maker is run by 120V. This would mean that if the fridge is operating on propane, and not connected to 120 power, then "no ice". I do have the ice maker in the freezer, but haven't run the fridge enough on propane (with 120v disconnected) to notice whether the ice maker was working or not.

Thanks for the input.

[bstark]

NelsonRaymond: Oh Yeah! You need 12Volts to fire the double solenoid pack to open the valve for propane to flow to igniter. The igniter is fired by 12volts. The circuit board with time-out circuit (if the thermocouple doesn't say: O.K. we've got heat here, the gas solenoid closes after a specified time delay) is also powered by 12 volts. While these things don't typically draw a lot of juice by themselves the ambient conditions can accelerate draw-down of your bats. Very hot outside temps can cause the fridge to cycle frequently and, if fitted, that convection assist fan in the back to run more often as well.

The recent Dometic recall listed the order of most dangerous to least dangerous methods of operation for their fridges that had been fitted with weaker coils: Least dangerous was operating on 120 volts because it created less heat and pressure within fridge cavity and condenser coils while the most dangerous was gas operation because of rapid temperature rise and pressure increase in the coils would tend to cause a weak one to fail and the propane flame could also ignite the leaking chemical.

While your fridge is probably fine, it would be my preference to run fridge on 120 for absences and just isolate the rest of the trailer by tripping all of the breakers but the ones for the fridge and the convertor. Fitting your convertor with a Charge Wizard charging controller that simply plugs into the back of the convertor eliminates or at very least drasticly reduces the "boil-off" of elecrolyte that could occurr with batteries being continually overcharged while you're away.

Very sorry for the long post. Tech stuff takes more Yak.

[2 DA WDS]

And heres another FYI.

Weekend before last I was replacing the electric wall switch for the water heater with one that had a 'pilot' light on it so I would know for sure when it was on. I needed some wire nuts because there was an extra wire that was attached to the hot 'feed' wire so I just left it hanging until last Thursday when we would be back out to leave Friday morning for the Chicago area. Since my last RE3 burned we decided to not leave the gas on and just run the fridge on electric. Well when we arrived Thursday the 'check' light was on the fridge and it was 80 degrees inside. We lost some food and I turned on the gas and it started running. I finally got around to finishing the wireing on the water heater and a light bulb went on, the one in my head. I remembered from replacing the switch on our last one that the 'extra' wire on the water heater swith is the power for the fridge.
DOH!!!!
So the moral of this story is that your water heater and refrigerator both run off the same 15 amp breaker!!?? I would think that they should each have their own.

[billr]

Hey Tom,

Just running a bit off topic, but when I replaced the W/H switch this weekend, I found the CB marked for W/H was actually for the converter and the one for the converter was for the W/H!! Good thing I checked for voltage before taking it too far apart!! Ouch!! :shock: :shock: So much for the guy marking them or wiring it up!

Cheers,
Bill