mid cabin fridge/standby mains

BobCT · Post by **BobCT** » Wed Sep 07, 2011 8:57 pm

I pulled out my cabin fridge because I want to connect it to a 12v supply so it's stays cold on the hook like my wet bar fridge. (two 6v Trojan golf cart batts).

It's about a 5 year old Norcool so I figured it would have a 12v connection which it does. It was already connected to a factory 12v feed which is switched by the top "standby main" switches. One of the white breakers underneath is labeled "Fridge" which I never noticed until tonight. The others are horn and the three bilge switches I believe.

How was the original fridge connected? Did it run off one of the start/house batteries? Mine has never run on 12v so either it's not switching over automatically or something else is going on.

Bob

Mike Kulp · Post by **Mike Kulp** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 10:39 am

Hi bob, I think mine was connected to the port battery, then the main breakers and throught the reset breaker marked fridge. I added battery's and rewired things so I am not sure which battery it was wired to start. If I remember correctly Trojan wired things used while running to one battery and things used at anchor to the other battery but do not hold me to that. The fridge should be wired so when you disconnect shore power it should switch to 12V automatically. I would start checking for power at the fridge wires and work my way back through the circuit.

BobCT · Post by **BobCT** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 12:00 pm

Thanks Mike. Odd, it's never worked on 12v since I bought the boat and I probably wouldn't want to anyway off one of my start batteries. I have a little 12v tractor battery that I use for testing so I'll try that directly to the fridge.

From what I understand, the factory default on the mid cabin is Stb side start battery handles all the loads on the Stb side of the boat and the Port is the same.

That should correlate to the two vertical rows of 12v breakers on the panel. I've never actually tested this though.

Bob

koviak · Post by **koviak** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 7:23 pm

Bob, just looked at the wiring diagram and factory wiring is from the starboard battery. Should be a 20 amp circuit on the bottom row of breakers (non-switch, push reset)

tsawyer · Post by **tsawyer** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 8:50 pm

Bob,

Mine runs from the batteries. If I don't stay connected to shore power it will kill them in a couple days.

BobCT · Post by **BobCT** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 8:18 am

thanks guys, that makes sense. I actually got the fridge working, the fuse was a 10a instead of 15 and was blown. I only ran it for a minute or two and will run a longer test to make sure there's not a problem (i.e., why 10a fuse to begin with?)

I thought about setting up another dedicated batt bank for this fridge too but came up with another idea. Trojan makes a group 27 deep cycle battery which after crunching the numbers with them, will run the fridge 40-50 hrs based on the amperage draw and still have enough reserve to start the engines. This way I don't have to do any wiring, just upgrade the battery and I'm done.

99% of the time, I'm out for the day and then back on the slip anyway so this will be more than enough. If I go multiple days, I have the portable gen to charge the batteries if I really need to. Tom, do you get a couple of days on a regular lead acid start battery or did you upgrade?

I wish I figured this out earlier since there's only about a month left in our season up here

Bob