Advice needed for fridge when on car battery.

[tcarpenterblueyonder.co.uk]

Hi all,
Im hoping you can help (Im sure one of you can, as you have been fab in the past) we have tested all in the caravan, ready for the go and we have come across a problem with the fridge, when we attach the car and put it through on to the car battery the light on the fridge does not work, can anyone advise on the possible problem.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ancientcaravanner]

The fridge will only work when attached to the car if the car engine is running (assuming your tow bar is correctly wired). Did you have the engine running?

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hi
Ancient caravanner is correct.

There is a good reason for this. The 12V element on the fridge uses a lot of power, and it will flaten a battery rather quickly to the point where it would not start the car. So the towbar electrics include a relay device that only connects 12V power to the fridge feed when the cars engine is running and power is supplied by the alternator. The same applies to the circuit that charges the caravan battery.

 

[tcarpenterblueyonder.co.uk]

Hi

Thanks for getting back to me, we did start the engine and still no joy.

 

[Damian]

You need to check the output from your car socket(s).
If you have the twin sockets, 12N(Black) and 12S(Grey) you need to check the Grey 12S socket.
For the fridge with the engine running, you should have an output on Pin 6 of the 12v+ and Pin 7 is the return, or earth as it is called.

If you have the single 13 pin socket the + supply is on Pin 10 and the return is on Pin 11.

Also what year is the van and car and who fitted the towbar and wiring? was it a car specific wirng harness or was it individually wired.

On a lot of car specific harnesses the fridge and charging unit supplies are not pre wired , especially for imported cars as on the continent vans do not have leisure batteries and the fridge is not powered during towing.

 

[tcarpenterblueyonder.co.uk]

It was all ok last season and we havent changed anything.

 

[colin-yorkshire1]

hi tc,
just a quickie have you made sure the gas is set at 0 and off and the 240 switch the green one is also off,
because while moving sites last year I forgot to switch off the 240v after unhooking the EHU although the red 12v was on the fridge did not work and when we got to the next site all the stuff in the frieeze compartment had defrosted
the next time we moved I made sure the green switch was off and the red was on and it worked fine.

 

[ValA.]

Have you looked at the pin connections? Our 'fridge' connection is a bit dicky sometimes, and OH has to clean the pins and slightly widen the gap in the centre 'fridge' pin. The connection also seems to be prone to 'overheating' and we've had to replace our grey connector several times in the past eleven years as the overheating melts the plastic and the pins distort. We even carry a pair of grey connectors with us - as we were stuck in France one year with a fridge full of things to bring back, and no current reaching it when we were travelling.
There's a good article here explaining the problem. We haven't tried his suggested solution of using one of the 'spare' pins, though - just simply replaced the connection like for like.

 

[Ancientcaravanner]

Check the inline fuse between the battery and the socket on the car if you find there is no power on the pins.

 

[tcarpenterblueyonder.co.uk]

thanks colin-yorkshire but we have checked that.

 

[John_374564913]

In my Bailey hand book it states that the fridge has to be switched over to battery and then switch of the mains at the fuse board

If the power supply is not switched of at the switch boeard it will not work

Another point just because the liight is on it doesnt mean the fridge is working (Just a stupid thought has the bulb in the fridge blown correct me if I am wrong it has two elements in the bulb one for 240 and one for 12v maybe the 12v bulb has blown just a thought????)

 

[ValA.]

I thought the poster meant the red light on the outside of the fridge, which indicates whether the fridge is running on the car battery. We have one on ours, and always check when the car is connected up that the red light is on. When it's not OH generally gives the 12s connections to the car a 'twiddle' and if that doesn't work widens the gap in the pin as suggested in my post and in the article I linked to. This is what lead us to see that the connection had melted, and then we discovered that was a common problem.

 

[tcarpenterblueyonder.co.uk]

Hi thank you for all your suggestions the problem was the fuse in the car for the grey socket so now that has been replaced all ok now.