i think im rite but if you run a 3 way fridge on 12 volt and the little exhaust thing gets warm do i presume its working . on gas and 240 volt it does just the fridge is pretty cold from the winter weather to start with
Hi
I presume it would be working mr glassies, however when I owned a 3 way fridge I found that it was most efficient either on 240 v. or gas. It seemed to chew away at my battery, and didnt seem to go as well, so I tended to avoid using 12v.
Hope this is of some help.
agreed qeojen but its only to keep it cool on the run . i will bring it down at home and run 12 volt driving and go with gas at the camp site but will also have the engel in the jimmy
In the main the only time you would run the fridge on 12 volts is while you are travelling. It draws too much current from the battery, around 15 amps or so. It makes sense then you don't run it while stopped as the battery will not last too long. I also fitted a separate 12 Volt line from the tug to feed the fridge via a motion sensor switch. This will turn the feed off the fridge if you are stopped for more than 2 minutes.
Works well with us since I fitted it up
Hope that helps a bit
briche
-- Edited by briche on Sunday 18th of August 2013 03:58:32 PM
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HI dibs the only way to find out is to run it of the battery for a few hrs
with an charger connected to it
other wise you will run quick smart out of battery power
what I do is normally start on 240 overnight and when I connect the car I switch over on 12 volt when she is running
We dont run ours at all while traveling and it has never got warm or defrsted the freezer. The longest we had it off for was about 5 hours. If you keep the doors closed we find there is not need to run it while moving.
I only ever use mine on 12V. Solar. However, the longest trip so far has been just over a week. When I went to Mildura a few years ago in Winter, I used to switch it off overnight, and on again the next morning just to make sure.
Not sure if it's 3-way or not, but wouldn't use it on Gas if it was.
When I first brought the Coaster it had a 3 Way fridge in it.
My findings were this:
- 12 Volt, almost useless and just basically an oversized cooler. - 240 Volt, worked well. - Gas, worked well, and during winter it kept the bus nice n warm so an extra bonus there.
During the summer months, especially in high temperatures I found it pretty useless, as they work on heat transfer, if the ambient temperature was above what the unit could produce then items wouldn't freeze and it wouldn't get all that cold.
In the end I removed and brought a 12/240v fridge/freezer from eBay. I typically run it at between -15/-19c especially during summer. The main reason for running it so low is when operating solely from battery (12v) I let it run during the day whilst driving and at night before hitting the cot turn it off, that way everything remains frozen and cold.
I don't think I would go back to a heat transfer type of fridge, compressor driven are a better option in my opinion. I used to have a cut-off switch on it, where once battery voltage falls below a certain level it would stop the flow of power to the fridge, this has it's good and bad points. I found that it would cut off, then a few minutes later (once the battery had recovered) start-up again - not real good for the compressor to be turning on and off intermittently so I done away with it.
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