Fridge wiring

rasbury

I recently was able to get my fridge working by replacing the controller....200 bucks, hope it lasts! At any rate, my question now is the wiring as the fridge does not seem to be on the circuit breaker panel- if the battery is on, the fridge is on. It also seems, although I need to confirm, if I turn the thermostat inside the fridge all the way down it does not turn it off but only the lowest setting...this is the std. fridge Rinker installed......what about that wiring, should it not be wired through the panel somehow? Also, I'm not 100% it's running on shore power. I have verified the power is hot to the fridge but when I had the fridge in my shop, when I tried to run it on my house current and disconnected the battery it would not run, just on the battery only. Not a big deal I suppose but when I'm on shore power it would be better to run it on that than taxing the battery....if I have the boat on shore power and turn off the battery, should the fridge then work or does a battery still have to be on for electricity to "travel" to the right spots??

JC290

ras on my old 242 the fridge ran off the battery, on my 290 the fridge in cabin works both off shore or battery the one in my cockpit runs on battery only. the cabin one is on a breaker. when you turn the knob to the lowest point on mine it does in fact turn it off. when off the green light by knob should go out. 

rasbury

the manual says it should detect the shore power and run on that if it's on, just trying to figure out a way to check it....

JC290

is there a breaker for it?

MarkB

So you said power to fridge is hot. Are there 2 feeds, a 12v and a 110v? If you only have the 12v feed then it won't go through the breaker panel. There should be a 12v fuse/breaker though by the battery switch. Your shore power will work through your charger to power the battery and feed your fridge.

rasbury

I have a "household" type plug behind the fridge and then wires that I suppose come from a battery source somewhere but nothing on my breaker panel will turn it off. I would have that it would be wired along with the stove breaker. When you turn a battery on with nothing on the breaker panel on, the fridge is on- the only way to turn it off is turn the battery switch to off- really odd! It is not wired directly to the battery, that is for certain but I do can't really tell where the "battery" powered wires are coming from, they go behind the cabinet and you would think head over to the breaker panel...

MarkB

Was the fridge installed by rinker or the previous owner.

rasbury

Mark- I would say it's the original installation- I plugged in the boat tonight at the house, turned on the shore power only ( batts off) and the fridge was off. Does the power not get past the battery switch on shore power unless a battery is on? Turned on a battery, fridge comes on, turned all the way down and the comp is running-not turning off. My real concern is running down a battery when I'm not using the fridge or being able to conserve the battery when I want to without turning everything off....very odd. Boat had 98 hrs on it last year when bought and he did not touch anything on it from what I've seen...

rinker312

Ras. This is just how my two fridges work. They are ac/dc fridges and hard wired to the battery if aC is present they run off that but no aC and they switch to dc. Even turning my batteries off does not shut them off. The only way to shut them off is to turn the dial in the fridges all the way down till it clicks.  But what I have also found over the years is that they will not drain my batteries past a certain point.  There seems to be some sort of auto shut off on them that happens once the batteries drop below a certain voltage. I know because on a couple occasions I left for the week and forgot to turn the shore power back on. When I arrived next weekend I found my batteries were still reading maybe 11 volts and surprisingly the stuff in the freezers was not completely thawed.  

MarkB

Yes, if the switch is off, then it disconnects the battery from the circuit and no power gets to the fridge. You should try and keep the thermostat on the lowest setting and observing. The compressor should shut off after a little while.

Also as rinker312 states, you can turn down the thermostat until it clicks. Some dials have a '0' setting. This is off, so you don't need to keep shutting off the battery.

rasbury

hmmm......mine is not wired direct to the battery so that would not be the problem. Also, now that rinker mentions, the control unit on the fridge that I just replaced does have a high/low voltage "sensor" that will cut the power if it is to high or low so the compressor is not damaged so that's a plus- as long as I turn my switch off it should not be an issue...the other thing I did not think of to try and is to leave the battery off but by the battery rotary switch there is another switch for power to the helm- I think if you turn that on and leave the battery off it will run the helm so you have lights etc. but not hopefully run the fridge- I will try that and I need to figure out what  the DC wires are routed to as I sure would like the fridge to be on a breaker that I can control....I'll keep digging as I'm on the water this weekend and would like to figure it out!

rasbury

if I have a battery on, it's on but I found I was turning the thermostat the wrong way for off and on. I can leave the battery off and turn the help on and no fridge but once you hit a battery, it's on. I will keep working on this as I'd sure like to tie it to a breaker- if it's not wired directly to the battery, it has to be wired to something that does. I have no wires at my batteries except for the genny and the neg/post. cables...odd

rinker312

Well let us know how you set it up. I would love to have mine on a switch also. I do not have any wires to my batteries either but somewhere, somehow they are tied directly to the batteries. Don't know why they just didn't put a switch for them in the panel with the rest of the stuff. 

JC290

Ras where do the wires for your "house style " plug go? to the panel? if so they should be tied into a breaker as that should be your 110 supply. you may not see a switch but opening the panel will tell the story, just watch as they do not give you a lot of extra wire to move anything about. if you can take a few pictures as i'm curious as i'm sure others are.

rasbury

that is an interesting question......I THINK I checked this when I dug into fixing the fridge and I THINK they tied into the stove but that would be for the 110 only- which means this weekend I was probably only running of the battery as I did not have the stove breaker on.....thanks for getting me thinking but I'm pretty sure that was the deal-can't imagine a 110v line not on a breaker-now I really have the wheels in motion but have to deal with my raw water pump I just burned up by accident...

raybo3

On my 342 the A/C D/C fridge has 2 feeds. 120vac and 12vdc. The a/c has a male plug on it that you would plug into a outlet (like your home fridge) and has a 2 wire (red and black) feed from the d/c panel. On my boat it is not really a breaker but an overload. This is a little white "button" and if it pops out than it has an overload. Push it in to reset. Also the fridge should "see" the shore power first and then switch to 12dc if you disconnect the shore power.

rasbury

well that explains it then....I think as mentioned above the A/C side is on the stove, so, I guess it's not really meant to be turned off other than the thermostat- as long as that is off the worst your doing is running the light when the door is opened....I think the case is closed!  Thanks Ray!

rinker312

Raybo. On my boat I have aC breakers to shut off the aC side of each fridge. But when I shut that off it just immediately switches to dc and they keep running. There are no dc switches for the fridges. So how do you shut off the fridge completely without using the knob inside the fridge?  

MarkB

Rinker312, you would either have to unplug the fridge, turn off the knob inside the fridge, or potentially pop the 12V breaker for the fridge (you should have one, either under the helm or at the 12V panel beside your transom cockpit door.

rasbury

I'm thinking turning off the thermostat is the way to go but I fear I will forget and leave it on and kill a battery- I do turn off my batteries when stored so I guess I will live with the way it is.

rasbury

I just need to remember to turn on the stove which I'm pretty sure is the circuit for the A/C but kind of bothers me to have the stove hot- if one of the kids messes with it could become a fire hazard...

MarkB

If you can access the 110V why not just run a wire. You probably have spare space on the breaker board to add a switch.

rasbury

well, now how I know it works and the 110 is on a breaker, I think I can live with it...bigger fish to fry!

raybo3

You could shut the DC main breaker off on the panel.....