Traveling with a residential refrigerator

[BulletproofPJ]

First time with a residential fridge and was wondering how it keeps cold on long trips. Do I need to start the gen every now and then? Use the AGS? Just bought the rig with no walk through, now that General RV is going back to work I’m scheduling one.

Thanks

John S

[Bob Denman]

You could always pack it with ice for the traveling time on the road...

Or just run your generator.

[reminckv]

Turn on the inverter and it will run off of the batteries. I then run the generator for a few minutes every 2 or 3 hours to keep the batteries charged.

[EA37TS]

Turn on the inverter and the fridge should continue to run. As you are driving down the road the chassis alternator, through the BIM or BIRD should keep the batteries charged. If the chassis alternator does not keep the batteries charged you can run the generator or set the AGS so the generator automatically starts when the battery voltage drops below the set level.

In a class a you may find during the heat of the summer you will want to run the generator so you can also use the house AC to keep the coach cool.

As a note, it has always taken about 24 hours to cool down the residential fridge prior to a trip. Normally during the season I keep my coach plugged in at the house and the fridge running.

Happy travels.

[pstandiford]

Originally Posted by EA37TS

Turn on the inverter and the fridge should continue to run. As you are driving down the road the chassis alternator, through the BIM or BIRD should keep the batteries charged. If the chassis alternator does not keep the batteries charged you can run the generator or set the AGS so the generator automatically starts when the battery voltage drops below the set level.

In a class a you may find during the heat of the summer you will want to run the generator so you can also use the house AC to keep the coach cool.

As a note, it has always taken about 24 hours to cool down the residential fridge prior to a trip. Normally during the season I keep my coach plugged in at the house and the fridge running.

Happy travels.

Our residential refrigerator does not take anywhere close to 24 hours. We turned ours in at 10:00 am and it had dumped about three cycles of ice by the time we went to bed at 9:00 pm.

[petefoss]

Originally Posted by reminckv

Turn on the inverter and it will run off of the batteries. I then run the generator for a few minutes every 2 or 3 hours to keep the batteries charged.

No need to run the genny, the alternator can handle the load just fine.

[TxTig]

Originally Posted by pstandiford

Our residential refrigerator does not take anywhere close to 24 hours. We turned ours in at 10:00 am and it had dumped about three cycles of ice by the time we went to bed at 9:00 pm.

This has been my experience as well. We load the fridge with cold food and it doesn’t take long at all for the fridge to cool down.

I generally buy a bag of ice at the start of the trip so that we have ice right away (gotta have enough ice for Day 1 evening cocktails). The ice maker in the residential fridge has no trouble keeping up after that first bag.

[Glensouth]

Your alternator will keep the batteries charged. No problem!

[reminckv]

Originally Posted by petefoss

No need to run the genny, the alternator can handle the load just fine.

I completely agree, assuming things are working as they should. After purchasing my Hurricane used, I found that my alternator was not charging my coach batteries. I was told that this was normal and that I need to run the generator for awhile. I now realize that I have a faulty battery isolator relay which is preventing the coach batteries from charging from the alternator.

Just this morning I removed the bad relay and am trying to determine what I am going to replace it with. I am looking for a relay that will be more reliable than the Trombetta brand that came from the factory.

[RWF]

They are a high maintanance item. Mine was broken when I bought the machine. It engages any time the engne is running, I'm plugged in, or the voltages are up to the top on both banks, so I put a manual switch on it so I can turn it off when plugged in. It gets hot enough that it is uncomfortable to touch just sitting there on shore power. Doesn't seem right. I upgraded to a gold contact one but it gets hot also.......

[reminckv]

Originally Posted by RWF

They are a high maintanance item. Mine was broken when I bought the machine. It engages any time the engne is running, I'm plugged in, or the voltages are up to the top on both banks, so I put a manual switch on it so I can turn it off when plugged in. It gets hot enough that it is uncomfortable to touch just sitting there on shore power. Doesn't seem right. I upgraded to a gold contact one but it gets hot also.......

Yes, these relays clearly fail far too often and not just on Thor RV's. There are many threads related to the failures on other RV forums as well. As I understand it, there are basically two failure modes. The coils can fail due to continuous operation (even though rated for continuous service) and/or the contacts can fail. My contacts had over 1.5V drop indicating contact failure. I decided to go with a White Rodgers (Emerson) 15V coil relay with silver contacts. P/N is 586 108111. We'll see how it works out. I have considered adding a switch to turn it off too. Would you mind telling me where you inserted the switch? Thanks.

[RWF]

There is a hot wire that energises the relay, and a ground wire, I switched the ground because that was the one I was playing with. I would gess that either one would work the same......

[reminckv]

Thanks RWF, I think I'll do that.

[RWF]

just remember to turn it on when you are driving. I have had to stop and turn it on at least once.....