Thread: Urgent 12v electrics question

hi, merry Xmas - as far as I am aware you can take your fridge power strait off the battery - I certainly do in both my vehicle and trailer. Just so long as you can still have the solar charging the battery or from an anderson or similar from your vehicle. As for whats gone wrong, it is not unusual for a fuse to be non-functional even if it looks intact - try another fuse if you have access to one.

Many but not all car fridges have run flat protection anyway. If your fridge runs happily directly off the battery then there's no risk for the battery so long as you keep an occasional check on the battery voltage.

Without knowing how your system is designed, it is impossible to accurately diagnose it, but a reasonable suggestion would be to look for a dodgy/loose earth connection somewhere near the battery. You should check all major connections for looseness, cleanliness etc. Only tight, clean metal to clean metal joints conduct electricity well, dirt and corrosion does bugger all. A multi meter across a joint lets you see a voltage drop indicating a bad junction.

I run my engel straight from the battery , is there a fuse in the controller

Hi Andrew and Merry Christmas.

Did you try putting one fuse at a time back in and see if any one fuse caused the power to fail or is it that you are trying to run too much through a very thin main power supply cable ( wire )?

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Andrew and Merry Christmas.

Did you try putting one fuse at a time back in and see if any one fuse caused the power to fail or is it that you are trying to run too much through a very thin main power supply cable ( wire )?

Hi Tim.

I tried pulling all the fuses one by one and pulling one out made the solar controller come back online, but it still isn't getting any power to any of the outlets.

The only thing I had running through the system was the fridge and the wiring is all pretty heavy duty. The strange thing is that all the fuses appear to be intact. I'm really stumped as to what is going on.

Tomorrow I will pull them all out and start putting them back in one by one. I have spare fuses and will also try replacing them one by one, I have already tried replacing the one that brings it back on line when I remove it.

I assume there is either a short or a loose earth or something somewhere but I don't get it.

May also try and get my hands on a multimeter if I can find out anything else.

You will be happy to know that the Traxide system in my D3 is currently bypassing the trailer system and running two fridges and lights. Now just need to see if I can bypass enough to get the solar regulator to charge the car.

A multimeter is good investment, you only need a cheapie........it makes fault finding a whole lot easier.

Andrew,, I may have read your second last paragraph backwards--{or my van may be backwards)
the controller is inbetween the panels and the batteries,, it decides how big or small the charge is,,
AFAIK all power to the van/camper outlets come from the batts,,

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

Andrew,, I may have read your second last paragraph backwards--{or my van may be backwards)
the controller is inbetween the panels and the batteries,, it decides how big or small the charge is,,
AFAIK all power to the van/camper outlets come from the batts,,

Yes you are right, but as the battery had charge and I wasn't getting any power through any of the outlets, I just took a jump charge straight off the battery. Just a short term solution to keep the fridge running.