Thread: Mega newb question about anderson plugs

Are you sure there are no marking on either of the wires on the lead.......most lead have some sort of marking on one of the insulation around one of the wires.....

The one marked is generally the positive.

Run you hand along the lead - the negative has a ridge running along the other (+ve) will be smooth.

From memory the fridge is polarity protected, if you connect the wrong way it won't run, but won't do any damage.

Martyn

Originally Posted by weeds

Are you sure there are no marking on either of the wires on the lead.......most lead have some sort of marking on one of the insulation around one of the wires.....

The one marked is generally the positive.

Thanks .....no clear positive or negative markings
But one of the cables does have continuous small writing marking ...300 volts
15 AWG .........the other has no markings .....so I'll wire the writing one to the positive on the Anderson ..........if I was wrong would I damage the fridge or just blow a fuse

Originally Posted by Bushie

Run you hand along the lead - the negative has a ridge running along the other (+ve) will be smooth.

From memory the fridge is polarity protected, if you connect the wrong way it won't run, but won't do any damage.

Martyn

Yes ......one with a ridge ....one smooth ....the smooth one has the marking
(Very small embossing 300 v 15 AWG ...........so looks like we have it ....great !
......whocouldaknowdit!! ...........and good to know no prob if I had wired it wrong ......but better to safe than I blow up my expensive Waco

Much appreciated

Originally Posted by landoman

Unfortunately I had a rush of blood and cut off the cig lighter connector before I realised what I was doing

So now I have 2 parts .....if I wire it up wrong to test if it's reading + or- will I short things if I get it wrong .......pic attached

Ps I'm using a traxide kit to get the power to the back l...it has 30 amp inline fuse

did you cut the wire dead square, if you havent messed with it too much on fig 8 wire its not too hard to work out which wire connected to which one.

if you need an example of what you're looking at mark one of the wires with a paint pen or marking pen about 3 inches from where you've split them and then cut through the mark place the wires next to each other and you will see that one side will have a "pinch" mark on it look for the same marking on the existing cut, mark the wires and then pick your polarity by going from the edge connector on the cig/merit socket you have to either of the wires from its end. the one that make your meter beep or swing to 0 ohm (near enough) on resistance is the negative wire.

first checks first.

if its not an all plastic fridge, connect your multimeter on its connectivity setting to the metal and then to one then the other of the sockets pins.

the one that beeps is negative.

IF you have a waco that is all plastic but has both 240 and 12/24v sockets on it put your meter onto the earth pin and then pick one of the 2 12/24v pins, the one that beeps on continutity is your negative wire.



if your waco is one that has both heating and cooling its not a compressor driven unit and is a peltier cooler device. the polarity wont matter for it plug it in and if when you put it onto cooling mode the exchanger plate gets hot in the inside then you have the polarity backwards.

according to the manual for the following waco models CF- 18, 25, 35, 40, 50, 80, 110 its polarity protected so....

put a 5 amp fuse inline (for the 18) or a 7.5 amp fuse for the rest of them and hook it up. if it pops the fuse reverse the polarity, put in a new fuse and you should be good to go.

The waco connector appears to be proprietry and doesnt appear on any of my connector charts.

I think it is worth saying again that IMHO ,Anderson plugs are not the best solution for a connection to a camper trailer as they do not have a positive lock like a trailer plug.
I met a bloke camped next to me at Mornington Wildlife sanctuary on the GRR who had no fridge as his grey Anderson had pulled out after hitting something maybe grass on the track in and the loose one had then self destructed.

Supercheap sell a 50 amp two pin with a positive flap lock like a trailer plug.

Luckily I had a spare grey Anderson and was able to get him going again and got a nice bottle of wine for my trouble.

I use grey Andersons for my inverter and compressor and Merits for all > 20 amp applications. I also have a 175Amp Anderson on the back bumper connected to a 0 gauge (Warn supplied) to the battery to run my Warn 6000Lb portable winch from the back.
For low amp applications including the fridge I find Merits are great as the socket is panel mounted or can be surface mounted with a little adaptor. This alleviates the problem with Andersons where you have loose wires trailing around.
Regards Philip A