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Topic: Fridge or relay or fuse?
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10/9/2005 at 8:49pm
Location: Pitstone Bucks. Outfit: 2009 Coachman Amara 550 5 GT
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Hi
Help please!
Just returned from 2 weeks in France .... great time, apart from fridge not working on towing.
12v LED indicator clicks on and off (constantly) when engine on and can hear just clicking noise in back of car (not sure if relay knackered?).
Any ideas? We had problems with 12v circuit previously and Dometic engineer attended and replaced circuit and it worked for a bit, but now not working again (although this time it does click on and off, but just won't stay on all the time). Driven 2000 miles with it doing this and worried it will damage it.
Does it sound like fridge or electrics up the shoot?
Many thanks for help.
Ben
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11/9/2005 at 12:03am
Location: Bristol Outfit: Lunar Conquest 544 a
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Hi Ben , does sound like the car end to me , possibly how the relay has been wired in or how the 12s socket has been wired to the relay/car chassis. The relay ( voltage sensing type ) should click off when the voltage coming from the car battery drops below a set limit , this is to stop the car battery being flattened by the fridge ( like when the car engine is stopped or when the engine is idling and not producing enough voltage to supply the fridge ) . It sounds like the relay is reaching this limit as your driving , so either the relay is faulty or the output to the relay from the car battery isn't enough , this could point to either a failing alternator or a faulty car battery .
The other type of relay ( the one i have fitted to my car ) supplies the fridge only when the car engine is running , if you have this type then it's faulty or not wired correctly .
Both relays should have a heavy duty wire going to the battery with a fuse inline . Have a look at this wiring info for the 12s socket connections http://www.volvoclub.org.uk/towbar_electrics.shtml i would have thought your 12s socket/plug is wired to the later ( 1999 Pin Allocation ) spec . If you check the grey cable coming into the boot area from the 12s socket , the red wire should be going to the relay and the black wire should be going to the car chassis ( earth ) separately from any other wires ( ie so it has it's own earth connection point ) .
Hope this helps
atb
Wizard
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11/9/2005 at 7:29pm
Location: None Entered Outfit: None Entered
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Hi Ben,
I had a problem with my alternator in that it was charging, but only 10 volts. (It's supposed to charge 14 volts)
It might be an idea to get the alternator checked for output.
Jeff.
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14/9/2005 at 8:37pm
Location: None Entered Outfit: ABI Brooklyn
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Ben
I had a similar problem when I purchased a new van. I think the story goes like this.
The fridge is on a circuit which switches off when the engine stops, to ensure it doesn't drain the car battery. To do this, it detects the voltage on the input to the relay (which increases as the alternator starts charging).
The problem with this arrangement is that the relay is normally in the boot of the car, which can be a long way from the battery. Hence, the relay sees a voltage drop between the battery, and the point at which it controls the circuit for the fridge.
When the fridge draws current, it causes a voltage drop. (The bigger the fridge, the more the voltage drop). This can cause the relay to trip out, which removes the power from the fridge. Of course, at this point the power drain becomes negligible (As the fridge is now switched off) and hence the voltage drop disappears, and so the relay sees the full voltage again, so it switches back on etc. This leads to the cyclic clicking you were hearing.
On my car (which had Witter electrics I seem to remember) there was a sensitivity adjuster on the relay unit, which allowed one to adjust the voltage at which it switched. By adjusting this, the problem was solved.
Hope this helps.
Tim
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