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Topic: Powering fridge on 12v

larkspeednl

04/11/2014 at 10:02am
Location: Emmen The Netherlands
Outfit: Home-Car Eureka 43

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Sorry if this is in the wrong place I was not sure where it fell.

As most probably know there are 2 possible configurations for the blue wire (pin 2) on a 7 pin trailer plug.

1) Auxiliary power when key on

2) Fog light

My car is wired with a factory towing setup and the blue wire on pin 7 is setup for fog light.

My caravan has a single 7 pin plug that has a 12v line to run the fridge while towing which is connected to Pin 2 so it's expecting the plug on the car to supply power when the key is turned on.

I don't know how much power a fridge takes running on 12v but if I just turned on the rear fog light and removed the fog light bulb from the car while I was towing the caravan would that provide sufficient power to run the fridge?

---edit---

I suppose I should mention the car is a 1998 1.8l Citroen Xantia 5 Door Hatchback

Post last edited on 04/11/2014 10:27:16

Post last edited on 04/11/2014 10:27:44

Screen2

04/11/2014 at 10:31am
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If you are in Holland then slightly different answer to if you were in UK as Dutch caravans do not have older UK twin 12n/12s leads. What you are asking is does your fog light wire, blue(no2 in UK)have sufficient amps to power fridge while driving?

Rear foglamp bulbs are usually 21w which at 12v means a draw of less than 2amps but it depends on fuse rating for rear foglamp circuit for your car, it might be 10 or 20amp but there could be other circuits protected by same fuse.

Fridge while driving draws around 6-8amps so I would think wiring as you suggest would power it ok. I assume your foglights go off with ignition because if fridge is drawing current when engine is not running it will flatten battery quite quickly.

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larkspeednl

04/11/2014 at 10:39am
Location: Emmen The Netherlands
Outfit: Home-Car Eureka 43

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Fogs will only come on if the headlights are on.

We always drive with the headlights on, they are not controlled by the key but after many years of driving this way coupled with the irritating beeper that goes off if you open the door with the headlights on and the key off we never leave them on when stopped.

This would mean the risk of flattening the battery would be massively reduced.

I don't know if it makes any different that the fog light circuit in the car is designed to power 2 fog lights and not just one plus on top of that up to 2 fog lights on any trailer connected.

According to the owners manual for the car the rear fog lights are run on a 10 amp fuse and nothing else uses the circuit

Screen2

04/11/2014 at 11:49am
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Yes, if foglight circuit is protected by 10amp fuse this should be sufficient to power fridge with nothing else on so with foglight bulbs removed you should be ok for powering fridge. You can only try it & if fuse does not blow then you are ok. Obviously ensure foglight switch is off when you turn off engine.

birdman101

04/11/2014 at 3:01pm
Location: Milton Keynes
Outfit: 2023Archway Woodford

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Your fridge feed cable needs to be 2.5mm and a 15amp fuse.Rear foglight wiring will only be 1.5mm

peterws

04/11/2014 at 9:36pm
Location: Morecambe
Outfit: Daystar `91 + Berlingo

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Depending on how far you're travelling and how hot it is, you may find if your fridge has been on for a few hours before you set off, it'll keep stuff cool for 4 hours or more without electricity or anything else. That's what I do. The frozen stuff stays frozen.

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Peripheral people don`t have as much excitement but they sure live longer

larkspeednl

05/11/2014 at 9:25am
Location: Emmen The Netherlands
Outfit: Home-Car Eureka 43

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True but sometimes our drives are much longer than that and other times we don't have chance to fully cool the fridge in advance.

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