Furrion Electric fridge

[Stevemal]

How do you folks deal with the new 12 volt only refrigerators. Seems mine has about a 8 degree differential, set for 37 it will get up to 45 before coming on and then runs for a long time. It's quite loud at night and wakes us up until it finally shuts off and then repeat! I'm worried that during boondocking in the fall with the need for heat, I will have a dead battery by morning. Electric only seems absurd to me!
But then the whole brand new Grey Wolf is quite the piece of junk. They forgot to seal the corners and the windows. Dealer sent me a tube of caulk! The gutters go up on the ends, so even AC water runs down the awning and drips in front of the door. No outside light or light switches that a short person can reach. The siding was even cut to short over the wheel well, so plywood is showing above the trim. But I did get 6 places to plug in a cell phone!!

[bikendan]

Personally, we dry camp a lot and I wouldn't have any RV with a 12v only fridge.
If you plan on dry camping or boondocking, you need to get a pair of 6v golf cart batteries. AGM or Lithium are even better, if you've got the cash.

[pjy1911]

I have a Furrion Arctic 12v-only and its never held temperature very well from the start. I've seen temp swings from 30 to 50 degrees (with the temp set to MAX).

The design of the refrigerator puts the condenser coils at the bottom of the unit without any fan and relies on convection to remove heat from the coils. IMO this doesn't work very well; to test this I put a small 12v PC case fan on the vent and sure enough within 2 hours the fridge temp dropped 10 degrees. The freezer dropped almost 15 degrees.

[Stevemal]

Originally Posted by pjy1911

I have a Furrion Arctic 12v-only and its never held temperature very well from the start. I've seen temp swings from 30 to 50 degrees (with the temp set to MAX).

The design of the refrigerator puts the condenser coils at the bottom of the unit without any fan and relies on convection to remove heat from the coils. IMO this doesn't work very well; to test this I put a small 12v PC case fan on the vent and sure enough within 2 hours the fridge temp dropped 10 degrees. The freezer dropped almost 15 degrees.

Mine has a fan, a gawd awful loud fan! When set at one notch below all the way up it will shut off at 35 deg., but doesn't come back on until 43 -47 deg. and then runs for over 30-45 minutes with the inside temp of the trailer at 72 deg. I suspect a battery upgrade in the future. Haven't dry camped yet, will be the beginning of August.

[pjy1911]

Originally Posted by Stevemal

Mine has a fan, a gawd awful loud fan! When set at one notch below all the way up it will shut off at 35 deg., but doesn't come back on until 43 -47 deg. and then runs for over 30-45 minutes with the inside temp of the trailer at 72 deg. I suspect a battery upgrade in the future. Haven't dry camped yet, will be the beginning of August.

Update- So I checked the fridge tonight after work and turns out there is a fan in there, behind the vent all the way towards the back. There was a strip of plastic that lodged itself in the fan, preventing it from spinning. I would've never known this since I've never heard any fan spinning, so I'm assuming it was some packing debris that was left behind from when the trailer was built.

With the vent removed I could barley get my arm in there far enough to pull out the plastic. After removing it I turned on the fridge and the fan spun but was making a loud noise. Turns out there was still some plastic strip wrapped around the fan shaft, so I had to pull out the fridge to get the rest of it out via removable back panel. Also pulled out some pieces of styrofoam, probably more packing material from manufacturing.

So you might want to check that fan and see if there's something stuck, possibly making the fan louder.

[WhiteSoxFan4]

Took the new Grey Wolf 19SM out for the maiden voyage this past week and we had a problem with the 12V fridge. Got cold OK but then temp rose to 50 before kicking back on and went back down to 38. But took a very, very long time. I thought maybe someone didn't shut it all the way, but I don't think so. I just don't think it works very well. I made sure the fan was free and not jammed (almost got my arm stuck too) and it was drawing electricity. Just doesn't seem like a good fridge.

[pjy1911]

Originally Posted by WhiteSoxFan4

Took the new Grey Wolf 19SM out for the maiden voyage this past week and we had a problem with the 12V fridge. Got cold OK but then temp rose to 50 before kicking back on and went back down to 38. But took a very, very long time. I thought maybe someone didn't shut it all the way, but I don't think so. I just don't think it works very well. I made sure the fan was free and not jammed (almost got my arm stuck too) and it was drawing electricity. Just doesn't seem like a good fridge.

What setting do you have it at? I noticed mine does the same thing when set to anything under second to highest setting

[nomad297]

Originally Posted by WhiteSoxFan4

Just doesn't seem like a good fridge.

I think everything branded as Furrion just doesn’t seem good.

Bruce

[tomkatb]

You have to learn about 12 volt systems to boondock.

If your rv is normal, you will likely not be able to make one night as is.

A electric fridge plus assorted other loads will Wipe out a small marine battery quick.

The furnace is another big user. Try to use it and the DW will wake you around 2 am. The beeping is a dead battery.

[WhiteSoxFan4]

We initially had it set about in the middle and then when it got to 50 I turned it up to the second highest setting. Didn't kick on for a long while, then finally did and got cold the rest of the trip.