Refrigerator shutting off even when plugged in

[chadcf]

My dad has a forrest river flagstaff e-pro trailer he just bought and has driven it across the country out to my house. The dealer he bought it from seems to be not very helpful and we haven't been able to find any dealer around here that sells them or at least says they can help.

The problem he's having is that the refrigerator (plugged into a 300w inverter) runs for a while, maybe have a day or 16 hours or so, and then shuts off and the red light on the inverter comes on. Now he finally got ahold of someone in support at forrest river, who told him that's to be expected because the battery can only power the fridge for so long. But he claimed it's also expected while it's hooked up to the truck because the truck is only trickle charging the battery and can't keep up with the demand from the fridge.

This does not sound right to me... While a fridge does draw a lot of power, it only does so intermittently, and it seems like the truck should be able to keep the battery charged enough to run it indefinitely.

Further... It also seems to be draining the battery when plugged in. The guy at forrest river said that it should work indefinitely when plugged in, but it doesn't. It'll be working for a while then shut off and the inverter shows red. The guy essentially said he's doing something wrong and we need someone to show us how to get the fridge to run off the converter instead of the inverter when plugged into shore power. Except we can't find anyone around here who will help us do that...

So my two main questions here at the moment are:

1. Should the fridge be able to run indefinitely when hooked up to a tow vehicle?
2. What would we need to do to get it to run off shore power when plugged in, rather than battery power? (only thing I can think is to manually move the plug from the inverter to another outlet on the trailer but that seems like it shouldn't be necessary).

 

[Kimber45]

if it is a residential fridge and does not have propane it needs shore power. Mine automatically runs of the shore power when plugged in as long as the inverter is on.

I don't think it could run forever off of the tow vehicle. sooner or later I would think the battery would loose out and that would assume the tow vehicle was running 24 7.

bottom line if its a residential fridge and he wants to boondock he is going to need a generator or serious solar set up.

 

[chadcf]

Mine automatically runs of the shore power when plugged in as long as the inverter is on.

Yeah that's the problem, I would expect it to do this but it doesn't and I have no idea why.

 

[bikendan]

Most tow vehicles only supply a trickle charge while driving.
So a depleted battery would not get fully charged by a tow vehicle unless you drove for many hours.

Personally I have know idea why FR equipped the G-Pro/E-Pro trailers with a electric only fridge. They seem to be designed for dry camping and not having a typical RV fridge just doesn't make any sense.

 

[5picker]

To answer question # 1... if your dad only has one battery powering the inverter, (or even two smaller size batteries) even with it plugged into the tow vehicle, you wouldn't be able to run indefinitely. The tow vehicle just doesn't provide enough charge back into the battery(ies) to go forever.

As for question # 2... most all R/V type inverters have incorporated within, a switch-over circuit so that when the inverter sees shore power (plugged into 120v) it automatically passes that 120v through (internally) to whatever is connected to it. There is no need to unplug and replug anything. When the shore power is removed, the inverter automatically reverts back to supplying the 120v. Sounds like something is amiss with the inverter.

I will say these G-Pro/E-Pro trailers seem to be something of a different breed so who knows.

 

[Bama Rambler]

You have two different things going on, so lets tackle them one at a time.

1. Should the fridge be able to run indefinitely when hooked up to a tow vehicle?

It depends. If the vehicle is running constantly and supplying power through the 7-way plug, then yes. If it's not running all the time then the fridge will eventually overcome the charge rate supplied by the vehicle battery. Also, a lot of vehicles don't supply power through the tow connector when the vehicle isn't running to keep from draining the TV's battery.

2. What would we need to do to get it to run off shore power when plugged in, rather than battery power? (only thing I can think is to manually move the plug from the inverter to another outlet on the trailer but that seems like it shouldn't be necessary).

The first thing I saw was that you said that it's running off a 300 watt inverter. Is that correct or should it be a 3000 watt inverter? That really doesn't have anything to do with the problem though.

When you plug the RV into shore power the inverter should switch from battery power to shore power. It should have a built in transfer switch that does that automatically.

Have you checked the 120 volt power coming into the inverter to make sure it's getting power when you're plugged in? There may be a breaker or even a GFCI receptacle feeding it that's tripped.

 

[chadcf]

Have you checked the 120 volt power coming into the inverter to make sure it's getting power when you're plugged in? There may be a breaker or even a GFCI receptacle feeding it that's tripped. [/COLOR]

How do you do that?

 

[Bama Rambler]

If you have a multimeter and know how to use it, look at the inverter where the power comes in and see if power is making it to there.

If the inverter is plugged into a receptacle then check to see if it's a gfci receptacle and if it is check to see if it's tripped.

If it either isn't a gfci or tripped, then you can plug a lamp or fan into it to see if it has power.

 

[chadcf]

Well I can't reach anywhere it's plugged in, just a wire that seems to be going right into a wall.

But it's behaving weirdly. Like right now it's plugged into the house outlet but not a vehicle. The light on the inverter is red and the fridge is off. I flipped the inverter off and then on and the fridge kicked on for about 5 seconds and then the inverter turned red again and died.

Then I turned it off and on again, and it came back on and has been running fine for 5+ minutes.

Based on that I get the feeling that either the fridge has a fault that is overloading the inserter, or the inverter itself is shot. It doesn't seem like there is something we're doing wrong even though that's what the forrest river rep said...

 

[Bama Rambler]

If you have a buddy that's handy with electricity you should ask them if they'd come check the power to the inverter.

Can you tell us what the make and model of the inverter is?

 

[Scrapper]

One thing not mentioned so far is have the battery(ies) load tested at a auto parts store. If the battery(ies) have been depleted often or for long periods of time and not fully recharged, they are most likely shot. A short between the battery plates will never recover, it needs to be replaced.

When it comes to loads a RV puts on batteries, battery voltages below 12volts is considered dead. See the pics below. Also below is some documents that could help.

The 12 Volt Side of Life
Forest River Forums - Downloads - 12 volt side of Life

Basic RV Electricity - RV Information (RV Maintenance)

Converter or Inverter (they are different)


Inverters and residential refrigerators in RV's:

http://rveducation101.com/articles/rvinverters.pdf

 

[chadcf]

The battery is currently measuring 13.34 volts, though I would think plugged in the battery would be irrelevant. The inverter is a Go Power 300w GP-SW300 - 300 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter | Go Power!

The manual for that says a solid red light means "overload protection". The only thing plugged into it however is the fridge (Ever Chill model, maybe 1.6 or 1.7 cubic feet).

 

[bikendan]

The battery is currently measuring 13.34 volts, though I would think plugged in the battery would be irrelevant. The inverter is a Go Power 300w GP-SW300 - 300 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter | Go Power!

The manual for that says a solid red light means "overload protection". The only thing plugged into it however is the fridge (Ever Chill model, maybe 1.6 or 1.7 cubic feet).

It's measuring 13.34v because you have it plugged into shore power.
Unplug it and measure it a few hours later

 

[chadcf]

Sure but it's having problems plugged in. I guess I'm not following how a bad battery would cause problems with the inverter when plugged in. The battery at the moment has sufficient voltage, yet the inverter will still shut down at some point. How could the battery be the culprit?

 

[chadcf]

Well today on his way to Camping World to ask them he saw a dealer selling go pro trailers and stopped to ask them, and then while he was there someone from forrest river called him back. So he got forrest river to talk to the dealer, and the upshot is that forrest river says the 300w inverter has had problems and they're upgrading people for free to 1000w intverters and that should take care of his problem. So they ordered a new inverter to isntall and hopefully that will do it!

 

[DieselDrax]

When it's plugged in to shore power the inverter should be in "by-pass" mode so there's no way to overload it, so it sounds like there's some weird wiring problem where shore power isn't powering the 120v electrical and is still using the inverter. The fact that the battery shows 13+ volts indicates to me that the converter is charging the battery (120v -> 12v). I would hope that the system isn't wired such that it's...

120v shore -> converter -> 12v -> battery -> inverter -> 120v outlets. That would be horrible, especially with only having a 300w inverter. However, the fridge should only be using about 92w. Is there anything else using 120v power? Water heater turned on (and electric)?

If there's nothing that could be overloading the inverter then I would think it's a faulty inverter if it's triggering the overload protection without actually being overloaded.

 

[AFDON]

The battery is currently measuring 13.34 volts, though I would think plugged in the battery would be irrelevant. The inverter is a Go Power 300w GP-SW300 - 300 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter | Go Power!

The manual for that says a solid red light means "overload protection". The only thing plugged into it however is the fridge (Ever Chill model, maybe 1.6 or 1.7 cubic feet).

Check and see what the locked rotor / starting current draw is for that fridge. Also check that the battery connections are clean and tight. Sure sounds like 300 watts is too light for that fridge. Also the charging current from the truck cannot keep up, unless he has ran a lot heaver wire to the tt battery.

 

[llr2800]

that inverted does not have an AC input so no transfer switch meaning is is always using 12V from converter/battery.

 

[Bama Rambler]

IIr hit on it.

That unit doesn't have an internal transfer switch so it's continually running off the batteries. Also it's just a 300 watt model, so even that small fridge will overload it when the battery gets low.

FR (Forest River) installed it with the understanding that the converter would keep the battery charged while on shore power therefore running the fridge. I'm glad that they realized there was a problem and are stepping up to fix it.

Let us know how it goes once you get the new inverter installed.

They sell an external transfer switch for those units, but it looks like you don't need one now.

 

[DieselDrax]

Looks like the OP replied while I was typing up my reply, here's to hoping the upgraded inverter solves the problem. Any idea if that inverter will have a transfer switch and be wired up to accept 120v shore power? i would hope so since even 1000w isn't enough to run some power-hungry devices (Certain hair dryers, toasters/toaster ovens, etc).

Good luck and keep us posted.