question

ade avatar image
ade asked

Charger 12v fridge whilst driving

Hello all

On my camper van i have - a single solar panel connected to a Victron solar regulator 100/30. A Victron 12V 30A Non Isolated 12/12DC split charger. A Victron IP22 230v 30amp mains charger, all connected correctly to a lead acid leisure battery.

With my old system i used to have a small split charge device that detected when my engine was running due to volt spike from alternator then it sent 12v to the 12v 40L fridge and trickled charge the leisure battery through an output connection, i also had a cheap solar controller charging the battery and a Zig CF8 for mains and 12v distribution.

My issue is everything using this new Victron equipment is perfect..... But where do i now connect the 12v fridge to automatically receive 12v when the engine running?

As this little split charge device doesn't seem to want to work the same now ( might be because i'm not connecting its 12v output to the leisure battery as the Victron is doing this now), So when i say it doesn't work i mean it works when i adjust the little adjuster screw to manually adjust the volt sensitivity but no matter what i adjust it to it doesn't respond to the engine on/off automatically.

So am i over complicating things?... Do i just connect the 12v fridge to the fused 12v output busbar from the leisure battery so it runs on 12v and the victron splits the alternator power to keep the leisure battery topped up ?

If this is the way to do it then i'll have to keep remembering to manually turn on the fridge to run on 12v each time, which is kinda annoying and what happens if i get home and forget to switch the 12v fridge off for days and days.

i hope this make sense LOL what do you think

split phase
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Mike Dorsett avatar image Mike Dorsett commented ·
A diagram of how your system is set up would help please.

Assuming that there is a +12 ignition on wire available, you could just use that to switch a relay thet turns the fridge on, and the fridge power simply flows from the leisure battery bus, through fuse and relay.


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ade avatar image ade Mike Dorsett commented ·

That is actually a very simple idea, i had completely forgotten about using an ignition live to it the split device. ill have a play around with this and report back . thanks

my set up is very similar to this , and i was connecting the fridge spilt device into the pos/neg in the middle of the drawing, but i dont think the voltage spike was registering on it due to all the other power feeds coming in.

screen-shot-2023-06-24-at-124646.png

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ade avatar image ade ade commented ·

Edit - I connected the fridge trigger device into the 12v Fuse box.... not connections in the middle

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1 Answer
ade avatar image
ade answered ·

Right sussed it, I have now connected the Fridge Trigger device on the Engine Battery side of the wiring, now when i start the engine and the voltage spikes to 14v the fridge output becomes Live and when i turn off the engine the trigger clicks off 0V, just like before.

I had been wiring the fridge trigger to the Leisure Battery side which doesn't spike when engine on so this was my issue.


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