Hi All! I have a Primo fridge in my campervan. Recently it stopped working from the household battery, it only works when the van is connected to 220V.
When I turn the fridge on, it doesn’t work and the inverter (Phoenix 12 500) gives an error message: green blinks 2x per sec, the red 1x per sec. When I turn the fridge off, it goes back to normal (green led only).
Do you have an idea what can be wrong? Earlier the fridge worked well offgrid, and nothing has changed recently (same battery, same wiring, etc).
I try to attach 2 photos, the first when I turn on the fridge, and the second after turning off.
The Victron Toolkit app says the flashing LEDs are low battery voltage.
You do not give any info about the fridges power rating. Fridges take a lot of power at start up, a very quick surge current. My 48W fridge shows 900W on start up so demand a lot of battery power.
There are several possibilities.
You have a campervan so it can get vibration so check all your wiring connections are tight.
Check amy fuses or breakers are in good condition and do not have a voltage drop when they have a high current flow. Use a multimeter.
Your battery is getting worn out and you need a new one.
The household battery is 1 year old, it’s 12.8 V 100 Ah LiTime LifePO4.
I also have the inverter (Phoenix 12 500), a Victron charge controller (MPPT 100 | 200), a Lithium battery charger, and a Victron Orion T2 smart 12 | 12-18 DC-DC charger.
I checked the fuse table, there is no separate fuse for the fridge. As I see, the cables are also ok…
I’m looking at your screenshots and wondering why the ampere curve drops so much.
Is the inverter connected directly to the battery and not to the load output of the solar charge controller?
Refrigerators with PTC start-up seem to have a very high start-up current. These often drive you crazy.
Modern, speed-controlled refrigerators seem to run without any problems in this regard. I already had a large household fridge-freezer combination running without any problems on an old 375W 12V Phoenix inverter. I can only recommend testing it beforehand.
Thanks! I don’t really know what are the connections in the background. The setup is neatly organised by the previous owner who built the camper. See picture please
The battery voltage takes a dive, if you have a way to look at the phoenix settings (ve direct to blue tooth) it may have dynamic cut off enabled, that could cause a shut down.
500w at 12v is 40 or so Amps. So it doesn’t need to be huge unless it is a long length. 10mm will do. 16mm if its a longer run to the battery.
I have a12/800 and i do have to say the thing spikes to overload when starting the fridge up. Fridges can be evil loads. I have 25mm on mine just because it fit.
If anything it will also be the dynamic cut off giving a headache.
Inverter is not connected to the load output from the solar controller. Your install is correct in this regard. Hopefully the van came with a wiring diagram.
Our LG household fridge-freezer combination starts / running without any problems on an Phoenix 250 inverter with lifepo4 battery, Dynamic cut off is off…
Thanks Guys! I will check in the Victron app if dynamic cut off is enabled or not. Also, will try to get a wiring diagram from the previous owner (who converted the van)
At the top right, there could be a switch from shore power to inverter. It is not possible to tell from the picture whether the device to the right of it is just a fuse or an RCD.
Hi Guys, I spent a night at a campsite and did some tests. When the camper was connected to 220v, the fridge worked perfectly.
After having charged the battery fully, today I disconnected the van from 220v and started the fridge. It started up from the battery nicely, but after like 20 minutes, it stopped again.
