Quick questions on my new Waeco

That little section will be the warmest part of the fridge, so if you are using it as a freezer you can put a couple of tinnies or a bit of butter, cheese etc there and it probably? won't freeze.

Wire a plug directly to the battery, both active and earth wires, use an anderson type plug or something else with a good ampage capacity.

Make sure you use a wire with enough capacity to carry the load. A good Auto Elec can tell you what you should use.

Agree with Notso.

The handles on my 40l Waeco are more than striong enough for use with tiedowns.

All good advice from Notso. I use the handles on my CF 50 AC to lash it down with no problems. Worth getting the pack that includes the thermal cover and the mounting brackets as well. The box you refer to is the 'dairy' section and, theoretically, stays a little warmer than the rest of the fridge for your butter, etc.

Matt.

Yep re the tie downs - not a lot of strain mind you - we "restrain" ours via those handles - we don't pull it down hard. They intend the little section above the motor to be a dairy section - warmest part of the interior, as others have said. Re power supply - suggest a tailored low resistance line of your own, straight from the battery, with the lowest voltage drop reading you can achieve - its important, seeing the low voltage cut-out will shut the unit down when you least need that to happen.

Positively NOT via the plug supplied. There are good such plugs and sockets (Hella make OK ones) but most are a source of problems ranging from fridges not working properly - to setting the b-y car on fire.

The main problem with most is that they lack mechanical locking. Vibration causes the contacts to make varying contact - they overheat and in some circumstances can become hot enough to burn.
Collyn Rivers

He willie

Handles are fine to use to tie down, I made fridge slide out of drawer runners and some perforated angle iron and steel plates all available at Bunnings, cost around $50, good thing if the angle brackets I used to munt the cross braces have holes and a couple of the good tie down elactic rubber straps from clark rubber are perfect.

The small section is warmer than the rest and good for tinnies when using the rest as a freezer...

As far as wiring goes....I took the rear interior panel off (the top plastic bit) and the floor things to get access to the wiring harness that runs under the floor...then 2 x 50amp cables to just behind the rear passenger door with a 12 v socket and then a positive and negative post (for the compressor which fits perfectly behind the fridge on top of the home made drawers that work a treat!)....then 2 x 20 amp cables run to the little light replacement panel near the rear door...

big job to take the panels off so might as well do it right the first time!...works an absolute treat with 100amp hr sealed gel aux battery....about 4 days worth.

Thanks everyone . I have the answers I needed .
Willie .

A note of caution re '50 amp' cables.

The '50-amp' bit (any 'amp' rating) is simply a fire rating. It relates only to the temperature at which the insulation melts - and that varies hugely from one type of insulation to another.

In other words it tells you absolutely nothing about voltage drop - and thus its suitability for any application. It cannot possibly as voltage drop is directly related to cable length: a '50-amp' cable may be fine over a metre - but absolutely useless over ten metres..

The ONLY meaningful indication is the cross sectional area of the conductor in sq mm. If auto cable, this is not the same thing as the nominal rating.

Whewn appliance makers say to use (say) 4.0 mm cable - what they mean is 4.0 sq mm.

But the auto cable rating (auto cable is the stuff you are sold in autoparts and hardware stores) is as absurd as the '50-amp' thing. Au auto cable's size (say 4 mm) is the diameter and includes the insulation.

It tells you only the size hole it will pass through.

Thus '4 mm' auto cable is typically 1.8 sq mm (about 45% of what most people think they are buying). Not understanding the above is why so many 12-volt fridges disappoint.

Don't blame me! I only try to explain how to avoid these traps!

Collyn Rivers

Probably 10 sq mm - but let me know the length. Alternatively calculate as follows.

Length of conductor (in metres) times current draw x 0.017.

Divide the answer by proposed cable size (in sq mm). The answer you get is the voltage drop . Go for 0.15 to get ideal.

Example fridge three metres from battery - hence six metres conductor. Fridge draw (say) 5 amps.

Thus 6 X 5 X 0.017 = 0.51. Dividing by (say) 4 sq mm = 0.127 volts.

Closest auto cable size is 6 mm (typically 4.6 sq mm).

This always give an almost exact answer - much better than wire tables!
Collyn Rivers