Engle Thermal Fuse

Simon,

they are a pain in the peverbial. Get the engel screw-top type plug and do away with the fuse. Just ensure that you have an appropriate sized in line fuse (Be it an inline or blade fuse) in the power supply cable somewhere. The other major thing is to ensure that the power supply cable is "thick" enough. Without knowing your vehicle or power setup (ie - do you have a dual battery system) it's a bit hard to give you specifics. Quite often the standard cig lighter plugs in vehicles aren't designed to deal with the amount of current needed to run the fridge. This creates a lot of heat and the thermal fuse goes every time. Give us some vehicle and power set-up details and you're sure to get a lot of responses from the 12 volt gurus that frequent the forum.

Cheers. Mick

Simon

Mine broke some time ago and I just replaced with a normal glass one and have not had any dramas.

Simon,
you post-> ""Had it at the Auto Sparky last week and they run a big mother $%#@er wire from the engine compartment to the back .... and they upgraded the wire to the rear cigarette plug with a 30 amp blade fuse and holder. More just concerned on that thermal fuse""

The thermal fuse should not be any problem with your "upgraded" wiring system, because the weakest link in your fridge wiring system is now the Original Equipment fridge cable and the thermal fuse, and it should be ok because it's an Engel product and must work in all the other fridges made, or they would be recalled and replaced.

If the 30 amp blade fuse is the only fuse in the fridge circuit (other than thermal fuse) it can, if you want, safely be replaced by smaller fuse that's larger than the thermal fuse, it's only a marginal thing and not detrimental or overly important.

IMHO manufactorers don't do things for no reason, so if they have used a certain type of fuse, they must have a reason.

I just carry a couple of spare ones in my glove box - I don't see why you wouldn't do likewise

trolute

get rid of it...and just put in a standard glass fuse...as what I was told to do by the servicing here in Adelaide

Thermal fuses need to be mounted near the source of heat - e.g. hair dryers and fan heaters have them to cut out the heater in case the fan fails or is blocked.

There is no point in putting a thermal fuse in a plug - it needs to be near the compressor to be useful.

If you eliminate the fuse in the plug you need to make sure the fuse in the supply line to the socket is rated less than the thinnest cable in any circuit fed by it.

If the fuse is rated at 20 amps but the wire to the fridge is rated at 10 amps then you have a fire hazard - your insurance company may disown you in case of fire. An overload of 20 amps would melt the wiring but not blow the fuse.