Edgestar fridge not running off battery... (1 Viewer)

[LS1FJ40]

my 80 Qt Edgestar doesn’t seem to want to run off battery, all of a sudden. More specifically, it will run off battery but appears to cut off before the low voltage cut off should.

Anyone have any suggestions? I’m not the most electrically inclined. I’ve read a few posts on ExPo about a similar issue.

This is what the display is showing with the vehicle turned off. Temp is set to 34 degrees.

Dual batts, solar, Anderson power pole plug. Everything has worked fine for two years.

 

[Fj81]

Did you check the power connections behind the panel where the plug goes into the fridge?

 

[LS1FJ40]

Did you check the power connections behind the panel where the plug goes into the fridge?

Not yet. Planning on pulling it this weekend and checking all connections.

I’ve seen some sh!t about the low voltage cut off not being accurate and cutting off too soon. Installing a resistor to trick it. That might be beyond my level of expertise.

Hopefully I can figure it out. Want to move it to my son’s 80 so he can keep water in his 80 for baseball all summer. Giving me an excuse to buy an Engel or ARB or something for me.

 

[Fj81]

Lol, good excuse. My edgestar is a 63qt so the panel may be different. But I went in there and cleaned all the connections, just to avoid any little gremlins. I may rewire it later to use an anderson style plug. But it has been good so far. Keep in mind you can always unplug it and use it as a regular cooler for meanwhile too. Till you figure the gremlins out.

 

[LS1FJ40]

Yeah, I already have an Anderson plug from generic plug going out to my rear quarter panel. @NLXTACY made it. And the wiring going from their to my Blue Sea fuse panel.

I don’t particularly like the 80 qt. It’s too big for my tastes. But it holds a crap ton of water. Would be good for my son to have in their.

Have an ARB and a Dometic center console fridge sitting in my amazon cart right now. Waiting to pull the trigger. Would be nice to have a dozen waters in the armrest and cooled cup holders!

 

[LS1FJ40]

Did you check the power connections behind the panel where the plug goes into the fridge?

Had a spare 30 seconds today so I jiggled the plug while it was in the outlet. I could get the voltage to change on the display by jiggling it. And it has worked “normal” this afternoon. Sounds like I am pulling it apart this weekend and checking all of the connections.

Has anyone changed the actual plug on the fridge to an Anderson Powerpole? Instead of the chincy computer type plug? Would be cool to have an Anderson plug on each end of the cord.

 

[LS1FJ40]

Yesterday I grabbed a spare battery and my factory 12v plug. I cut the cig lighter off of it long ago and put battery clamps from an old charger on it. Plugged that in and ran off the battery not connected to the truck. It cooled all day, no issues.

Still going to open it up and tighten everything but may have found one of the culprits.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

My guess is that you have a marginal connection (likely at the plug) in your system. So when it starts up, you get enough voltage drop due to the wiring or connections to hit the low voltage cut off. If it works ok directly off a battery this is almost certainly the case. Wire it correctly and I'll bet it works fine.

 

[dividedan]

Resurrecting an old thread for a similar question. I have the 63qt version and it has started to have similar issues, previously ran fine on 12v including in the heat and now cannot maintain temp, though works fine on AC power in the house. Listening to it the compressor just seems to shut off prematurely or not run at all as the temp rises (for example set at 37 and sitting at 42 not running). The low voltage light is not on, just doesn’t run. The fridge is wired directly to the battery via an accessory panel using what I think is the appropriate gauge wire, PO did this and it has worked until the middle of a recent long trip. The 12v “cigarette lighter” wire that came with the fridge was adapted to mini Anderson. I have a group 31 100Ah deep cycle lead acid marine battery.

A few things I have noticed that may help:
1. The voltmeter on the accessory panel reads pretty low at times (low 11s) when the compressor on the fridge is running, but shutting off the panel and switching it back on it will jump right back up to mid 12s even after sitting overnight.
2. The fridge will cool fine with the truck running, making me wonder if it is a voltage issue or if it could be an ambient temperature issue as these are the hottest ambient temps we’ve tried to run it in. We live in Colorado where nighttime temps are obviously cold and were in the Deep South when it stopped working.

Sounds like I should try and bench test it with a 12v connection in a cooler ambient environment to see if it cools appropriately? Is the voltage dropping on the panel while running normal?

 

[GW Nugget]

Mine wont run either on batteries. Thought it was the 80 series batteries so I bought new ones they were in bad shape any ways. I thought that was the problem.
My issue is while vehicle is off I plug in frig then it pulls it down to 10.8 then shuts off. I even have dual bateries.
I will read through this whole thread win I can. Hoping its a easy fix. Maybe something is pulling to much juice on start up. Frig runs fine while the engine is running.

Happy Trail you all.

 

[e9999]

Fridge could have a problem but I would also look at the voltage at the fridge. It is possible that if the battery is not fully charged, the high inrush current on starting the fridge may lead to a big voltage drop in the wiring, bringing the voltage at the fridge to a low enough level that it will shut off. And so on. Seen it before. So I'd measure the voltage at the fridge.
To troubleshoot, I would also run it on 12V on a bench, possibly with a battery with a charger on it / then not; or better with an adjustable power supply and see what happens.

 

[dividedan]

Fridge could have a problem but I would also look at the voltage at the fridge. It is possible that if the battery is not fully charged, the high inrush current on starting the fridge may lead to a big voltage drop in the wiring, bringing the voltage at the fridge to a low enough level that it will shut off. And so on. Seen it before. So I'd measure the voltage at the fridge.
To troubleshoot, I would also run it on 12V on a bench, possibly with a battery with a charger on it / then not; or better with an adjustable power supply and see what happens.

Can you clarify how I would do this? I have a multimeter, but not sure how to set it up to read voltage while the fridge is running? Also, would the solution be thicker gauge wire?

 

[ducktapeguy]

It could be the wiring, stock wiring is usually pretty weak and won’t handle the load of a fridge. There’s also a good chance the plug is loose and causing a bad connection. The C8 plug that the edgestars come with are only rated for a few amps, and with vibration and use, over time they loosen up and cause a high resistance and voltage drop

I had a similar problem and replaced mine with an anderson plug and haven’t had an issue since.

 

[e9999]

^^ DDan, you'd have to somehow tap into the wiring at the fridge connector. Best right before and right after. With some wires wrapped around pins or tabs, foil, or the cute trick of needles directly through the wire. You may need to open the flaceplate up depending on what you need to do.
And, yes, if you are fighting an overly large voltage drop then the solution is bigger wires. I would not be surprised at all to see the voltage drop over thinnish wires to be over 1/2 V. I don't recall what the Edgestars cut off at but the tag in the pic above suggests 12V (thought is was less than that TBH). If that is correct and you have close to 1/2V loss on start, it would not take a much discharged battery to get you less than 12V at the fridge.
But before I'd open things up, I would get a good battery or a power supply and try to run the fridge and see if it functions better.

 

[dividedan]

This sounds more like what I’m seeing since it worked fine previously. Did you have to custom fabricate the mount or is there a version of the Anderson power pole that is a direct replacement?

It could be the wiring, stock wiring is usually pretty weak and won’t handle the load of a fridge. There’s also a good chance the plug is loose and causing a bad connection. The C8 plug that the edgestars come with are only rated for a few amps, and with vibration and use, over time they loosen up and cause a high resistance and voltage drop

I had a similar problem and replaced mine with an anderson plug and haven’t had an issue since.
View attachment 2727770


View attachment 2727769

 

[dividedan]

Ok. I took the panel off and set the fridge up in the truck then tried to run it. Measuring with a multimeter on the metal connections shown above behind the C8 connection I got right at 10V with the fridge running and the engine off. The low voltage light flashed and it shut off as soon as it started. The voltage at the accessory panel read 12.6 before hooking up the fridge and dropped to 11.2 with the fridge running. Started the engine and the accessory panel read 13v with 12v at the back of the C8, fridge ran fine.

Here’s the accessory panel for reference (fridge is wired through the factory 12v cord converted to Anderson PowerPole:

So does this confirm that I need to replace the C8 with an Anderson or is the drop upstream of the accessory panel? Is the 12.6 > 11.2v drop acceptable for the fridge running? The connection of the C8 in the back looks fine and the power cord sits in there snugly. Thanks for the guidance!

 

[e9999]

yes, that seems to confirm that your voltage drops are too high. Both to the panel and to the innards of the fridge. Likely the wiring to the panel and fridge and perhaps the fridge connector itself too. The 11.2 is too low. You're likely already losing over 1V before the panel. And another volt over the fridge cord and connector. What size of wire is feeding your accessory panel? There are tables out there that will readily show the expected drops for various loads.

And the battery could also not be in the best shape even though it shows 12.6V at rest, but you can check that easily enough by measuring the voltage at the battery posts when the fridge is running but engine off, it should not drop down dramatically. Or if you can't do that, try the headlights.

The reason why it seems OK with the engine running is that the battery is probably over 14V with the alternator going, so you are probably still losing 2V but the end result is high enough that the fridge is happy enough.

Having said all that, there is nothing inherently wrong with running a fridge at 10V if it and the wires can handle the current, but unfortunately, the Edgestar won't allow that since AFAIK the low voltage cutoff is not (readily) adjustable. But maybe there is a pot someplace on the circuit board that allows to change that. That is, however, a klutzy hack and not the best response to the problem though. Keep in mind that high voltage drops mean high power dissipation in the wires, that means high temperatures! Not great.

 

[dividedan]

yes, that seems to confirm that your voltage drops are too high. Both to the panel and to the innards of the fridge. Likely the wiring to the panel and fridge and perhaps the fridge connector itself too. The 11.2 is too low. You're likely already losing over 1V before the panel. And another volt over the fridge cord and connector. What size of wire is feeding your accessory panel? There are tables out there that will readily show the expected drops for various loads.

And the battery could also not be in the best shape even though it shows 12.6V at rest, but you can check that easily enough by measuring the voltage at the battery posts when the fridge is running but engine off, it should not drop down dramatically. Or if you can't do that, try the headlights.

The reason why it seems OK with the engine running is that the battery is probably over 14V with the alternator going, so you are probably still losing 2V but the end result is high enough that the fridge is happy

The wire to the fridge off the battery is a decent gauge, though can’t say exactly because it was installed by the prior owner. Looks to be 12 AWG. I checked the connection to the positive terminal and it does wiggle around more than seems good underneath the shrink wrap. Gonna replace that connection and see if that solves it. Would it be worth replacing the cable with one of these (in 12 gauge) and the C8 with an Anderson anyways?

Powerpole extension cable

Availible in 10, 12 or 14 gauge Red/Black Zip Cord and various lengths

powerwerx.com

 

[e9999]

12ga is not ridiculously small but it's not very generous either. Personally, I'd go at least 10ga, maybe thicker. But, again, check the tables. (There may be some markings on the wire to show the gauge)

Looking at the fridge connector it looks like it could be spade connectors under that shrink wrap. If so, it would be trivial to bypass the connector. But I would also suggest that if you think you may play with 12V systems a bit that you get a PP crimper tool and make your own, much cheaper in the long run and very useful for many applications.

 

[ducktapeguy]

This sounds more like what I’m seeing since it worked fine previously. Did you have to custom fabricate the mount or is there a version of the Anderson power pole that is a direct replacement?

Custom 3D printed piece.

You can isolate where the problem(s) are by measuring the voltage drop along the line. With the fridge running (engine on and off) measure at the battery, accessory panel, and fridge. So for your measurements, it sounds like with the fridge on you went from

Engine off, fridge on
Battery V (?) >>>Accessory panel (11.2V)>>>>Fridge (10v)

Engine on, fridge on
Battery V(?)>>>>Accessory Panel (13V)>>>>>Fridge (12V)

You probably have some voltage drop between the battery and panel, but without a voltage measurement at the battery it's hard to know how much. The voltage drop between the accessory panel and fridge is not great. You're losing ~10% just from the panel to the fridge, either due to poor connection or small wires, or combination of both. In total your voltage drop might be as high as 15-20% between battery and fridge, when you should be probably aiming for <10%, and ideally <3%.

I think the LV cutoff for the edgestars is at 10.4V. The older ones are non-adjustable, the newer ones I think have 3 settings. Either way, the solution is the same. Minimize the number of connections, maximize wire size.