Bailey Unicorn 3 Valencia Fridge
I'm a bit fed up, my auto electrician has proved to me that there is 12v at the caravan- car connection . My dealer United British Caravans assures me that after testing the Fridge is not at fault but with 3 weeks before our trip abroad we still have no cooling whilst towing Help! Any Ideas I'm caught between the rock and the hard places
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I trust that you are aware that the fridge will only just maintain cold on 12v. They take an eternity to cool properly on gas or mains and are much slower on 12v. How have you decided it is not working?
Not doubting you but your expectation of 12v operation may just be too high. Fill it with cold or frozen stuff and it will just maintain temp for the journey. Cooling a 12v fridge from ambient takes hours.
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As Phishing says, 12v takes forever to cool a fridge. The tip I read is to put ice blocks or frozen food in the icebox and then it cools down much quicker and the 12v can cope. The other thing is put your fridge on gas the day before your trip and then switch back to the 12v setting as you set off- the hard work will have been done by the gas!
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The 12 volt supply will maintain temperature at best, not cool from ambient. If, as xtrailman suggests, the element is 170 Watts then it is highly unlikely that you can get continual 15 amps through the car and caravan wiring. The cable is small cross section, the DIN plug pins are tiny and the overall resistance will limit the current.
Cooling fans can be helpful at high ambient when stationary but when towing you will get air flow anyway.
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I have a 3-way fridge on my sailing boat and realized that the first time I used it on 12v during a long calm trip to France under motor.
Whenever motoring I now run the boat fridge from a small inverter situated close to the batteries. I can't see any fundamental reason why you couldn't do the same with a caravan, although you would have to work out a suitable and safe way of connecting the 230v inverter output to the caravan.
Having said that, I never have the slightest problem with the caravan fridge staying cold, and the frozen stuff frozen, even on the 2 night ferry trip to Spain......as long as you start off with the fridge fully loaded and everything in it already cold. (In fact I have never bothered to connect the 12v fridge circuit in the car!).
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l always have the fridge connected up at home through 240 volt from the house and pack the fridge with what we require night before, the 12v from the car maintains the temp until we get to site, never had a problem with any of our five vans we have had
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Running from an inverter is pointless and inefficient. The fridge has a 12 volt connection so you could run direct from the van or habitation battery except that you would flatten it fairly quickly.
The car supply is fine as long as it is working and the fridge is pre-cooled.
When travelling when it is hot you can switch to gas if you are stopping for a break.
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OK, I 'may' have the answer or part of it.
We've got a Bailey Unicorn Cartagena [3] & had a problem with the fridge since new [2105] main dealer reckoned there was a voltage drop between the car & fridge & blamed the Al-Ko so that was replaced with no effect.
Spoke to Dometic engineer & he said "99% of fridge problems are down to the car/caravan not the fridge, so make sure you check the cars/caravan 12v properly".
Service guy who looks after our 'van tackled the problem & to cut a long story short, this is what he found out [figures are approx 'cos I can't remember everything!].
Cars 12v socket giving 13.4 v to caravan [more than one car tried so car in the clear!]. With the 12v element [fridge] connected [as it would be under normal circumstances] voltage to the fridge element 10v! not enough to work the fridge on a run [or slightly less] disconnect the 12v fridge element & the voltage jumps up to 13v. He checked the voltage at tickover & also at 2000rpm, same readings roughly.
All this points to the fridge element being faulty, he doesn't stock the 170w so now waiting for Dometic to come back to me with an update on what to do next.
Worth checking the above, a decent sparky/caravan engineer can do this easily.
Hope this helps.
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Well I suppose it could have a short or insulation breakdown, on the other hand as I said above you are trying to draw 15 amps through a small cross section, lengthy, cable with connectors in it. I would expect the voltage to drop to an extent. It will be interesting to hear the result.
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Its a simple matter of volume. The tall fridges are 2 or 3 times the volume. Empty space in freezer or fridge is the enemy. Apart from all the extra volume the surface area of heat conducting sides is far bigger than an under counter fridge.
As an aside to the technical issues you are having, I changed from Bailey to Coachman and one of the factors was that I really could not live without the shelf space inside the door for all the stuff you need at hand, and the TV. We are usually a couple in the van and I really do not see the point of a huge fridge. Under counter fridge performance is just about good enough on hookup, why the manufacturers decided we all needed monster fridges is beyond me.
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Hi ATW not much help out of thirteen replies but there you go. I don't know if you have sorted this out yet but we are having a similar problem. We have a new Swift Elegance and you can connect the van up,to the car switch the fridge on set off and on arrival at your destination without turning the car ignition off the fridge has stopped working.Just had the car electrics checked and they are showing 14.6 volt from the 13pin but the screen on the Command gismo says 13.5 but no way of tying the problem down to one thing.May give this suggestion of traveling with the lights on to trick the alternator into keeping running. It looks like yours will not switch on,so any chance of trying it with another car see if that works?.Good Luck
Steve
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Thanks every one, lots of ideas here to try. One point though I always run the fridge on 240 v to cool before a trip then fill with chilled and frozen food but it does not maintain enroute the cooling bars always defrost and drip. As my auto electrician has proved the supply from the car, it may be the smart alternator that is the problem i'll try running with the lights on and see what happens. Again thanks to every one who has contributed.
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Which is precisely why I run my boat fridge via an inverter! The cable run would about 8m (16m there-and-back) and adequate cross-section cable would be both expensive and difficult to route. If I am motoring anyway the slight inefficiency of the inverter is insignificant. Another factor is that on 230v the fridge is controlled by the thermostat, whereas on 12v all absorption fridges just draw current continuously .....so you could even argue that running via an inverter is more energy efficient overall
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I don't think your sparky has accounted for voltage drop, this will only be seen when under load, so it could be undersized caravan cables.
Put a 12volt DC supply direct to the fridge to test it, then you will know if its the element.
Also my tall narrow fridge is no where near twice the capacity of my old Unicorn under counter fridge, fitted with only a 130 watt element, in fact the freezer is only the same.
I now have the 2017 Conqueror and even on mains the stat has to be on full to get down to the temperatures my old fridge could achieve at only ten past the clock face, around 2 on my present fridge.
So I personally believe these new fridges are no where efficient compared to the older under counter fridge.
But please report back with your findings.
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Plan to use a spare 13 pin socket connected directly to a leisure battery on the fridge pins to see what happens ,will report back after testing
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