www.iFourWinns.com

I rewired mine last year and the wiring instructions from the fridge manufacturer stated this: "Only connect the refrigerator directly to the battery. Because they often generate high voltage pulses and cause transistor defects in the inverter, no other switches,lead wires,or electrical equipment should share the wiring between the refrigerator and the battery."

Clearly Four Winns didn't follow these directions and I wonder how many of us have had our fridges fail prematurely because of it.
The fridge already has a built in on/off switch so I'm not sure you would need another switch or relay. Run a new heavy gauge B+ and ground ( the ground was terrible on mine) and hopefully your fridge issues will be behind you

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Our Boating Blog: http://ben-dana.blogspot.com/

2005 268 Vista "Sea Pickle II"
1979 AMF Alcort Puffer
Previous:
2003 FW190 Horizon
1973 Startcraft 18ft "Sea Pickle"

Okay, so when the wiring to the fridge is the issue will the light inside the fridge still work when you open the door?

I noticed this weekend that my fridge was no longer running when I was on battery power, but the light still turned on when I would open the door. Once I was back at a dock and plugged into shore power, the compressor would run and the fridge started to cool off again.

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2005 Vista 288 - That's A Winner

Yes, the light will still come on.
There are 2 possibilities.
1) Too small of wire which is what this thread is addressing. Compressor will try to turn on and immediately shut down.
2) The inverter on the back is shutting down due to the fridge trying to pull more current than the inverter will allow. There is another posting by me about changing the inverter. Compressor will turn on and run for about 30 seconds and then shut off. http://www.smwebhead.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14999&hilit=fridge

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The Dance II
2007 278 Vista
6.2L Mercruiser

When you plugged back in your battery charger increases voltage which overcomes cut-out voltage for the refrigerator.

For example when on the hook your batteries are at 11.5V but due to undersized wiring you are seeing 10% voltage drop at the fridge which would be 10.35V. Nova Kool fridges cut-out voltage is 10.4V which means your compressor will stop running.

When you return to shore power your battery charger kicks in to 14.5V and your fridge sees 13.05V, Nova Kool cut-in voltage is 11.7 Volts and the compressor starts running again.

http://www.novakool.com/support/nov98-j ... anuels.htm

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2004 Vista 298
Twin 5.7L Volvo Penta GXi-E

Another test to perform is while on shore power, shut off the breaker for the AC to the refrigerator. This will force it to run off of the battery voltage. With the charger charging the battery, it should have enough voltage to overcome the voltage drop of the smaller wire.

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2010 Vista 338 Volvo Penta
2005 Yamaha Wave Runner FX HO

2005 SeaRay 280 SunDancer
2001 SeaRay 245 Weekender

Thanks for all the tips. Looks like I am doing a little more investigative work this weekend when I get back to the boat. The fridge has worked flawlessly for the past 2 years that we have had the boat and I just noticed this starting to happen this weekend. Unfortunately we were on a long trip and had 2 other couples on the boat with us so I wasn't able to start troubleshooting.

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2005 Vista 288 - That's A Winner