Arb fridge.. is this normal?

Scott

Scott

Adventurist
So I noticed the other day, I had my 50 qt arb fridge plugged in all day, and it was empty. It had been plugged in from the day before when I made a costco run and I just forgot to unplug it. Well I went out to my truck and the temp on it said 69 degrees and the inside did feel pretty warm considering the temp is always at 28 degrees or so on the fridge. There were no signs that the fridge was turning off, and it was a pretty hot day.. was the fridge just struggling to keep up because it was not full of food helping it, or do i have a real problem I need to look into?

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Mine is not arb, but both my edgestar and the Dometic stay frozen even if empty and I think they all use the same danfoss compressor

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Again not an ARB. It stays set temp no matter how much stuff is in it. Indel B 41 quart.

Put some soda cans or water bottles in it and see what happens.
 
My ARB keeps to set temperature whether it's empty, partially full or overfilled.
 
I've had this happen and later realized that my aux battery had gone below the threshold and the arb when into battery protection mode. It was only after I drove a bit that it came back up and started chilling again. I too had forgotten to unplug it and noticed at a stop along the way.

Perhaps this happened?
 
Cboyd said:
I've had this happen and later realized that my aux battery had gone below the threshold and the arb when into battery protection mode. It was only after I drove a bit that it came back up and started chilling again. I too had forgotten to unplug it and noticed at a stop along the way.

Perhaps this happened?
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Sounds like it. Plug it in to an electrical outlet and see if you have the same issue?
 
Power threshold protection...check your settings to see if it is set to HI/MED/LO. I've left mine (50 qt. ARB) plugged into the truck and come back to it @ 60+ degrees with the red indicator light flashing.

"Slight" thread deviation...but I too have had temp issues. Contacted ARB USA via email and they forwarded me a PDF doc that gave info. on a temperature re-calibration sequence.

Followed the steps and haven't had any issues since.

File is attached for your reference gents. :)
 

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Thank you guys.. I would not think a group 65 battery rated at 850 cca would have such trouble keeping up with the arb, but perhaps it does. I wired the arb wiring loom directly from the aux battery into the cab. I believe my threshold settings are set to medium but I will have to check that.. I noticed when we were at mrv I had a red flashing light in the fridge for part if the time we were there but the fridge still hovered at 29 degrees the entire 3 days.

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Another thing I thought about. I know I have the old style arb wiring harness with the cappy style plug. What I'm not sure about is if the old harness used 8ga wiring like the new harness does? Maybe the old harness has small gauge wiring and I'd having trouble keeping up?

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I had an issue with a loose inline 75A fuse connector at the aux battery feeding my DC distribution panel. I noticed that at times the fridge would blink red indicating low voltage from the supply. Even with that, the fridge managed to keep the food temp right, quite amazing really.

It did it for a couple of days and I could not figure it out. Food was still cold, but when we would stop it would blink red. Finally I started checking all of my connections and noticed that I had a good size voltage drop from the battery to the fuse panel. So i isolated it to the large inline fuse - sure enough the connection was slightly loose. Loose enough that at higher voltages (engine running) the drop wasn't big enough to trip the low voltage protection the fridge, so it would run.

So I'd start double checking the wiring Scott mentions. And all of the connectors feeding the fridge from the fuse block out.

Given all that, quite amazing that fridge still "managed through" and kept the food cold. Say what you will about it vs other brands, but I was impressed.
 
Cboyd said:
I had an issue with a loose inline 75A fuse connector at the aux battery feeding my DC distribution panel. I noticed that at times the fridge would blink red indicating low voltage from the supply. Even with that, the fridge managed to keep the food temp right, quite amazing really.

It did it for a couple of days and I could not figure it out. Food was still cold, but when we would stop it would blink red. Finally I started checking all of my connections and noticed that I had a good size voltage drop from the battery to the fuse panel. So i isolated it to the large inline fuse - sure enough the connection was slightly loose. Loose enough that at higher voltages (engine running) the drop wasn't big enough to trip the low voltage protection the fridge, so it would run.

So I'd start double checking the wiring Scott mentions. And all of the connectors feeding the fridge from the fuse block out.

Given all that, quite amazing that fridge still "managed through" and kept the food cold. Say what you will about it vs other brands, but I was impressed.
Click to expand...
This is exactly what I'm experiencing. I'll have to check all my battery connections. It's raining right now or I'd go tighten them up and go for a test run. All that being said, I am going to be upgrading to the newer arb wiring harness for the fridge. I have the older one and I absolutely hate that plug.

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I "deleted" that plug and hard wired the fridge. Figured if I needed to use it out the truck, can do so on AC. Or get another DC plug.

I actually like the Hella plug more so than the US spec "cig lighter" but even then it was dodgy in my truck. Bypass it, move on.
 
Cboyd said:
I "deleted" that plug and hard wired the fridge. Figured if I needed to use it out the truck, can do so on AC. Or get another DC plug.

I actually like the Hella plug more so than the US spec "cig lighter" but even then it was dodgy in my truck. Bypass it, move on.
Click to expand...
I've been meaning to do andersen plugs but just haven't gotten around to it..

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Cboyd said:
I "deleted" that plug and hard wired the fridge. Figured if I needed to use it out the truck, can do so on AC. Or get another DC plug.

I actually like the Hella plug more so than the US spec "cig lighter" but even then it was dodgy in my truck. Bypass it, move on.
Click to expand...
I replaced the majority of my "cig" style plugs to an aftermarket version that works on both US spec and Hella style.
 
Scott said:
Thank you guys.. I would not think a group 65 battery rated at 850 cca would have such trouble keeping up with the arb, but perhaps it does. I wired the arb wiring loom directly from the aux battery into the cab. I believe my threshold settings are set to medium but I will have to check that.. I noticed when we were at mrv I had a red flashing light in the fridge for part if the time we were there but the fridge still hovered at 29 degrees the entire 3 days.

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Click to expand...

I suspect an empty fridge will cycle on a whole lot more often than a full one that's at temp, since there's nothing inside to help maintain. Cold cranking amps doesn't exactly equate to longer amp hours, either. A larger battery will have higher cca and longer ah but the makeup (plate size) of the larger battery will better determine if it's decisgned for high cca, high ah, or some combination thereof.
 
It's way easy to make Andersons. I use them in just about everything. I use them in lieu of cig plus almost exclusively.

Get the Anderson specific crimper and it's easy peasy...

Edit: checked out the WitsEnd stuff and it's a pretty cool idea with the coiled cable. Solves the issue I have with the slide out at present. Nice idea worth supporting our vendor community for!
 
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Cboyd said:
It's way easy to make Andersons. I use them in just about everything. I use them in lieu of cig plus almost exclusively.

Get the Anderson specific crimper and it's easy peasy...

Edit: checked out the WitsEnd stuff and it's a pretty cool idea with the coiled cable. Solves the issue I have with the slide out at present. Nice idea worth supporting our vendor community for!
Click to expand...
I looked at the anderson crimper on the power were website and I just can't seem to justify the price for the limited amount of use they would see... unless I'm missing something the cheapest ones im seeing are roughly $50

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