Electrical 12 pin and fridge

[MDS69]

@roosterm I am a little confused on your vehicle setup. With your dual battery setup do you have the aux battery in the car or only wiring back to the anderson plug from the redarc and the aux battery is in the trailer or van.
As you are getting an Outback model you have the solar panel setup. This should be enough to keep your battery charged on the move. The anderson plug on your towbar should be all you need to power your fridge whilst driving. If you do have an aux battery in your car then fit a fridge switch if you don't have the aux battery in your car then the redarc isolator is enough that your cranking battery won't go flat when stopped for lunch etc.
You will still require the 12 pin socket on your car for the ESC via another cable run from the cranking battery unless you get tricky and run the ESC through another anderson plug. You don't want to have your fridge and ESC suppplied from the same anderson plug on the draw bar as you want the option to disconnect the ESC when off road(ish)

 

[bigcol]

7 pin will plug into a 12 pin @bigcol......
....

you will have to show me how a round 7 pin will fit into a square 12 pin @Drover

I have tried, but dont seem to manage it........
must be doing something wrong......

 

[dagree]

I have fitted a square block in a round hole.... My counselor was impressed with the way I used that big hammer

Yes you did....... rewire the van

Or the van

 

[Drover]

Smart bottom people, I assumed they were both rectangular units...............actually I have never seen a square 12 or 7 pin plug........nah,nah.

But how about this anyway........

 

[Dobbie]

Am I correct in saying that a 7 pin flat will fit in a 12pin flat?

I think I checked that ages ago but might have imagined it.

 

[MDS69]

Am I correct in saying that a 7 pin flat will fit in a 12pin flat?

I think I checked that ages ago but might have imagined it.

Yes a 7 pin flat plug will fit a 12 pin flat socket but not the other way around.

 

[bigcol]

awe, @Drover then I would have yet another freaking adapter to loose

twas easier just leaving the round 7 pin on the car..........

 

[Drover]

awe, @Drover then I would have yet another freaking adapter to loose

twas easier just leaving the round 7 pin on the car..........

I have had one like this for 20 yrs or more, it's never been used as I can never find the bloody thing until a week later usually. Never Lost just misplaced.

 

[bigcol]

were any of my adapters with yours??
a long 6 pin to 7 pin
a long 7 pin to 6 pin
a short 6 pin to 7 pin
a short 7 pin to 6 pin
a long 7 pin LARGE round to small round 7 pin (for the kakipoo)
a long flat (rectangle) 6 pin to round 7 pin
a long flat (rectangle) 7 pin to round 7 pin

sodding things always grow legs and go wandering when I need them, and return after I dont need them

 

[ChrisU]

Hi Rooster, if you are running your van fridge from your aux battery it will be difficult to have a relay from your ignition cut this supply to the van so the van fridge will still run from the aux battery when stopped and if you are running a second fridge from the same battery it will be flat very quickly. I would suggest hooking your van battery to the current anderson plug and wiring a second one direct from the main vehicle battery through a relay for the van fridge. The van anderson to the battery could be used to plug in a portable solar panel which, having its own regulator, can be used to charge the van battery.

@chartrock , for sure mate, with that in mind, 2 things, after talking to an auto sparky this morn, he advised that I could run the van fridge and the veh fridge of my aux batt, but would be best to fit a "fridge switch" at the fridge, haven't researched this yet, but his info is that it works like a motion detector of sorts, and will switch the fridge off when the vehicle stops, prob not the explanation but you get what I mean...

The other thing, would it be better for the Anderson plug from the van to be fitted/wired directly to the fridge, fused of course, with 6 B&S, this way, reducing voltage drop, and provided max power to the fridge, increasing its efficiency...

in terms of charging the van/house batt on the move, isn't this achieved via the 12 pin plug..???

or, I have got this all wrong....lol

Cheers for your replys to mate...

@Roosterman
Wiring in a voltage sensitive relay (cut out 12.7v, cut in 13.4v) before the fridge effectively isolates the fridge from the car when not running, we run a setup like this, with a feed going from the aux battery in the car to the 12 pin plug, then into the VSR in the van (acts as an isolator when the aux battery voltage drops below 12.7v when the car is not running) then into a DCDC charger which gives the AGM battery in the van the required 14.2v, and have wired the van fridge directly to the van battery.

 

[pauljygrant]

Would you recommend connecting the caravan battery directly to the car battery (with an isolator relay) or via the DC in connection on the Setek, again via an isolator relay? The battery will be float charged at home and we mainly visit powered sites but don't have any solar provision. The caravan battery will mainly be used for an occasional one or two night stop over.
The fridge will be separately connected to the car via a relay.
Cheers,
Paul

 

[Bluey]

@Roosterman my 1756-2 outback with ESC and prado with one battery just has 12 pin plug with 8b/s power and earth for fridge red ark
batt isolator never had a problem but as @Drover said maybe better with Anderson plug if have trouble with plug so far with us will stay the same its to easy I know when its off ESC lights go out on draw bar all my electrics fitted by sparky

 

[Drover]

Would you recommend connecting the caravan battery directly to the car battery (with an isolator relay) or via the DC in connection on the Setek, again via an isolator relay? The battery will be float charged at home and we mainly visit powered sites but don't have any solar provision. The caravan battery will mainly be used for an occasional one or two night stop over.
The fridge will be separately connected to the car via a relay.
Cheers,
Paul

Since your mainly going to be on powered sites I would just connect it up the standard way and thats so the van battery is charged via the setek, fit a 30amp relay at the power junction of your fridge so that it kicks in when you turn on your parkers or go the Fridge switch solution, though if you run your fridge for at least 24 hrs before departure you really don't need to bother running it on 12v while on the road. The van battery won't run your fridge for very long on it's own, unless you only have 12v/240v fridge then O/N shouldn't be a drama as they are reasonable frugle on the power but I wouldn't run it off the car battery, they should always be left to run the engine or have things drawing off them when running. Nothing worse than warm beer and a dead engine. No need for expensive gadgets half the time.