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| revd Member Since: 20 Apr 2024 Location: England Posts: 184  
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I wouldn't run the fridge through a cigar lighter - they always seem a bit flakey - but hard wire from the auxiliary fuse box - the fewer the connections the better; voltage drops each time you cut and join a circuit and reduces its efficiency - I ran an Engels fridge on a 90 from a single standard battery set up and never had starting problems - and your USBs, as with any circuit calculate the max current draw and make sure you have some reserve
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16th Feb 2025 8:46pm |
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| macfrank Member Since: 05 Nov 2015 Location: somewhere in the north Posts: 1094  
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Well, it's all about correct wire size for the max. current at a given length.
This will avoid both overheating of the wires and loss of voltage (voltage drop) due to the wire's resistance. The loads you have mentioned shouldn't be a problem. Diesel heater and fridge are around 25-30W each, but with a higher inital current during startup. There are tables and calculators online. 6mm^2 is good for 20A and 2m, loosing 0.2V "on the way" at 20A. 2mm^2 at 1.2A (15W) gets you 10m with a loss of 0.2V. Then choose the fuses' size to protect those wires. As a rule of thumb fuses should be 20% above max. current to not overheat and do the opposite of what they should (prevent fire). Also choose automotive wires (FLRY), good crimps with a proper crimping tool and glue-lined heat-shrink tubes. Note that those switches have different ratings for AC and DC. Max. DC current is usually much smaller than AC. Also, I always draw a diagram with all the currents, lenghts, wire sizes and fuse sizes. Easy to think it all through that way and don't mix anything up during assembly. |
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16th Feb 2025 9:02pm |
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| 34064 Member Since: 12 Dec 2023 Location: South Central Posts: 217 
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I have hard wired my fridge into a super seal plug as it kept coming out of the cigarette socket 110 Td5 Ex Utilities slowly converting into a pop top camper one day
Build thread:https://www.defender2.net/forum/post1024784.html#1024784 |
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17th Feb 2025 11:05pm |
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| Betsy Member Since: 05 Aug 2024 Location: Derbyshire Posts: 21  
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Thanks everyone for the help, it’s really appreciated, il definitely look into a hard wired option for the fridge as I agree the plug soon wobbles loose.
This is a daft question but obviously I’m taking my Live from my leisure battery, but due to how crammed in the two batteries are under the passenger seat it’s impossible to get to the negative terminal on the leisure battery without removing them, would it be ok for me to take my negative to the other starter battery instead Thanks |
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19th Feb 2025 7:01pm |
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| GeorgeE Member Since: 10 Feb 2025 Location: Wanborough Posts: 3 
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Assuming your two earths are joined at the battery point by a decent cable then it doesn't really matter which end of that cable you connect to, either the leisure battery end or the engine battery end will be fine. That said I would avoid making a load of earth connections on the battery terminal, it is a real PITA when you come to swap the battery out. Take it from the battery to a dedicated earth stud mounted to one side and run them all to that.
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20th Feb 2025 5:18pm |
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