Fridge and Battery

Originally posted by dboyer Indicator lights on our 177 Domestic refrigerator will switch to gas or battery power but both shut off after 2-3 minutes. In fact the entire indicator panel shuts off except if the refrigerator is on electric power.

That's not normal and points to a 12V problem, maybe the battery. If a power source isn't working, the normal response is for the warning light to come on and the fridge to beep. The converter is apparently working or else you'd have the same issue on electric.

Yes, the O detector does grab a fair amount of juice from the battery and as yakinator stated, it will drain your battery to nothing in a matter of a couple weeks.  The muffin fans on the back of the fridge don't draw very much and only run when it is quite hot out and or your fridge side is sitting where the sun is hitting it.  They only run for short amount of time until the ambient temp drops.  Another way to lessen the time the muffin fans run is to remove both lower and upper access panel covers on the outside behind the fridge which will improve air flow and if you are able to, park your pod so that the fridge side doesn't face south or west.

Originally posted by GlueGuy I would assume that the fridge draws zero when it's turned off? You could put a meter on it to see what the phantom loads add up to. The only things that might be pulling current would be the O detector and/or the smoke detector.

The stereo and antenna booster are also possible sources of current drain. The booster can be easily turned off.

Regardless of the power source selected, the cooling fans for the fridge's heat exchanger run on 12V.

I know that the propane detector also draws 12v. Before I started disconnecting the battery, the Phantom draw would drain my battery within 2 weeks with fridge turned off. If you are on shore power I can't see how your battery could be drained except if the converter is bad. My converter failed after 4 months.