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wire size DC fridge

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mbett

RVF Newbee
Joined
Mar 12, 2022
Messages
3
my 2019 Norcold N8X absorption fridge may be a gonner. Heats up boiler, vertical pipe gets hot all the way to top before entering freezer area and then does not continue along pipes. Im assuming a blockage and never did like the lack of performance since we camp in hot temps a lot.

Looking to put in a 12v Norcold 10. It says it uses 8.5 amps but needs 10 gauge wires.

Back of current fridge has 18 gauge wires easily available. I do not know how difficult it will be to snake 10 gauge all the way back to converter or battery.

Seems like 8.5 amps is plenty suitable for 18 gauge wire, no?

Options:
1. find a way to snake the 10 gauge wire.
2. Mount a battery specific for the fridge which would need a charging mechanism. Can I use some sort of system to charge or level that new battery with the current 12 v 18 gauge wire? There is also an AC receptacle there where I could run a battery tender of some sort. Trying to not make it jury rigged though.... Not much boondocking. Mainly plug and play camping but dont want to unnecessarily restrict myself.

Open Range 2019 21RBS TT
 
The wire size is dependent on the max amp draw and the combined length of the pos / neg wire.
D64D3B19-D12C-4D60-8D28-9A6C1D82CB4D.jpeg
 
Thank you for that. I thought it was a short distance and just throwing that out there as one of three possibilities. I will not consider the use of the current 12V wiring as an option unless it is solely to charge a battery I could use to directly feed the fridge.

Now I have remaining options:
1. Dig deeper and see how I can pull 10 gauge wire. I've got the insulated bottom cover so I need to remove that. I would anyway to remove the flexible gas line currently installed for the absorption fridge.
2. Mount a separate battery behind the new 12V fridge and then mount something that trickle charges it most likely by using the current DC wiring that is coming from converter. There is also a AC receptacle there for the current 3 way absorption fridge.

The question is how difficult it will be to run the new wire.
 
You should have an unused slot in the 12V converter panel for a fuse. That is the place to run the Pos and Neg wires for the frig along with the location for a fuse. Based on the stated specs, you should use a 10 to 15 amp fuse. No less, no larger.

The chart supplied earlier defines the wire size for DC circuits. Remember to determine the total length being the length of the POS and NEG wire combined. So if the POS is 8 ft or 96" then the combined length should be 192". For 10A you should use a minimum of 12 ga stranded wire. Personally, I pull in some #10 AWG auto primary wire, Black for the POS, and White for the NEG.
 

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