Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 14:30:45 -0400
Reply-To: David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Westfalia refrigerator issues
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTinkSoH7FLOCCYFQs_ZD4s=HqUC-QA@mail.gmail.com>
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At 01:31 PM 5/23/2011, Steven Yoon wrote:
>How can I tell if the gas power is working? It said something about flame
>being visible on the left side of the fridge, but can't tell.
There's an acrylic rod stuck in the extreme bottom-left corner of the
box. It points at a little window in the side of the burner
chamber. If the window and both ends of the rod are clean, and if
you hold your mouth right and your eye at the right angle, in subdued
light you can see the blue of the flame. The more subdued, the easier.
If you have the RM182B fridge there will be a fourth green LED below
the water-level ones on the LED panel. It will light up dimly when
the flame is on, and will be a great deal easier to see if you
replace it with a modern LED. Some people like blue - I happen to
hate blue LEDs with a purple passion. But the Radio Shack LED
assortment has four nice bright reds in it, suitable for ALT and OIL
lights, and four nice bright greens, suitable for fridge flame
lights. All drop-in replacements, though you do have to observe
polarity and the LED panel one is soldered in. For polarity, observe
the tiny flat on the rim of the plastic case.
If you have the RM182A then your LED panel will be like the one in
Bentley, the water pump will depend on the panel being switched on
for the faucet to work, and there will be a small meter on the fridge
itself to tell you the flame is on.
> Also, if I
>select the 12V power, does it require the engine to be running?
Yes, unless someone has been playing with things and installed a
second battery (which will run the fridge for ?3-4? hours).
> And I guess
>if 120V power is selected, you need to have the outlet plugged into a power
>source?
Ya think?
>I am not sure if my westy has an aux battery, but there is a little circuit
>breaker behind the driver's seat on the side. There is a pair of wire going
>into somewhere under the driver's seat.
Flip open the cover there and look -- it's hinged, not screwed down
like the passenger-side one. If you see a dead possum there, as I
did once, you'll know where that funny smell came from. But that's
the second battery box. The wires go to the relay that engages the
fridge +12v supply when the alternator starts to charge (it's wired
into the alternator D+ line and the panel ALT light), and the
"circuit breaker" is a small fuse box with an eight-amp fuse for the
LED panel and water pump (overhead light is on the interior light
circuit) and a sixteen amp fuse for the fridge. Keep that fridge
fuse and its contacts shiny clean if you want the fridge to work at
all decently on twelve volts. If you're serious about it, replace
all the twelve-volt wiring with heavier gauge. The 12V and 110V
heaters are both 85 watt, but the 12V one is much more sensitive to
voltage drops in the circuit because it's drawing 7.5 amps instead of .75.
Yrs,
d
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