Norcold refrigerator low voltage

[SierraGeezer]

On a recent trip the fridge started making weird noises about 4:00 am, so I checked the voltage from the house batteries (we had been without shore power connection for a day or so), and got 7.4 volts, so I immediately shut it off. (House batteries had been putting out around 12.5 the evening before.) When dawn came, we decided to retreat to a place where we could get shore power for the next few days, so, once we started up the van's engine, we turned the fridge back on and headed for shore power. Fridge seemed to work fine while hooked into shore power for the next few days, and also while running with the van's engine on. Anybody got any info on whether Norcold (model DE-441) has some sort of low voltage protection built in, or whether there might be some long-term damage to the fridge? (I'm under the impression that if one's residential fridge gets low voltage from the power company during, say, a brownout, it can ruin it.) Thanks.

[daveb]

I’m not sure on any protection for the refrigerator but yes low voltage is not good on compressors not to mention the batteries. AGM batteries (if that is what you have) should never fall below 10 volts. Maybe you should do a load test on the batteries. Then there might be a problem causing your battery drain. Was low voltage a problem in the past?

[SierraGeezer]

The batteries were the original Thermoil batteries, which were nearly eight years old. As noted above, they were delivering around 12.5 volts the day before, and dropped to 7.4 volts by 4:00 a.m., so my assumption was that the batteries were shot. I'm in the process of replacing them with 2 Lifeline AGM batteries. The only thing that concerns me now is the condition of the fridge after being subjected to such low voltage. Guess what I need to do is call Norcold and see what they have to say. I did notice that there was nothing in the Norcold manual about any minimum safe voltage or any low voltage protective switch. Does anybody out there know anything about a low voltage protection switch that might be installed for this kind of event, if it's even needed?

[SierraGeezer]

Got a reply from Norcold: they say that model fridge should shut off if voltage gets that low, but it sounded to me like it was still trying to run but struggling hard. They also say that I could have issues with the compressor if the voltage gets too low, but if it's still cooling, it's probably fine. Not exactly the definitive answers I was hoping for. Anyway, I did find a sentence in the manual that said the min. voltage was 12 volts and if it dropped below that, the fridge wouldn't perform well. Again, not real helpful, but I guess the moral of this tale is to have reliable batteries and be sure they're adequately charged at all times. Having just installed new AGM batteries a few days ago, I'm now in the process of checking out the fridge to be sure it still runs ok, and trying to get a rough handle on the rate at which it draws down the batteries.