Residential Fridge Inverter

[cw3jason]

I am going to share what I have learned so far, as I have not found to many threads on this subject.

First the Inverter is not running unless the on off button is pressed in. you can tell when it is running by the fan noise and the display will be lit up.

When the Inverter is running and you are plugged into shore power, you should see a green LED on the front. This indicates 120volt pass thru and the inverter is monitoring things.

When you disconnect shore power the LED turn amber. This indicates the inverter is now running on Battery and it is inverting DC to AC for the fridge.

If you get a red LED this is supposed to indicate Inverter malfunction. However, this may not be the case.

After traveling I parked my RV and plugged in shore power. I expected to see the LED go from Amber to Green, Instead it went to Red. The manual says Replace inverter. I let the RV battery charge back up from the trip and tested the Inverter again and the LED went to green.

So, now I am trying to determine if it was low battery voltage that made the Inverter go red or if it was the boost charge mode of the Converter putting out over 14Volts.

Talking to tech support, They say the high output of some of the newer truck alternators or the charger could cause the malfunction.

Also the Inverter can be reset by removing all power both AC and DC and waiting a min or two for the capacitors to discharge.

If anyone gets a Red LED it may not mean you have to get a new inverter. try letting the battery get recharged back to normal, you can also try a reset as mentione above. Also if there is a failure of the Inverter there should be an error code displayed on the front display.

I hope this helps, and I will continue to investigate and report back.

PS: when I am plugged into shore power, I just shut it off by pressing the manual/ remote button. (on/off) switch. This does not give me the line voltage monitoring capabilities built into the Inverter, but I cant stand that fan running all the time.....

[FordMan1966]

My inverter turns off automatically when plug into shore power. This is all new to me so not for sure if that is proper operation or not. Any feedback is appreciated, sometimes it is had to turn back on when disconnecting from shore power.

[cw3jason]

I should have specified the model of Inverter I have.

WF-5110H

If this model turns on and off automatically based on shore power, I have not figured out how, and there is nothing in the manual on this. just a remote switch can be added and plugged into the RJ11 jack in back, but this port is empty. So manual operation it is.

[DarMar]

Thanks for the informative post. Our next unit will probably have a residential fridge and we hope to learn a lot from those that currently have them.

[cw3jason]

Ok, latest from WFCO tech support. the remote/ manual switch is essentially the on/off switch if the remote on/off panel is not installed/connected. You can turn the unit off when connected to shore power and the 120vac will pass thru. The unit does not automatically turn on or off based on connecting or disconnecting from shore power. you must do this manually or leave on all the time.
The fault I had with the system displaying the red LED after traveling and connecting back to shore power at home was caused by the converter battery charger operating in boost mode to get the battery back up to normal. Boost mode puts out over 14 volts, 14.7 I think, any way the inverter can mistake this as a potential overload and will shut down displaying the Red LED. once the battery was back to normal charge and the charger was out of boost mode, everything was back to normal and the inverter displayed a green LED.
He did state, that a software change was due out to correct this error, but he did not say when or if it will only be included in new models, or if you could update exhisting ones.

now I just need to make sure my truck is recharging my RV battery, because I do not feel it should have been low from running the fridge on a 20min trip home from the campground.

[bentz54]

We pick up our new Montana 3710 next week.
We had a Jayco Pinnicle with a Samsung fridge and inverter. What I found on ours was even with the remote display screen on the inverter turned off the fridge was still on causing battery to drain over night. It was driving me crazy trying to figure out what was draining the batteries till I opened the fridge and low and behold it was still on.
Even with the disconnect thrown it still drew the battery down, found it hard wired to battery bypassing the disconnect switch.
I have dedicated the second battery to the inverter/fridge with its own disconnect swith.
No issues.

Montana next week can't wait.

[Phil P]

Hi cw3jason

If you purchased your truck new and this is the first RV type trailer you have pulled with it you may find the selling dealer didn’t connect the auxiliary power supply wire at the power center. The new trucks are shipped with this wire disconnected I have never been able to find out why but they are. I have a friend with a 2014 F450 / SOB toy hauler and he had the same problem after having the dealer connect the wire all was good.

Phil P

[cw3jason]

Thank you, Phil
I will check that.