| Subject: | An electrical thing I never noticed in 20 years of Westy ownership |
| From: | Jim Felder <jim.felder@GMAIL.COM> |
| Date: | Fri, 29 Jul 2022 17:40:18 -0500 |
When I park my Westy after camping, my habit has always been to switch the
gas knob to OFF and the mode switch to 120 when I parked the car. I just
went out to check on something in my Westy (1983 diesel) and heard a
whirring noise which I immediately knew could only be the fridge fan. I
checked and it was. Why was it on? Further checking I realized that I had
the car on a trickle charger plugged into the cabin 120 outlet, and had
house current going into electrical shore power outlet.
Since my bout with chemo a few years back, I don't tolerate summer heat so
well and thus go through the hot months without driving the car very often.
This often caused the battery to be flat when I went to start it, hence the
smart trickle charger that successfully keeps the battery at the ready.
So, though I had not realized it, the house power has been running the
fridge for a couple of months now, and since it has been so hot the gowesty
fan upgrade has been running too for weeks on end. I didn't realize that
would happen when I hooked it up. So now, I have the mode switch on GAS and
the gas turned off at the knob and the tank. Probably no problem for anyone
but me, but just wanted everyone to know that running a trickle charger
with 110 plugged into the utility outlet will run the fridge``and wear out
your auxiliary fan if you don't do something about it.
Jim