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Liberty – Cooling Fans
If
you have a Liberty, depending on year, you most likely have two of
these fans. One is located in the inverter bay and the other behind
the entertainment center. These fans are hard wired to the inverters
and cannot be turned off without turning off the disconnect for the
inverters/batteries. They are 120 volt and run continuously. I had
one making lots of noise and had to replace it. Not expensive, 26.00
each.I’m going to install snap discs on each that will turn on the fans at 80 or 90 degrees instead of them running 24/7.Now all I have to do is get Jon to remove my entertainment center
so I can change out the other.
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6 Replies
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I have two of these in my inverter bay as well and are hooked up to a thermostat. It was set at the lowest point which I think was 75 degrees and they ran all the time. After the fans failed, I bumped it to 90 and they run a lot less. Hope they will last longer this time.
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Tom,
First off, what a poor decision to install a fan that is not switched in some fashion, even if that means through a thermostat! I don’t know if this is a before or after picture, but the picture doesn’t show any clamps holding the electrical wiring in place. By code, as memory serves, one is required within 6 inches of the connection and along the the cords route at an intervals I just don’t remember. There doesn’t appear to be any strain relief at the connection to the fan. If so, you need a strain relief as close to that connection as possible.
When you say hardwired to the inverter, I assume you are saying hardwired through a fuse or other circuit protecting device. If not, you need to install one as close to the AC power source as possible.
I’ve used temperture specific snap discs with relays to handle the current. Although they work fine, an easier solution might be a line voltage thermostat with or without remote temperture probe. Most, if not all, of these can handle the current without an external relay and are adjustable.
For the one in the entertainment center, I would power it from the breaker for the entertainment system, so there’s an intuitive place to shut it off. I did just that in my last coach and it worked fine.
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I’ll take a shot at this and probably create more discussion.
The fan in the electric compartment is to keep the compartment cool. I don’t know what “cool” is but I presume the reason why the fan is there and that it runs any time the inverters are running is because the less heat in the inverters and inverter bay the greater the life expectancy of the inverters. My guess is Liberty did not just stick a fan in there for the hell of it, but made a decision based on experience, knowledge or both.
Before I got creative regarding the inverter fan and added anything to the circuit such as a thermostat I would want to know what the temperatures in the bay need to be according to the inverter manufacturer.
I would hate to see a thermostat or fan failure cost me an inverter failure so if I was going to do anything I might consided a means of sounding an audible or visible alarm if the fan wasn’t running. But those are only my thoughs expressed without any benefit of the knowledge Liberty has on this topic.
The fan in the entertainment unit is actually wired in conjunction with the outside refrigerator thermostat so when the compresor runs the fan runs to bring in cool air for the condenser coils. That one also has a specific benefit and I would be reluctant to get rid of that one or change how it functions.
As to comments about fuses or circuit proitection before I got too concerned about that I would make sure I knew the fan motor itself did not have some protection such as a fusible link or thermal switch.
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I have always had a remote
temperature sender in the inverter bay, ya I know, talk about anal
and in my previous Royale a 90 degree setting seemed to do the trick.
Right now it’s showing 62 degree’s in the bay, the inverter fans are
not running, so what’s the point of a 120 volt fan running all the
time? If there was no fan running would the bay temperature be
higher, possibly. This time of year it’s no concern, but in the
summer, even if I set the thermostat to 90, the fan most likely would
run all the time except maybe at night when things cool down.The fan behind the entertainment center also runs full time and I
assume they did that that’s because of the refrigerator and maybe
the electric grill. Again, it’s cool right now, so why have a fan
running.It would be nice to know the logic behind the full time fans.
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Tom, your coach is 12 years old, the fan just burned out. You don’t keep a coach that long.
Replace the fan, like for like and let it run, run,run. Have confidence Liberty knew what they were doing when they built it.
JIM
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Circuit protection at the power source is required. It is not there to protect the attached end device or devices, it’s there to protect the wire from melting and generating a fire. In Tom’s case, if the unrestrained wire breaks or rubs through or otherwise makes contact with a ground source it could cause a fire if the wire is not fused or otherwise protected at the source.
BTW, how does the fan know the inverter is on? It would be far to complex to tap into the remote on a Freedom inverter to get a charge indicator signal. I’m guessing they just tapped into the AC input or output, neither of which indicates the inverter is on.
I would still put a thermostat in, unless the fan is explosion proof and you are using wet cell batteries in that bay. Wet cells should be avoided if they are in a bay anyway.
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