Norcold DE0061 Refer repair/upgrade

[Pura Vida]

Sharing my learnings and solution to recent refer issue:
I bought a battery power supply/inverter:

battery pack.jpg

After running the refer from the "pure sine wave" AC output for a day or so, i returned to shore power. No issues until a day or so later..
The refer died, would not run off AC power, shore or from the inverter. Coincidence? Im not sure if the inverter caused the issue, but fair enough warning to those who may try this.
Troubleshooting showed no output from AC power supply and the refer ran fine when i put 12VDC to the input wires to the DC power supply.

Norcold DC power supply.jpg

So now i could use the battery pack to power the refer DC side. For shore AC power, got a $20 120W converter. The refer uses ~ 48 watts, so the converter is plenty. The power pack is rated @ 296 Wh, so i should get ~ 6+ hours of refer time on the hook.

The AC power supply on the refer is discontinued and hard to get. Best internet searches including Ebay showed about $180+ for a replacement.

ac to dc converter.jpg

Turns out that the refer AC power supply outputs 35-47 VDC, so i came up with a creative installation and it works quite well.

I connected both the battery pack DC output and the converter DC output to the wires of the refer's DC power supply.
I added diodes to each of the wires to prevent backward energizing.

The operation now is seamless....on shore power, the refer runs from the converter; disconnect shore power, and the power pack takes over. Return to shore power, the power pack charges and goes to zero output. Couldn't ask for a better result. For about the same cost of a replacement part, I now have power on the hook, and it all fits on the shelf in the cabinet below the bar.

Norcold DE0061 .jpg

Norcold DC power supply.jpg

diodes.jpg