Route wires through refrigerator roof vent

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admoffat
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2015 8:50 pm

Route wires through refrigerator roof vent

Post by admoffat »

Has anyone done this? The wires for our solar panels and TV antenna run through the refrigerator roof vent, then inside the coach wall into the space behind the upper pantry drawer. I want to mount a WiFi Ranger antenna on the roof and run the wires similarly to the other wires but I can't track them after they go through the vent.

It seems that there is a chase between the back of the refrigerator and the exterior fiberglass shell of the coach body that runs almost from top to bottom and the existing wires go into that. They're caulked in so I can't tell for sure. From the inside of the pantry drawer area, there's fiberglass batting all along the inside of the exterior fiberglass that snags my fish tape. I'm reluctant to push too hard when I'm working blind.

In principle, I could drill a hole through the wall between the pantry drawer and refrigerator if I had a short enough drill bit and run the wire through that. I could drill a hole at the bottom of the airspace behind the refrigerator but the wire will be freely dangling for about 4' and I'm afraid the rattling as we drive down the road will drive me nuts.

Any other thoughts or suggestions?
2016 Royal Splendor
Verona, WI
davids.moffat@outlook.com
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Dallas Baillio
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Re: Route wires through refrigerator roof vent

Post by Dallas Baillio »

I do not have an answer for you, but I suggest you post the year and model of your BF to help others respond.
Dallas Baillio
2001 26RSB
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admoffat
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2015 8:50 pm

Re: Route wires through refrigerator roof vent

Post by admoffat »

Sorry. We have a 2016 Royal Splendor (a Splendor on an F550 chassis).
2016 Royal Splendor
Verona, WI
davids.moffat@outlook.com
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SteveLombardi
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Re: Route wires through refrigerator roof vent

Post by SteveLombardi »

Hi Admoffat,

I had to run wires for my solar panels down the refrigerator vent chute. I just dropped them down until they appeared at the bottom near the refrigerator controls you see when opening the outside access door. I had to remove a rather flimsy air baffle right along the top inside-edge of the access door Next I drilled a hole through the side wall exiting the refrigerator compartment and entering the space behind the pantry cabinet. I would have drilled the hole through the bottom of the refrigerator compartment but my furnace is down there and I could't get access as easily as behind the pantry. You are correct that the wires will shake around behind the refrigerator so I did my best to keep them running down the side and away from the refrigerator coils, burner, etc. If you drill a hole through any of the refrigerator compartment walls make sure to seal them up.

p.s. If I'm not mistaken I think you had attempted to put scooter carrier on the back of your moho. Did that ever work out? I had shown you how I did one on my 25RB at one of the last BF factory rallies.
2012 25RB
admoffat
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2015 8:50 pm

Re: Route wires through refrigerator roof vent

Post by admoffat »

The job has been successfully completed. So all may learn, here's a walk-through (with pictures!) of what I did.

The solar panel and TV antenna cables currently go through the roof-top refrigerator vent:
IMG_1645a.jpg
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There seems to be a chase on the exterior wall of the coach and these feed into that. Unfortunately, they're caulked in place. I didn't want to cut through the caulk to poke around so I decided to drill a hole through the wall of the refrigerator enclosure. I didn't want loose wires flopping around in the refrigerator enclosure, which meant I needed to drill a hole near the top of enclosure, feed the wires through the new hole and then secure them in the pantry drawer space.

Inside the coach, here's what I faced:
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I needed to remove the upper pantry drawer. This has two Accuride 301-2590 slides on the bottom and one more standard slide on the side. The bottom slides are non-disconnect slides. The side slide has a disconnect lever. I confirmed with Accuride that the only way to remove the drawer was to unscrew the bottom slides. Fortunately, I could pull the drawer out far enough to get to the very back screws.
IMG_1657a.jpg
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(Continued in the next post.)
2016 Royal Splendor
Verona, WI
davids.moffat@outlook.com
admoffat
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2015 8:50 pm

Re: Route wires through refrigerator roof vent

Post by admoffat »

There's not a lot of room to work in the drawer space:
IMG_1653a.jpg
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Fortunately, I had a right-angle drill head I inherited from my father. After rebuilding and regreasing it (nothing is coming easy on this project), that worked well:
IMG_1654a.jpg
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There's a paint stir stick taped to the top of the drill which holds the drill head in the desired orientation. Without this, the head points down and it's a real pain getting the drill bit pointed where you want it. I used this with a 3/4" Forstner bit to drill the hole for the cable.

Here's where the cable comes through the top of the drawer enclosure:
IMG_1648a.jpg
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I put a computer grommet in the hole for no particularly good reason other than to cut down on airflow and to prevent the odd bug from finding its way in.
2016 Royal Splendor
Verona, WI
davids.moffat@outlook.com
admoffat
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2015 8:50 pm

Re: Route wires through refrigerator roof vent

Post by admoffat »

Once the cable was pulled through, I drilled pilot holes for the screws I used for cable clamps to hold the cable in place. Here's the completed result:
IMG_1649a.jpg
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The WiFi Ranger cable is the white one looped at the back right.

The power cable is plugged into the mating plug I connected to an unused breaker on the Firefly control panel (B34). (WiFi Ranger recommended connecting their unit to a fused circuit even though their plug attachment has an integrated fuse which you can see in the above photo. They also recommended having it powered all the time, mostly to minimize wifi outages within the coach.)
IMG_1663a.jpg
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It's important to plan for recovering any items that might be dropped behind the pantry cabinets. The first item I lost was a stainless steel screw, which is non-magnetic. The second item I lost was a nail I was using to create pilot holes before I figured out how to use the right angle drill head effectively. The nail is magnetic, but it's a rat's nest behind the bottom pantry drawer.
IMG_1651a.jpg
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Neither item was recovered. I hope I can't hear them rolling around as we drive down the road. Of course, one could always remove the lower pantry drawer...
2016 Royal Splendor
Verona, WI
davids.moffat@outlook.com
admoffat
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2015 8:50 pm

Re: Route wires through refrigerator roof vent

Post by admoffat »

WiFi Ranger recommends placing their unit 2' away from other items on the roof. I could have done this by placing it way at the front of the roof or way at the back. In either case, there would be a lot of wire exposed to the wind. I decided to place it between our fan cover and the TV antenna. I figured the plastic on the fan cover was a non-issue and the TV antenna doesn't present much of an obstacle. The AC unit a little farther back could be a problem, but we were able to receive our house wifi when we tested the antenna inside the coach so I thought we'd do OK.

Here's what the finished product looks like on the top:
IMG_1659a.jpg
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This is the Teton model of WiFi Ranger's new Converge (https://wifiranger.com/converge/outdoor-routers/) product line. We do not have an indoor router because we don't need to hardwire anything to the router.

The Teton fin is attached to the roof with 1" wide VHB tape. Several people have mentioned this product. Unfortunately, 3M makes umpteen million versions of "VHB" tape (https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/vhb-tapes-us/). I called 3M and ended up talking with someone in their automotive products group. They recommended a 1/2" wide tape used to attach molding to cars. If I used the 1/2" wide tape, I would have had to use several pieces to match the outline of the Teton fin base. Instead, I used the 1" wide tape from Target (https://www.target.com/p/3m-extreme-mou ... A-14413487). I did, however, use the bonding promoter (https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/ ... 499&rt=rud) suggested by 3M. This was available from our local Advanced Auto Parts store. I covered the mounting flange and edges of the fin with Dicor's self-leveling EPDM Lap Sealant (https://dicorproducts.com/product/epdm-lap-sealants/.

Here's where the wires feed into the refrigerator vent:
IMG_1660a.jpg
IMG_1660a.jpg (92.07 KiB) Viewed 6103 times
The box just in front of the vent is where the solar panels plug in.
2016 Royal Splendor
Verona, WI
davids.moffat@outlook.com
Pete1122
Posts: 26
Joined: Sun Mar 24, 2019 12:41 pm

Re: Route wires through refrigerator roof vent

Post by Pete1122 »

Just a suggestion but I would consider wrapping those wires that go through the metal screen on the fridge vent with some wire loom. I could see those wires eventually rubbing against the metal screen and making contact.
2006 Born Free RSB
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