Inverter and Refrigerator

[BigTrace]

On my '06 Horizon, I've recently noticed that the refrigerator is powered with an inverted circuit. I've done some forum searches to see if others knew of this but there didn't seem to be much on it. The problem is when shore power is disconnected from the coach, the refrigerator will not automatically go to LP. I know many of you may prefer this, but all my previous coaches did not wire the refrigerator through the inverter so I thought this was abnormal. When I have taken the coach in for service a couple of times, I've left the fridge on (in LP mode). When the service guys use the disconnect to kill the coach (and kill the propane) to work on her, they'll turn it back on only to have the fridge reset back into "Auto"� which then hits the inverter draining your batteries. I've had to have my full set of batteries replaced now because they have been too dead to resurrect. My buddy Bill is now going through the same thing and having his whole bank of batteries replaced. This post is informational for anyone who wasn't aware as I was not aware.

In speaking with Bryan Funke of Winnebago, he is informing the engineering staff that they need to document the inverted circuit running the fridge better in the owners manual as it is not documented at all. I also learned that it was possible (although not condoned by Winnie) to switch the circuits that control the fridge and the dishwasher (we have that option) through the EMS (Electrical management System, basically the power shedding controller) block. Basically 2 wires. I did that and am now getting the desired effect with the fridge, but the dishwasher is not able to use the same inverted circuit the fridge once used. The dishwasher works fine when plugged into shore power, just not inverted (not that I want it to be used on the inverter anyways). I'm trying to understand why so I broke out the meter and started testing the EMS connectors. When the coach is on shore power, the EMS reads 120 on each of its lugs. When shore power is disconnected and the inverter is on, they don't register with anything which is strange to me. Also, my EMS display reads (on the one place) 50 amps with all circuits operating (although nothing in the amps used display) when the inverter is the only power source!!. When I plug into shore power, everything reads fine again. Is this normal?