In "Tom Del Rosso" writes:

Jeff Urban wrote:
We measured a new fridge at the store, had to talk the manager into
it but I built a box with a cord and outlet and a wire looped outside
for a clamp on ammeter.

We got a peak of like 9 amps or so to start but then it went be;ow
one amp.

Thanks to all. This is good, so I can put some other loads on the
fridge outlet.

Maybe, maybe not.

While typical refrigerators these days pull one amp (or less...)
while running, the "frost free" ones use a hell of a lot
more during the defrost cycle.

I've measured _500_ watts (4 amps) on mine.

A meeting hall I work with had a problem where the
circuit breaker feeding the overhead lights would
overload and open up, plunging the room into darkness.

Which made no sense. Yes, I re-measured the load and
swapped breakers...

On checking further, I found that they had added
an outlet which was slaved off the lighting circuit [a]
and was being used for a refrigerator.

It took some head scratching before I realized that
when the lights were on at the same time the refrigerator
went into defrost mode, the power draw exceeded the
breaker rating.

Since the place was rarely used, just about all the
time the defroster kicked in the lights were off,
so these blackouts were few and far between...

[a] installed by a professional and licensed electrician
who should have known that Code does NOT like appliance
outlets on lighting circuits for exactly this reason.


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