Fridge slide wiring to beat broken cables

Everyone with a fridge slide knows that the fridges power cable is something that you need to look out for. There’s countless tales of normally happy people that have ended up breaking or completely severing their fridges power cable by shutting the side drawer on it. We’ve decided to put those days behind us and have installed what is our very own solution to this problem.

What you’ll need

For our solution there’s three main components that are needed. First, you need some CNC cable track. Because most fridges are a relatively low current draw you don’t need anything massive because the wires won’t be that thick. Second, we used a steel Z bracket, but you can use something that suits your own setup. Lastly, we used Anderson plugs at each end to ensure a safe and secure connection no matter where we go.

How it’s done

Step 1

Get everything together. As well as our CNC track and bracket, we got the required screw and bolts to hold everything together. Because this isn’t a heavy addition, you don’t need anything that big. We found that 3mm screws held everything together just fine.

Also make sure that you have your two-core wire, wire cutters, strippers and soldering iron ready to go.

One really important thing to do here is to carefully measure how much CNC track you’ll need. Lay it out in your setup and run it over and back a few times to make sure that it’s the right length for what you need. Too long and it just takes up extra space. To short and it won’t reach when your fridge slide is fully extended.

Step 2

We drilled the holes in the bracket that were needed to mount the Anderson plug and CNC track, and then the mounting holes to the bottom of the bracket so we could screw it into the fridge slide.

Step 3

Thread the twin-core wire through the CNC track – and make sure you leave enough at both ends for wastage and connections. There’s nothing worse then when your wife is 5mm too short! Connect the Anderson plugs to each end of the cable. We solder all of our connections, but crimping also works well as long as you’ve got the right wire size for the terminals.

Step 4

Assemble the top of the bracket by bolting the CNC track to the underside of the bracket and the Anderson plug to the top of the bracket.

Step 5

Bolt the bracket to the back of the fridge slide.

Step 6

Screw the CNC track and second Anderson plug to the back of the floor (in our case the top of the drawers).

Step 7

Secure your fridge again and turn it on to check that all of your commendations are working.

The end result

As you can see, we now have a tidy little unit that sits beside the fridge and doesn’t take up any extra usable space, because that area next to the fridge can’t be used for much anyway. It’s light, simple to use and keeps everything secure, contained and above all safe!

We’re happy with the result, and we hope that you would be too. Let us know what you think, and if you have any other ways of getting this sort of set up for your fridge slide power cables.