Vantare Push Button Cabinet Latch

[travelite]

If anyone needs these Amazon sells them, $9.00: http://a.co/4zMJmUJ. I ordered it on Saturday and it was in my mailbox today. My coach uses brass knobs which are easily threaded on to these MATCC latches. In all other respects, including the stainless color of the latch body, the MATCC's are identical to my original Vantare latches. Maybe a little more expensive than other places, but the shipping was included, the color was right, and you can't beat the service.

[Prodriver]

Thanks for posting that. Very cool. How many would one need to change over the whole Coach? I'm thinking that gold should make a come back pretty soon.

[travelite]

Hi Prodriver,

I have around 40 of them in my Vantare, so at that price we'd definitely want to find a cheaper supplier, and there are bulk suppliers out there but I'm betting it's just-in-time-inventory which we all know means wait!

[Gil_J]

Another difficult to cabinet catch is the white cabinet and drawer catches. Although common in black, they are hard to find in white. Here's a great source for either Black or White and they have all 3 force ratings. (Click Here)

[travelite]

Thanks for that Gil, I do need some white ones. Vantare uses them to keep the doors of my Amana closed - one on top of each door. Sounds cheesy, but it's simple and it works.

[Gil_J]

My coach's cabinets and drawers don't have any exposed buttons, latches, or handles. They used these catches on the 2 pull out pantry doors and simply weren't effective and made for a hard pull to open them. I've since removed the catches and went to electromagnetic door locks. These work great. They hold 300 pounds and offer no resistance when off.

[travelite]

Give us more details Gil, part numbers, etc. This would be a great improvement over SouthCo's for my Amana. Imagine a touch sensitive handle sensor releasing the solenoid. Cool...

[Gil_J]

I have two heavy slide out pantry drawers that were supposed to be held in by catches. Even though there were 2 catches on each drawer and the highest force rated catches, they didn't reliably hold the pantry drawers in when they were full. I also did not like the amount of force you had to put on these drawers to open them. So, what to do.

There were two choices I thought would work. First, I could have installed the push button latches your showed earlier in the thread. They would certainly work, put they would disrupt the hardware free exterior on the drawers. I went with electromagnetic catches. These come in a variety of shapes and weight ratings. Amazon has a pretty good selection.

The way I wired these, although not ideal, is with an on/off switch located between the upper and lower pantry drawers. The ideal wiring would have latched the lock any time the ignition key is on and a push to release button would be used to allow the pantry to be opened if the engine is running. Maybe, I'll change that at a later date. The installation of the electromagnet and metal plate were pretty easy. It take a bit on trial and error to get them aligned and adjusted. The only thing I would have liked was to find an electromagnetic lock that would accept 14V+. I had to install a DC-DC regulated power supply to hold the voltage at 12V. That wasn't really a big deal, I would have just preferred not to need it.

Here's the drawers with the on/off button that is illuminated when on and the electromagnetic lock.

Pantry-Lock-1.jpg

Pantry-2.jpg

Also on my to-do list is to add a small electromagnetic lock at the bottom of the refrigerator and freezer doors.

Here's the lock I used:
https://www.amazon.com/FPC-MOR-300-C...+electric+lock

Here's one I'm considering for the refridgerator:
https://www.amazon.com/Skylink-MC-20...omagnetic+lock

[travelite]

Beautiful Gil, thanks for sharing that. I really like the illuminated button. I'd be tempted to run it at 14V. Alternatively a simple 6 ohm 1W resistor in series would also work. Resistance of the coil is 12V/0.3A = 40 ohm. To bring the coil voltage down to 12V given a 14V input requires a 6ohm voltage divider. Coil resistance is 12/0.30 = 40 ohm. Using a voltage divider: Vo = 14 * (40/(40+6)) = 12.17V. The power thru the resistor is I2R = 0.3*0.3*6 = 0.54W which is probably less than what your DC to DC converter draws unless you're using a switching converter. Initially when the circuit is powered up the voltage across the coil would be the full 14V but within ms it'll drop to 12V as the current ramps up. When it's in steady state 0.30A is drawn and the voltage divider ensures 12.17V across the coil. The initial 14V will simply boost the coil to ramp up current more quickly.

On second look, if it's the same part number that can run on either 12V or 24V then it can certainly run on 14V.

[Gil_J]

The model I bought was 12V, 12/24V.

Great point on using a resistor. I'll do that when I get around to the refrigerator. Better yet, I'll wait until you do yours so I can see how you did the door handle sensor.