Inverter usage while underway

Gene_M wrote:
My thanks to you both for such quick responses.

I failed to include the detail that the refrigerator is propane/120vac. It is a dometic R2652 and I can find no AC power specs other than 120vac, 60Hz. My assumption is for a worst case (?) 350 watts, or a 3aH draw on the inverter. I have not done the math, unsure of it, on what that draw will do on the 12v side.

Why would you want to run a ammonia refrigerator on electricity?

The 2,200 Btu burner will put about 1,900 Btu's into the boiler (with some heat going up the flue) while the 325 watt heater is only rated at about 1,000 Btu's or about 1/2 the heat output.

A square wave or modified sine wave inverter will run the heater in your ammonia refrigerator fine, and you can buy a 500 watt modified sine wave inverter for about $40.

I have run my refrigerator on gas for many years, even while living full time in my RV. No reason to run it on electric - and it is much better to run on gas when it is above 80F outside, so you get the full cooling capacity.

I even had a 1985 RV with a Norcold refrigerator. They had a problem with them catching fire, and I never ran that one on electric, unplugged it from the 120 volts as soon as I found out about the fires with a few (perhaps less than 12 out of 10,000 units a year they produced).

The cost to run the refrigerator on propane is pretty low. I could camp for about 6 weeks and only need to refill with 15 gallons of propane each time. That is much less expensive than buying insurance or anything else for the RV.

Fred.