After visiting my mum over night. I went well over 12hrs running the fridge on my 100Ah accessory battery. In the morning I discovered water everywhere as the fridge had defrosted, although strangely enough the fridge was still running but obviously not at capacity.
Battery reading of, get this 4.9V.
So my first thought! The fridges auto cutoff switch at low voltage can't be working and now the battery is stuffed.
Dave - at RV super store was kind enough to do a battery load test and I carried out tests over the next week - it was in perfect shape! Nevertheless I bought then a new 100Ah so that makes now 200Ah
Now it really does irritate me having to think constantly on the fridge so to improve the situation more the only thing I can do is solar panels.
Well I want the biggest most powerful I can get! "SIZE MATTERS"
1. Organize installer.
2. Roof space, step number one.
3. Find appropriate panel size to fit. (Max watt in my case 2 x 200 watt panels in a square format)
4. Find appropriate solar controller/Regulator
Sound easy enough?
Well it's not. It took a full week of research and speaking to some companies who enlightened me as to why and what etc. all before I found what to be the right products.
You see it is not just a simple method once you get over a 360 Watt array it gets more expensive going to the next level regulator 40Amps.
I wanted MTTP (high tech) regulator but ended up with the best PWM that Australia has to offer thanks to a very good salesman / technician.
Dingo 4040 thats a 40Amp regulator.
Solar panels - found the size and had 3 brands to choose from or so it seemed at the time?!?!?
Paid and posted Beginning of Dec. It's now heading towards end Jan. and I am still am waiting to receiving the correct panels ha?
It a long story but very informative one to learn big lessons from.
Panels get lost in transit Found then arrive 9 days later. The boxes are damaged on arrival it doesn't look good - Rather large foot prints on one box!
Opened the box .........
Smashed solar panel.
But it gets worse more to come -
