12 vdc fridge
2 friends of mine have purchased new campers that have 12dc only refrigerator in them. They both came with 50 watt solar panel on the roof. They are figuring on boondocking 4 or more days with only ...
Forum Discussion
valhalla360 wrote:
We have one in our current unit. Draws about 50w when operating, so worst case is 1200w-hr per day but assuming you don't camp in Arizona in the summer, 50% duty cycle would be more typical, so about 600w-hr/day......
With my unit, I don't have to be in Arizona heat to see a huge increase in energy consumption. At about 60 degrees, my unit runs less than 1/3 of the time. In the low 70s that increases to about 50%. In the mid 80 degree range, my units runs pretty much full time. I have camped in the low 90s and at that point the refrigerator cannot maintain proper temperature. I need to turn down the thermostat so it can try to get extra cool during the night and that helps it coast during the day. But by doing that I guarantee it will run constantly even at night. For me the numbers would be about 15-20 AH/day in cool weather, about 25 AH/day for medium temps and 55 AH/day in hot summer weather.
Again, my unit is small at about 4 cuft. Most RVs will have units about twice that size with twice the power consumption.
