Romer1 wrote:
Will be replacing my dead Norcold N821 with a 9.8 cu ft residential in 2 weeks. Refrige draws 6.0amps/690 watts on start and 2.5amps/287.5 watts running. Planning on a 1200 watt PSW inverter which will handle load . Question is how much battery do I need?
Are you getting these numbers off the compressor or spec sheet? If so they are probably AC numbers. IIRC My compressor says .5 which is 5 amps DC. If it said 6.5 amps start up that would equate to 65 amps DC. I tried a magic chef from HD first and it wouldn’t start on a 1000 watt Xantrex. I then went to a 2000 watt Xantrex and I believe a whirlpool 10.8 cf from best buy. Its going on 4 years since i installed it so I’m remembering every number exactly right but Im thinking it was a daily amp hour use of about 75 AH.
Multiply any AC numbers by about 10 to get DC numbers
Im running 6 GC2 and 1000 watts of panels.
Edit:
Another thing that happens with inverters is that by the numbers it should work but thats also considering that you have enough battery and heavy enough cables. No matter the what the numbers say that start up spike can sometimes freak the inverter out. Just mentioning it so you can plan accordingly. Leave room for up sizing everything just incase your experiment varies. Also dont over estimate how long it can be off and keep things cold or frozen. I heard very optimistic comments on here yet had very different results the one time i tried it. Your results may be better
When my defrost kicks in it pulls 20 some amps DC for 10 minutes or so. Defrost probably comes on each day. I know that each time its powered off and back on it does a defrost cycle.
