Running Dometic Refrigerator with an inverter

dbontherun wrote:
My Dometic Refrigerator doesn't run on gas, can I run it off an inverter while traveling? How many watts will I need to run it?

That's exactly how I run my fridge... When I'm on the road my LPG bottle is OFF.
IMHO this is the easiest, safest, and most efficient (in terms of my resources) way to run the fridge while driving.
I have 2ga wires run from my (180A) alternator to the camper, battery and the ProSine inverter easily powers the fridge. When I get to wherever I am going my beer is cold and the batteries are 100% SOC.
The AC heating element draws ~360W.
Cheers
-Mark

Chris Bryant wrote:
Cheaper and easier to just fix it on LP.

X2. They work better on LP anyway.

WE can drive our rig, with a Dometic refer., all day in AZ with the refer. turned OFF and have never even lost an ice cube! Save your $$ and try it!
Have been RVing since 1991 and have NEVER driven with refer. turned on!

My GoPower 300w has run my Dometic absorption fridge for extended periods before I could look at the propane issue. Solar kept the battery up just fine.

RoyB wrote:
That's a great idea. Thanks for the tip haha... I just happen to have a 600W MSW Inverter in my truck already under my back seat... I use it to grind my coffee beans to make coffee over the camp fire sometimes when its just me and my truck...

I sometimes bring along a second small dorm fridge with a freezer compartment that sits on my front deck of the trailer. My inside fridge doesn't have the freezer... This dorm fridge has a small compressor on it so I guess the MSW Inverter would run that ok???? maybe not...

Roy Ken

Maybe not, I found that a Samlex 600w Pure Sine wouldn't overcome the rotor lock of a new 1.7 cu. ft. dorm fridge. I replaced it with a 1000w Xantrex Prowatt Pure Sine and all is good.

Cheaper and easier to just fix it on LP.

That's a great idea. Thanks for the tip haha... I just happen to have a 600W MSW Inverter in my truck already under my back seat... I use it to grind my coffee beans to make coffee over the camp fire sometimes when its just me and my truck...

I sometimes bring along a second small dorm fridge with a freezer compartment that sits on my front deck of the trailer. My inside fridge doesn't have the freezer... This dorm fridge has a small compressor on it so I guess the MSW Inverter would run that ok???? maybe not...

Roy Ken

An alternative is a small inverter in the tow vehicle set up to only turn on when the ignition is on, and a path to get the AC power back to the RV.

Jim

Such an INVERTER pulling 350WATTS will probably draw around 30AMPS of 12VDC power from your batteries. You will need to have enough batteries to produce 30AMPS for the extended travel time which is alot of juice.

A typical Trojan 24TMX 85AH GP24 battery is stated to produce 12VDC @25AMPS for only 140 minutes (2.3 hours) before it will drain down. Adding a second GP24 battery will only increase this to 280 minutes (4.6 hours). Once the deep cycle batteries get drained real low and not re-charged right away they will start their internal self-destruct and may have to be replaced.

Not a good idea to me.... If your truck alternator could keep the batteries charged up going down the road it would be just fine. That would require beefed up Battery cables feeding the battery bank and probably a beefed-up truck alternator system. My rule number one is not mess with my truck systems as this is how I get back home.

Using propane to heat the ammonia in the RV fridge for cooling is probably the best idea for long term travel mode. Some folks seem to have problems using the PROPANE as the pilot light keeps blowing out of them when in travel mode.

I have run my small off-road POPUP fridge many times on 12VDC for a couple of hours short trip with my 255AH battery bank. Just keep in mind you need to keep the batteries re-charged back up to at least 90% charge state if they drop down to the 50% charge state. I usually do around 10 of these 50% to 90% battery three hour charge cycles using smart mode charging technology when camping off the power grid before running a full 100% charge which takes around 12-hours re-charge time. Doing these cycles keeps my batteries from going into self-destruct mode. If we are on a long trip I will usually turn on my small fridge about two hours from the camp ground so it will be cool when we arrive. We use our 5-day ice chest when in travel mode to keep things cool.

Just my thoughts

Roy Ken

Hi,

Thicker wire. #4 would be an excellent choice.