Switch to 12 volt fridge
I’m considering a switch to a 12 volt fridge. With “average” RV maintenance and repair abilities can I do this myself or would getting experienced help be necessary or wise?
Forum Discussion
Very thoughtful reply. Thank you. Will consider all your points but it’s a hobby and not all the RV decisions I make are practical.
Don’t confuse something being a little impractical with being the same as a bad decision all around.
Assume you mean 12v compressor fridge even though you didn’t specify.
Looking past your basic question of your handyman abilities being sufficient to do the work, are you set up for that fridge to run as long as needed on your camper’s power supply, or not concerns because it’s always on shore power?
If you’re prepared to power it, then yes it requires basic electrical knowledge and ability and the physical ability to RnR the units and secure the new one appropriately.
I will add a fourth 100 watt solar panel and been looking at 300+ amp Lithium battery. Found a “home” for my 200 amp Lithium with good people. 400 watts is the max for the MPPT I have.
And how long will that power the new fridge that uses more power than an absorption fridge and everything else?
300ah ain’t bad, but I think just the fridge and other basic power needs will put you pretty deep into the lower half of your battery capacity on a daily basis. And the charging via 400W solar only will not keep up.
Bring a generator!100 watts isn't going to do very much in the grand order of things, your going to gain an extra 5 amps for 3-4 hours during the day so at best you will see another 20ah provided by that. lets say it is a deicent compressor fridge on energy and you are going to consume 50ish more AH than you do now, and in hot weather up to 90AH so that means all four of your panels could very much be going to just maintaining the fridge, and could still fall short on a hot summer day.
this is what I ment by the other issues it causes doign a switch over and how the true cost is much mouch more.
how much power do you use right now with the adsorbtion fridge on propane, how long does your battery last? this is what has to be answered then you have to add the capacity based on that plus the adsorbtion fridge
now your solar controler, is that the max wattage in 12V or can you go more in serries 24V configuration, post the brand and model number of your mppt controler. for instance mine is almost doube the wattage if you do a 24V string. so on my 5th wheel for example, I am wanting to run the outdoor bar fridge 24/7 when I am camping. presently on a hot day I am losing about 20% of the capacity of the four 6V batteries that are in it with 480 watts of solar. so not this summer but maybe next, I am upgrading that to about 1200AH of LiFePO4, and then upgrading the 480watts of solar to about 1200-1500 watts. before I started trying to run the outdoor bar fridge my 480 watts of solar was good enough to have my batteries back at 100% shortly after noon and if I had a bad solar day or two I could recover 2 or 3 days of power in one day, running the fridge I was at 80% capacity by sun up so I was using all the output from the solar plus another 40ah.
so lots to think about. I size my LiFePO4 batteries and solar different than some people, I figure out my average usage in 24 hours and I size the battery to be able to do my normal lenght camping trip plus a day or two with out solar. then I size my solar to make up the overnight usage by noon. so ya the solar is more than you need to get by, but that way if you have 2 or 3 bad solar days you can make them up with one good one. solar panels are dirt cheep, you can buy 400-500 watt panels for less than 200 bucks if you shop around, for you if they will fit, I would recomend two 400 watt panelsthat way you are adding an extra 25ish amps of charging to what you have now, and that should maintain how you have been camping, plus give you an extra 100+AH of capacity a day which will cover your 12V fridge on the hottest days.
