Life with a compressor fridge...

brholt wrote:
Nice report, thanks.

I guess the key is the effectiveness of the solar. Up here in the Pacific Northwest I find my 150 W solar panel basically does nothing this time of year what with the clouds and rain, low angle of the sun, and trees.

I had my camper built with a Dometic compressor fridge and 135 watts of solar. Love not having to worry about leveling when I pull over just to fish for a few hours and can still come back to a cold fridge. But that 135 W just wasn't enough to keep up with the fridge unless all days were very sunny. I added a second 140 W panel for 275W total and things worked MUCH better. I could actually go a day or two of light overcast without the fridge shutting down due to low battery. Come spring I plan to replace the existing panels with Renogy so I'll have a total of 400W. That should make extended stays in the boondocks very comfortable.

To be honest I'm satisfied with the 275W but the Adventurer is a 7' wide camper and the two Kyocera panels are too wide for a roof A/C. Don't remember who originally pointed the forum to the Renogy panels (Thanks whoever you were) but they're just the ticket to allow space on the roof for A/C and they'll fit perfectly on either side of the Heki hatch on the cabover, so I'm loading up. Now I just have to decide what to do with those spare Kyocera panels...