Life with a compressor fridge...

ticki2 wrote:
How much solar and battery would yo assign to the compressor fridge use ?

kohldad wrote:
How much other power do you use for lights, microwave, tv, heater, etc. Just wondering how much power is consumed by the fridge and how much by other devices.

The honest answers to these questions is I don't know!
It's not that I can't measure (I watch my TriMetric like a hawk), but there's just so many things happening at the same time... it's challenging to know exactly what each individual device is consuming each day.

In terms of consumption; We run the microwave several times a day (mostly at breakfast) and the inverter draws ~130A and we might run it for 8-12 minutes in total, the two roof-vent fans have been on nearly 24 hrs/day, the lights get left on all the time (I have kids), we listen to the radio, charge two laptops... and occasionally watch some TV.

On the charging side of things; The ~328W of solar can provide a charge current of about 20A depending on battery SOC, weather conditions, time of day, and how I'm parked. Also, we tend to drive a little bit every day or two and (again depending on SOC) the alternator often charges at >100A.

I would say that my 300A/h of AGM battery and 328W of solar is pretty close to the sweet-spot for my family's TC most of the time... it's more than enough in the summer regardless of weather conditions (not including A/C), and just barely enough in warm-winter weather.

To answer the original questions about the fridge... it draws ~5.8A and I'd guess that the duty cycle (in hot & humid Florida) is about 50%. So, let's call it 70 A/h per day.

Hope this helps.
Cheers,
-Mark