Residential Fridge Cool Down on Batteries

wowens79 wrote:
Just upgraded to a TT from a Popup, and getting ready for our maiden voyage.

We have a Residential Whirlpool Fridge, with 2 group 24 deep cycles. I keep it in storage, so I don't have shore power. Will it run 5-6 hours on the batteries? It will be 90 degrees or so. I know I'll be ok while traveling with the truck recharging the batteries, but I'm concerned about the initial cool down.

I hate (and the HOA) to bring it over the night before since it takes up the whole driveway, and is a pain.

I can swing by the camper and turn it on in the morning, or lunch time, if the batteries can handle it.

My 10 cu ft residential fridge has no problem cooling down to normal fridge temps (34-36 F)within ONE cooling cycle. The first cooling cycle is typically about Compressor ON for 30 minutes and then OFF for 20-25 minutes.. Then the next cycle and beyond for 22 minutes ON and 38-40 minutes off.

I don't notice much difference in On/Off cycles from 70-90 F inside temps.

Most likely your two group 24 batts should give you about 5-8 hrs run time I would think. I run one pair of GC batts (a bit more capacity than your setup) and have no issue running around 12hrs without recharging and most likely could go a bit longer.

Just be aware that your tow vehicle most likely will not be able to fully recharge your rather depleted batteries while driving.. The Charge line from the vehicle might be able to supply 5A-10A of charge but that isn't going to be a lot of energy put back in to the batteries and would take many hrs of driving at that rate.

My suggestion would be to do a "dry run", assuming you are camping with shore hookups simply turn off the converter and see how long you can get before the low battery alarm on the inverter turns on (or monitor the battery voltage under load until you get to no lower than 11V).. Then turn on converter and allow lots of time for the converter to recharge the batteries..