ewarnerusa wrote:
Chum lee wrote:
As previously hinted at, if you have a 2/3 way absorption type fridge, why not divert the excess power generated to that and save some propane? Clearly, if you have a 2 way fridge, you'll need an efficient inverter capable of generating at least +-500 watts on a duty cycle of at least 50%. Just keeping your 1500 watt PSW inverter online full time may be enough to waste enough excess power to solve your issue doing nothing else. IMO, 280 watts of solar wont be enough to run the fridge full time, but hey, it's a start. You'll be spending a lot of time doing load management.
Chum lee
A different take on this idea^^ I wonder if instead of a 12V water heater element I could explore a refrigerator 12V element? Is there harm in adding variable/inconsistent heat (less than the OEM 300 watt AC power element) to the ammonia in an absorption fridge? This is just a brainstorm, I definitely don't want to swap out the AC side of the fridge.
EDIT: I clearly don't know exactly how the ammonia is heated in an absorption fridge, just that this is part of the process. But first google search showed a promising success for a similar idea. This is a Dometic fridge, mine is Norcold. https://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f8/adding-12v-heating-element-to-rm2510-fridge-16224.html
my 3 way on 12V is 12 amps. thats a lot of power to be chucking out for the return on propane savings.. I can go probably between 1 and 2 months on just my fridge with a 20lb bottle, but as soon as your solar stops producing over the amprage for the 12v heater then you have to turn your fridge back to propane or you start eating battery capacity. Idealy you want somthing that you don't have to interact with in my opinion. the hot water element would be great, in my case the space heater would be good but in the summer you would have to be able to turn it off and you would still be not using all your potential when its hot... maybe a combanation of the water heater and space heater so you can use which ever one you want.
Steve
