The Norcold broke (again) and I am going with a Residential.

[bob_b1]

My Norcold 682 model has had the cooling unit replaced once, the eyebrow board once, the temp probe once and the ignition module twice. The ignition module is now shot and I refuse to put more good money into bad.

I found a Vassani 10-cu ft. model from Home Depot that will fit the opening. I bought a Xantrex 1000W modified sine wave inverter with remote power switch and bought a Xantrex Automatic Transfer switch.

Two Southco Grabber Catch Latches have been ordered (as per suggestions here) to keep the doors shut while underway.

A 3/8" gas cap and some wood trim were purchased from Home Depot.

I am hoping to use the existing 2-battery bank to power the fridge and am really looking forward to having a reliable fridge for a change.

The parts are all on order and I would like to tackle the project this weekend.

As there seems to be a lot of postings on the trim work for the fridge, I will try to post my experience on the setup involved prior to the fridge:

• The gas line will need to be capped.
• The inverter install.
• The transfer switch install.
• The removal of the old fridge.
• The sealing of the old vents (if necessary).

***Edit March 24 2014: As promised, I am posting a follow up. See my post from today.

[Gdetrailer]

Chris Bryant wrote:
I'll point out that the Norcold is twenty years old- I can guarantee that a residential model will not last anywhere near that long when used in an RV.
Just spend ~$100 on a Dinosaur board and be done wit it. Other wise, in another 20 years tell us how much you have spent on batteries, inverters, refrigerators, etc.

The OP over the years has put considerable amount of money into this money pit. Spending anymore on it is just plain wasteful at best.

Put it this way, for the money that was sunk into repairs the OP could have bought at least FIVE new home fridges. If each home fridge only lasted FIVE years each that is 25 years worth of fridges.

For some reason folks have a hard time parting with these fire breathing fridges.. :h

[Chris_Bryant]

I'll point out that the Norcold is twenty years old- I can guarantee that a residential model will not last anywhere near that long when used in an RV.
Just spend ~$100 on a Dinosaur board and be done wit it. Other wise, in another 20 years tell us how much you have spent on batteries, inverters, refrigerators, etc.

[crosscheck]

bob_b wrote:

MNtundraRet wrote:
With only 2 batteries you are going to be in for disappointment for any camping without shore-power. Especially with a 10 c.f. unit.

You are probably very right, but I have found another poster here that has had success using two batteries.

Here is why I think that it might work (check my math):
According to the yellow sticker, this Fridge uses 312kw/yr.
That is 312,000 watts per year.
That is 854.7 watts per day.
or 35.6 watts per hour
or .29 amps per hour (remember this thing isn't running all the time)
or 2.9 amp per hour at 12 volts.



One of those 12V overhead lights will suck down that much juice.

Running it for 10 hours over night should use 30 amp hours. My pair of batteries are rated at 245 amp hours or 123 usable amp hours. I think that I could make it work.

I'll find out soon enough, I'm sure:B

I have a 7.5cuft fridge that uses 4.6A when cycling on 12V.

You say 2.9A for a 10cuft unit. Better check your figures.

Dave

[time2roll]

Gdetrailer wrote:

smkettner wrote:
I would still get the ignition module and try to sell the Norcold in working condition.

:h

Wouldn't that be DECEITFUL?.

No.

Give full disclosure of repairs and history. But with an igniter you could at least show that the fridge currently works.

I don't know the cost of repair or the price of a used and repaired unit. If it is worth $100 more than the repair... I would go for it. It is coming out anyway.

Might even be enough to pay for the upgrade to a sine wave inverter.

[Gdetrailer]

pigman1 wrote:
The choice of an inverter is somewhat problematical. We have a Kitchen Aid 18 cu ft French door household fridge, and run it on a dedicated inverter. The refrigerator uses a conventional start setup with capacitors, and not the printed circuit board start setup. Accordingly, we run a Tripp Lite PV 1250 FC modified sine wave inverter. The surge ability on this unit is rated to surge to 1875Watts for up to an hour and 2500Watts for 10 seconds. This inverter has run my Kitchen Aid, a 16 cu ft chest freezer, and a 3 1/2 cu ft basement freezer, all at the same time and full of fish on the way down from Alaska this summer. When I made a mistake and caused all three units to start at the same time, we only saw a 90% load indicating on our monitor panel.

The PV1250 is a top notch MSW inverter which IS designed from the ground up to not only run inductive motor loads but to be able to START them.

It is a heavy duty inverter and uses an old school tried and true 60hz transformer which easily handles inductive loads. Cheaper more modern inverters skip the 60hz transformer in favor of cheaper high frequency chopper transformers which are smaller, lighter weight but simply do not have much reserve for the startup surges.

I have been using my PV1250 now for 6 camping seasons and so far no problems with the fridge running on it.

[Gdetrailer]

smkettner wrote:
I would still get the ignition module and try to sell the Norcold in working condition.

:h

Wouldn't that be DECEITFUL?

Spending money on junk to sell the junk at a higher price really seems to me purely a wrong thing to do.

If you are selling it then sell it AS IS UNREPAIRED for scrap prices otherwise set it out for the junk man and or put a free listing on CL for parts..

If I was a buyer and bought it with the idea that it was a GOOD WORKING PULL and went to the hassle of installing it and it failed shortly after I would be HIGHLY UPSET with the SELLER. Put yourself into this, wouldn't YOU be upset if it failed shortly after you install it and you paid more than you should have?

The OP has dumped a lot of money and time in repairs and it is a money pit, not worth the time or money, sometimes you just need to pull the life support plug..

[pigman1]

The choice of an inverter is somewhat problematical. We have a Kitchen Aid 18 cu ft French door household fridge, and run it on a dedicated inverter. The refrigerator uses a conventional start setup with capacitors, and not the printed circuit board start setup. Accordingly, we run a Tripp Lite PV 1250 FC modified sine wave inverter. The surge ability on this unit is rated to surge to 1875Watts for up to an hour and 2500Watts for 10 seconds. This inverter has run my Kitchen Aid, a 16 cu ft chest freezer, and a 3 1/2 cu ft basement freezer, all at the same time and full of fish on the way down from Alaska this summer. When I made a mistake and caused all three units to start at the same time, we only saw a 90% load indicating on our monitor panel.

[time2roll]

I would still get the ignition module and try to sell the Norcold in working condition.

[dave17352]

bob_b wrote:

MNtundraRet wrote:
With only 2 batteries you are going to be in for disappointment for any camping without shore-power. Especially with a 10 c.f. unit.

You are probably very right, but I have found another poster here that has had success using two batteries.

Here is why I think that it might work (check my math):
According to the yellow sticker, this Fridge uses 312kw/yr.
That is 312,000 watts per year.
That is 854.7 watts per day.
or 35.6 watts per hour
or .29 amps per hour (remember this thing isn't running all the time)
or 2.9 amp per hour at 12 volts.

One of those 12V overhead lights will suck down that much juice.

Running it for 10 hours over night should use 30 amp hours. My pair of batteries are rated at 245 amp hours or 123 usable amp hours. I think that I could make it work.

I'll find out soon enough, I'm sure:B

I think your fridge easily run overnight on your two batteries. Mine runs fine for 24 hours on my two interstate 75 amp hour marine rv batteries. I will go bigger for sure when time to replace though.

[MNtundraRet]

bob b:

Your refrigerator runs 24 hours per day. The sticker you used would account for that. Even using the calculations you gave the number would be 70 amps per 24 hour period. That's not accounting for inverter overhead or any other normal use.

That's why my standard 6 c.f. refrigerator only runs on 120v AC or propane.

Mark B. :B

[DryCamper11]

bob_b wrote:
I think that I could make it work.
I'll find out soon enough, I'm sure:B

1) Motors don't like non-sinusoidal waveforms. Make sure you get an inverter that produces true/pure sine wave, not modified, or you may overheat the motor coils or draw more power than you expect.

2) Figure in some losses for the inverter.

3) Don't rely too heavily on the factory AH specs for your batteries.

4) I'd want a generator and ideally an autostart feature that will start the gen when the inverter detects low battery voltage.

Your math was correct. The units were wrong (watt-hours and amp hours should have been used instead of watts and amps), but it makes no diff to your calculations.

I'm sorry to hear about your refer problems. I've used my propane refer happily for 40+ years. I had to replace the control board once and after 30 years, I left my RV keys with a repair shop when we had a problem at the start of a trip (full refer load of food) and they moved the RV to a non-level spot (after promising not to do that). I had to replace the damaged refer. Other than that, my only problem has been one replacement of the gas probe sensor and some yearly cleaning.

[bob_b1]

MNtundraRet wrote:
With only 2 batteries you are going to be in for disappointment for any camping without shore-power. Especially with a 10 c.f. unit.

You are probably very right, but I have found another poster here that has had success using two batteries.

Here is why I think that it might work (check my math):
According to the yellow sticker, this Fridge uses 312kw/yr.
That is 312,000 watts per year.
That is 854.7 watts per day.
or 35.6 watts per hour
or .29 amps per hour (remember this thing isn't running all the time)
or 2.9 amp per hour at 12 volts.

One of those 12V overhead lights will suck down that much juice.

Running it for 10 hours over night should use 30 amp hours. My pair of batteries are rated at 245 amp hours or 123 usable amp hours. I think that I could make it work.

I'll find out soon enough, I'm sure:B

[SWD]

Could go for a 12v compressor fridge/freezer.

[MNtundraRet]

With only 2 batteries you are going to be in for disappointment for any camping without shore-power. Especially with a 10 c.f. unit.

If you stick to shore-power you will be happy. I just hope they come up with something better before my current 6 c.f. unit goes belly up. We can deal with the thermistor sometimes acting up and leaving the unit running "always on" by just turning off for about 4 hours, and then restarting.

[bob_b1]

dave17352 wrote:
I would switch that inverter out for a 2000 watt.

That is good advice. I must have got lucky. I just looked up the specifications on the 1000W inverter and it has a 2000W surge capacity. So I should be good.