Time to swap the Refrigerator?

With Lithium batteries and solar I do think it’s time for you to consider switching to a 12 volt fridge. It’s on my horizon.

You camp unlevel?

I will never own another RV that does not have a compressor refrigerator ! Whether it is AC only DC doe not matter much to me.

I swapped the absorption fridge in my van to a NovaKool compressor and I will do in my class c even without lithium batteries. It’s night and day if you do it right, and the factories rarely do. You might also see if J.C. Refrigeration makes a conversion kit for your present unit. That’s the route I’m going in my c because the present fridge fits so well and ‘d have to remove a window to get it out.

2oldman wrote:
You camp unlevel?

Camp or park?
Can see where parking somewhere for a day could be an issue but TC on truck is pretty easy to level up in my experience.
But these threads are useless without parameters.
Un level like on a 4:1 slope or un level like 3 deg off.

I’ve never owned an AF camper that was less than about 10 years old and the fridges always worked fine, so maybe it just needs repair?

My Dometic gas refer works just fine. I don't see the need to have to feed electricity to a compressor.

Grit dog wrote:

2oldman wrote:
You camp unlevel?

Camp or park?

Perhaps I misunderstood that meant a campsite. If just for intermittent parking, simply turn off the gas refer.

2oldman wrote:
You camp unlevel?

I will confess, I never cared if I was off level when camping. Ya I get close but never bother blocking tires or running jacks down. I had a class C with a 7cu/ft dometic fridge that never gave me a bit of problems and I never tried to level that rig.

I had read that they needed to be level, but just assumed that was a "suggestion".

I spent this trip measuring every low storage spot to see just how many Ah I could fit. Seems like I can easily add 600Ah and only use up one storage hatch. I can probably fit 4-500 watts of solar on the roof, and my truck has the super duper alternator for charging on the road. We often camp in RV parks so charging batteries each night is easy. We like to go explore and on this trip visiting my kid in Colorado, we use it for everything. Probably ran the generator in places it was frowned on but when you need a microwave .....

The fridge is a big problem right now. It was hit and miss if it would cool, and clearly needs attention. As it does not use DC, I will be looking at the suggested retrofit options, and if necessary will replace it.

I would also like to lessen my need for propane. I have two 30lb bottles that are a bit heavy to lift that high. I would prefer to gt by with one or two 20lb bottles.

Thanks for all the support!

eric1514 wrote:
I swapped the absorption fridge in my van to a NovaKool compressor and I will do in my class c even without lithium batteries. It’s night and day if you do it right, and the factories rarely do. You might also see if J.C. Refrigeration makes a conversion kit for your present unit. That’s the route I’m going in my c because the present fridge fits so well and ‘d have to remove a window to get it out.

I see they have a kit for my norcold N8XL. I thought it would be AC/DC but now see they just build DC or AC. Seems a DC unit would be the smart move. Still at the cost, I will look at DC fridges too. Getting it out of my door looks easy enough.

Thanks for the tip!