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morphrider's avatar
morphrider
Explorer
Aug 11, 2021

2021 Coleman lantern edition 285BH

Did a walk through of a 285BH tonight as we are in the process of selling ours. Salesperson mentioned fridges are ran off the batteries, which are charged via a 160 watt solar panel on the roof. Now that I am home looking through specs, it has a charging port, nothing stating a panel on the roof from factory. Does anyone have one that can confirm? Otherwise I will know more tomorrow after more talks with the dealer.
  • We ended up getting a 2019 Grand Design 2800BH. It had the 2 way fridge and so much nicer inside.
  • Relying on roof-mounted solar panels to keep a high-drain appliance (like a DC-powered fridge) working is a dicey proposition.

    Typically, at a campsite, you want to park your RV in the shade to keep the interior from getting too hot. You can't do that and still get any power output from roof-mounted solar panels.

    That's one of the reasons I've decided that portable, ground-mounted solar panels are much more practical (even though they're inconvenient to set up and more vulnerable to theft).
  • We mainly boondock. My current trailer we are selling has the typical 2 way fridge, so we run the propane for that. I added a 100 watt solar panel and 2 T-105 batteries and never have any issue with electrical needs. But the more and more I dig into the 12volt fridges, they are primarily for shore power it seems. I talked to the salesman again who stated there is a solar panel on top, the charge controller was supposed to be in the storage bay, which I don't recall seeing while I was looking at the unit. I asked them to send me a pic of that and they were also looking if they have a 2 way fridge option. This at the time of typing was 3 hours ago, not thinking there is a charge controller. But then they were also stating this fridge can run for 3 days on these batteries before batteries need charged. After doing more and more research I am just not buying that pitch. Everything I see shows it will drain these batteries in 6-12hours, and this unit has a smaller outside fridge. It would need a lot of solar and a big battery bank to maintain this. I am passing on the unit.
  • I looked through the Coleman (Dutchman) website and came away with more questions than answers. The lantern package does mention a residential fridge which runs off 120v. It will run off the battery (ies) but only through an inverter (12v to 120v).
    Is the inverter included? Batteries? Solar charging salesman mentioned it.
    I couldn’t find any info on these in the website. How are you going to be using the unit, always hookups with electrical, only need batteries between home and campsites or a lot of boondocking?

    Ken