Forum Discussion

Tequila's avatar
Tequila
Explorer
Jul 02, 2014

Outside kitchens

We have an outside kitchen. It has 70 Watt A/C only fridge in it. Today I rewired it so it is on a switch inside the camper and I plan to run it through a 400 Watt pass through inverter (that means when you have shore power you get shore power, when not you get inverter output. I have 2 high capacity golf cart batteries, but my thought is when on the road, that inverter should have no issue keeping that fridge operating. My truck also has dual alternators and there is 120 watts of solar on the roof. Anyone else ever done this?
Although I can get at my normal fridge with the slide in, its a hassle. My thought is when getting groceries on the move, I could simply use that outside fridge.

Been doing a lot of re-wiring to handle an inverter and separating stuff off onto new breakers, so only my bedroom outlets, bench seat & TV are off inverter power. I even found my microwave never had the ground hooked up. Odd for a company like Northwood to miss that one. Oh well they are human.
  • You'll have no problem.
    That is an insignificant amount of power for the alt to provide and there are thousands of small fridges like that running off of MSW inverters in similar applications for other RVers and truckers all across the nation.
  • Dually towing a short travel trailer! You know what it is to be prepared for anything!

    At least you could put in a 70 gallon auxiliary tank and not overload your truck.

    Most refrigerators require a pure sine wave inverter. Most modified sine wave inverters are not well matched to a high torque requirement of your refrigerator.

    The normal recommendation is to have the inverter located as close to the battery as possible (or practical). In my case, I wanted the inverter a little farther away, so #00 wire solved that problem.

    Your dual alternators are great. However the 200++ amps that they can put out - only about 5 or 6 amps will fit through the stock wiring to the trailer. You can fix this with a Anderson Connector, such as a 50 amp forklift connector with some #4 wire connected to that, and to a 100 amp relay under the hood, with a 60 - 100 amp automatic reset circuit breaker feeding all that wire.

    I connected my 130 amp alternator in my motorhome to the coach batteries via a 120 amp forklift relay with silver allow contacts, rated at 100,000 open/close relay life. Grainger part #6C017 about $30 when I bought mine a few years back.

    Great work on your RV! I will probably do the same thing - with a pure sine wave Trace or Outback inverter when I get a new RV in a few years.

    You can find low priced solar panels here. SunElec.com

    Fred.