Portable ice maker for RV.
Wife wants a portable ice maker for the trailer and asked if I'd research.....I know the perfect place, HERE. lol She's tired of the ice demand while camping and I ain't buying a Yeti. Will they...
Forum Discussion
Gdetrailer wrote:ktmrfs wrote:philh wrote:ktmrfs wrote:
when boondocking we run it off the inverter as needed. We bought the smallest one we could get.
the one we have makes plenty of ice and the cubes seem to work just fine keeping the coolers cold.
How big is the inverter?
1000W, but most of the portable icemakers only draw maybe 100-15W W peak. IIRC mine draws a little over 1A based on the nameplate.
Next, there are only a few mfg of the ice makers. Most are just branded with dozens of other names. Heir (sp?) is one of the main mfg.
That 1A, is at 120V, turns into 10A-11A at 12V per hr when running. Startup surge will be 8 - 10 times the run current so startup surge can be as much as 100A-110A at 12V.
Ours pretty much never stops running unlike a home fridge conversion so your looking at needing close to 264Ahr of battery capacity per 24 hrs of operation for boondocking.. If the fan is running, so is the compressor.. Will take a lot of solar, battery and or generator for boondocking, plan accordingly.
We only use ours when camping with shore power.
inrush on ours is around 3x running current, has a decent compressor motor. I have 500W max of solar and can run the ice maker enough each day to keep us supplied with ice and still keep the batteries near full charge.
