- Mar 13, 2010
- 250
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- Funster No
- 10,610
Dometic fridge
- Thread starter davejmobile
- Start date
The problem with fridges is they need some form of power, continuously, to stay cold. A standard leisure battery doesn't contain enough energy to run a fridge for very long.
The traditional solution is to use an 'absorber' fridge, that can be run on anything that can supply about 100W to 200W of heat. That can come from 240V AC mains, 12V DC battery or gas. The 12V DC is too high-powered to run from a battery, so it usually only runs from the alternator while the engine is running.
An AES absorber fridge will automatically select the power depending on what is available, which is great if that's what you want, but a real pain if it's not. Especially if there's no manual override option.
Now that many MHs have solar power, the alternative type, a 'compressor' fridge, is becoming more popular. The compressor can be a 12V type. Or even a 240V type, with a small inverter that changes 12V DC to 240V AC. Compressor fridges use less power than absorber fridges. Many people find that with 200 to 300W of solar and a couple of big leisure batteries they can keep the fridge going in Summer, and possibly Spring and Autumn as well.
Keeping a fridge going while off-grid is always going to be complicated, there's no easy solution.
There's a thread about converting an AES fridge to a compressor fridge, but if you want less complicated it's probably not for you
www.motorhomefun.co.uk
The traditional solution is to use an 'absorber' fridge, that can be run on anything that can supply about 100W to 200W of heat. That can come from 240V AC mains, 12V DC battery or gas. The 12V DC is too high-powered to run from a battery, so it usually only runs from the alternator while the engine is running.
An AES absorber fridge will automatically select the power depending on what is available, which is great if that's what you want, but a real pain if it's not. Especially if there's no manual override option.
Now that many MHs have solar power, the alternative type, a 'compressor' fridge, is becoming more popular. The compressor can be a 12V type. Or even a 240V type, with a small inverter that changes 12V DC to 240V AC. Compressor fridges use less power than absorber fridges. Many people find that with 200 to 300W of solar and a couple of big leisure batteries they can keep the fridge going in Summer, and possibly Spring and Autumn as well.
Keeping a fridge going while off-grid is always going to be complicated, there's no easy solution.
There's a thread about converting an AES fridge to a compressor fridge, but if you want less complicated it's probably not for you
Converting our 3 way fridge to compressor.
Been trying to keep busy over the last 2 days so I started my compressor project. Mainly to save gas and the inconvenience of filling up, the compressor fridge will run off solar easily but even if the battery gets a bit low you can fit a resistor to the controller so it will switch off at 11v...
www.motorhomefun.co.uk
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