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Old 07-06-2015, 09:18 PM   #1
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Refrigerator current draw

The Whirlpool fridge in our Legacy 340BH draws about 21 amps at ~ 13v as shown on the Inverter display. That's with the motor (compressor) running - which it seems to do most of the time. I shut down all of the other 110v circuit breakers so I can isolate the fridge.

Just checking to see if that's what others experience, in terms of current draw? Also, does your fridge compressor seem to run a lot?

Thanks.
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Old 07-08-2015, 01:02 PM   #2
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Make sure you have plenty of food or water in the fridge that will help to reduce the run time of the compressor. Without anything to absorb the cold generated, the fridge will run longer.
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Old 07-08-2015, 01:31 PM   #3
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21 amps seems REALLY HIGH.
I think a normal household type fridge is supposed to be around 8 amps and that would be starting amps.
Probably closer to 2- 5 amps running.

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Old 07-08-2015, 02:03 PM   #4
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But you need to adjust for voltage. The reading at the inverter panel is 21 amps at 13 volts, which is 273 watts. Thats the equivalent of a household fridge drawing about 3 amps at 110 volts.

I'm just curious what other Legacy owners are seeing at their inverter panel when their fridge is the only thing running.
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Old 07-08-2015, 02:06 PM   #5
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Missed the inverter panel.

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Old 07-12-2015, 10:15 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dgravlin View Post
But you need to adjust for voltage. The reading at the inverter panel is 21 amps at 13 volts, which is 273 watts. Thats the equivalent of a household fridge drawing about 3 amps at 110 volts.

I'm just curious what other Legacy owners are seeing at their inverter panel when their fridge is the only thing running.
That is exactly what we see when our fridge is running. As as in a previous post, the less air space in the fridge the less it runs. If you are on a short trip and need on a little food and will be dry camping, it might pay to fill a shelf or two with crumpled newspaper, or bubble wrap, anything to take up the air space. I have installed 500 watts of solar panels, which keeps up nicely with the fridge during the daylight hours.
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Old 07-14-2015, 11:36 AM   #7
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Would you be willing to share some details on your solar installation? Panels, wire routes, controllers, tying into the factory inverter, etc...

Thanks!
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Old 07-14-2015, 01:13 PM   #8
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Would you be willing to share some details on your solar installation? Panels, wire routes, controllers, tying into the factory inverter, etc...

Thanks!
Absolutely. I will put something together later today. Festival with dry camping in 3 weeks, will be there for 7 days, hope it all works well, good so far.
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Old 07-14-2015, 02:41 PM   #9
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Would you be willing to share some details on your solar installation? Panels, wire routes, controllers, tying into the factory inverter, etc...

Thanks!
Prepare for boredom!

I used Grape Solar for all components and installed 4 ea. 105 watt mono panels. I used a 25 amp. Blue Sky MPPT controller. (MPPT controllers are far superior to cheaper types regardless of brand or amp rating). I used a standard household 30 amp. disconnect type fuse box between the controller and batteries, (mainly because I had plenty of room and it was easy to obtain at Home Depot). I used 4 guage multi strand wire from the roof to the controller and ran the wires down the holding tank vent between the fridge and the bathroom. Drilled a hole in the vent (then resealed later) to exit the wires behind the bathroom drawer then on into the wet bay, out the back of the wet bay, over the top of the frame rails and into the battery box.

The inverter is not involved in a solar install since the panels are connected the controller, fuse, and straight on to the house batteries. The controller is mounted directly under the inverter on the front bulkhead in that compartment.

I mounted the panels on the roof with the brackets provided, butyl rubber double backed tape and one stainless #10 x 3/4" screw per bracket, then covered liberally with dicor sealant.

The downside of my install is that I have no ammeter to see what the panels are actually doing, however, this is the 5th system I have built and I usually find that to be a novelty more than necessity, we park where we park and the panels do what they do so I made the decision to do without this time. The voltmeter on the inverter panel gives a good enough assessment of battery condition for me.

There are a multitude of variations available, could install triple this much power if you wanted to but it seems to be adequate for our needs especially since we have auto gen start now just in case.

A few pictures attached, the one with the panels is not much (was under my RV cover doing the wiring)

The only thing I might change if doing this same job again, I might bite the bullet and put a hole in the roof near the LR corner, come through the bedroom cabinet, and into the air filter area then into the battery box. I would make some matching moulding to hide the 12" of wire in the bedroom. This would make the wire run much shorter and probably 10 hours less labor. I choose the more difficult route and it was a pain.

Hope this helps
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Old 07-16-2015, 08:18 PM   #10
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Thanks!
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Old 08-20-2015, 11:28 PM   #11
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Absolutely. I will put something together later today. Festival with dry camping in 3 weeks, will be there for 7 days, hope it all works well, good so far.
Our first dry camping festival was all OK. However, we did have to run the gen. more than I expected since it was the hottest 7 day stretch I have ever tried to dry camp. Was unbelievable, the fridge ran nearly all night trying to catch up with 100 degree temps during the day. We usually see high 70's near the beach in So. Cal., but all was well and all worked as expected. Solar system did keep up with the fridge during the day, with fantastic fan also on full speed.
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