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Old 01-20-2014, 02:29 PM   #1
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Refrigerator

I just got a rockwood mini lite. Kind of curious how long the fridg would work when only on LP? A secondary question, would it be recommended to go to two batteries? Thanks Al
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Old 01-20-2014, 02:52 PM   #2
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Just the fridge uses 1500 BTU per hour, gallon of LP is 91,500 divide by 1500 = 61 hours per gallon. A 20# cylinder holds 4.2 gallons full, 61 x 4.2 = 256 hours per tank. You biggest issue will be 12 volts. Of course any other gas appliances will reduce your run time
Hope this helps
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Old 01-20-2014, 03:15 PM   #3
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I just got a rockwood mini lite. Kind of curious how long the fridg would work when only on LP? A secondary question, would it be recommended to go to two batteries? Thanks Al
If you plan to do any amount of camping without electric hookups, a second battery is a great upgrade. The high end is a pair (or even 2 pairs) of 6V golf cart batteries. Trojan is probably the most mentioned brand.

However, if you just bought a new trailer, you should have a new 12V battery. What we did, and were very pleased with, was just bought a second, matching 12V battery from the dealer. The key with 2 batteries is they need to be the same type, size & condition. With this setup, you only have to buy one battery (about $100) vs buying 2 6V's that can be $300 or more for a pair.

As the earlier post mentioned, the propane will last days or probably weeks, depending on hot it the ambient temp is, but a single battery may only go 2 days depending on what else is drawing from it.
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Old 01-20-2014, 03:50 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by gasman6674 View Post
Just the fridge uses 1500 BTU per hour, gallon of LP is 91,500 divide by 1500 = 61 hours per gallon. A 20# cylinder holds 4.2 gallons full, 61 x 4.2 = 256 hours per tank. You biggest issue will be 12 volts. Of course any other gas appliances will reduce your run time
Hope this helps
You also have to keep in mind that the gas usage is only when the burner is working which is maybe 5 or 10 minutes an hour depending on how often the door is opened. With 2 fans inside the frig and 2 outside on the coils, ours only fires the burner about 10 minutes every 2 -2.5 hrs.
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Old 01-29-2014, 08:01 PM   #5
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Note the 256 hour calculation for propane use in the frig assumes the frig runs 24 hours a day. I reasonable weather it would probably be closer to 50% usage. The circuit board draws about 1.3 amps. If you know your battery capacity you could figure out battery life. A good 24 series deep cycle battery will run about 17 hours with a 5 amp draw so you are looking at somewhere around 75 hours. At that point you have reached 50% battery capacity and it should be charged but it will provide power for a longer period.
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