Quote:
Originally Posted by Chance
Lights yes, fridge no.
Your motorhome should have a propane refrigerator which can operate on electricity, but if you try that, it will require around 300 Watts of power (more or less). Absorption refrigerators are not very efficient when running on electricity.
With 100 Watts of solar panels, on a good day, you may get enough electricity to power an absorption fridge an hour or two. I would not even try it. Leave the fridge on propane unless you’re connected to shore power, or are driving and your batteries are already 100% charged (in which case alternator can run fridge while driving).
Refrigerators designed to run on minimum of electricity so they can operate on reasonable amount of solar are compressor refrigerators (similar to residential) and not absorption, which uses electricity to make heat in place of propane flame.
The most efficient compressor refrigerators run directly off 12V battery so they don’t even require an inverter. Your motorhome model suggests you have a propane absorption fridge, and if so, I would not try boondocking on electricity. It’s not worth the tiny bit of propane you’d save.
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Sounds to me like there's a mis-understanding...
His Fridge is a propane or electric Dometic (I believe).
And, unless he added an integrated inverter to his electrical system that can run the fridge, he can only run the fridge on electricity if he's plugged into shore power or he's running the generator. Otherwise, the fridge runs on propane (using very little battery, as someone above referenced).
So, the 100 watt panel will be more than enough to keep your one house battery charged (during day-light hours), while also charging the chassis battery.
And while sitting at night without shore power or generator, your fridge will be running on propane and you should have plenty of juice to hold you until the next day.
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