Thor Forums

[Chance]

Originally Posted by dkoldman

Context:

....cut....

What happened: It worked; but the batteries only ran the 300watt(2.5 amps) Norcold fridge 2 hours before the generator kicked on as batteries had discharged to 12.0 volts. Nothing else relevant was running.

....cut..... If this holds, I think I will need to redo my test with the Norcold fridge on 1000watt inverter to see if it improves beyond the 2 hours.

Your 2.5 Amps is at 120 VAC, so roughly 25 Amps coming out of batteries at +/- 12 VDC to power inverter. If it ran for 2 hours, you may have pulled up to 50 Amp-hours, which is a lot from two small house batteries even if in great shape.

Bottom line is that running propane refrigerators from batteries is rarely a good idea unless it’s an all-out emergency. Running fridge from shore power or while driving so alternator can make up the +/- 25 Amps is different, but using batteries to create heat is not very efficient at all.