How much battery & solar is needed for a 12-volt refrigerator (Live Webcast)

A report by Tony Barthel from Stressless Camping and a Live Webcast Announcement

Everyone,

Since Tony Barthel (from Stressless Camping) and I will be attending and teaching seminars at the FROG Rally in August, we’ve been comparing notes on how long our Mastervolt Solar/Battery/Inverter systems will power appliances. While it’s fun (and expensive) to run an air conditioner from battery and solar power alone, a more modest and useful number would be to determine how much solar and battery is needed for 12-volt DC refrigerator operation.

Live Webcast comming soon

Tony and I have done a number of live webcasts together, and I think this is a great topic. While I have a lot more bench testing experiance on battery power, Tony has a ton of road experience on 12-volt refrigerator power he can bring to the party. We don’t have a firm date and time scheduled just yet, but it will be sometime in the next few weeks. So stay tuned for an announcement soon.

Here’s Tony’s latest article on 12-Volt DC refrigerator battery usage

How long can I run my RV fridge on battery?

How much power does it take to run your RV’s refrigerator? How long can your RV’s 12 volt fridge run on battery power alone? How much solar do you need to run an RV fridge? I wondered myself and thought I’d conduct a test to see just what it takes to run our RV’s 12 volt fridge.

The refrigerator in question is the Magic Chef MCDCR10DSBMFB. This fridge has some neat features including the fact that the door opens from either the left or the right. No, you don’t have to re-hang the door - there’s a handle on either side - pull the right side, the fridge opens from the right. Pull the left side - the fridge opens from the left.

There have been RV fridges that worked like this for a little while but this is a newer design that won’t let you accidentally engage both latches and have the door fall on the floor. That’s a plus.

This also has a bottom drawer-style freezer which has a decent amount of space in it. With digital controls you can set the temp of the fridge and freezer separately, also nice.

Read the rest of Tony’s article HERE.

Back to me…

Please leave the questions you would like Tony and me to cover during our webcast in the comments below.

Let’s play safe out there… Mike