New 303RLS - Upgrades for Refrigerator

[howson]

...but no one has provided the solar specifications to power the refrigerator at a safe operating temperature.

For how long? A single specification is almost an impossible criteria to create due to the myriad variables associated with solar. Temperature, time of the year, shading of the panels, power draw from battery bank, how much "backup" time an individual requires should there be no solar power available, etc.

Let me hasten to add that I completely agree that a single 165W panel is no where near what is needed to keep a battery charged while running a full-size 12V refrigerator. Keeping the refrigerator going on a long tow day with a typical lead-acid "RV" battery will be a challenge if there's little to no PV ("solar power") being generated.

[gtippett]

I need to chime into this discussion..... I purchased the 2022, 303RLS the end of Dec. and have been in an ongoing discussion with Grand Design, Furrion and my Dealer.
I started my refrigerator at 11:00, placed some food in it and the next day at noon the unit had consumed 99amp hours of my lithium battery bank. This occurred on sunny, cloudless day's in Calif. Overnight lows were in the 30's with daytime highs in the 60's
Furrion's estimate of 150 amp hours per day is very close to right on. I have used the 303 on two additional trips and find the refrigerator to be a power hog. When accounting for shadows, season and the fact that the PV panels will be mounted flat, some studies have shown that we might need 600w of solar just to replenish the battery drawdown.
Grand Design told me that they have never made the claim that the Furrion Refrigerator and the 165w panel would allow you to park off the grid., but no one has provided the solar specifications to power the refrigerator at a safe operating temperature. Also, keep in mind that the max wattage of the Furrion solar controller is 600w. I think the days of camping with 400w of solar are long gone.
Good luck,

On The Fly, can you provide a little more detail as this is what I am looking for real world numbers, thank you. Did you have the fridge on off grid or what setting? What else did you have running off the battery, did u have the furnace running (8Ah). Are you running the stock Solar Panel/Controller? Did you have the panel is any shade during the day?

Based on the numbers I recently got from Furrion, the fridge should run closer to 84 Ah on moderate use. But they said that number will climb if the door is opened frequently, left open for a long time, or is stocked with warm items. They also said that depending on the starting temperature, the unit will run for approximately 2 hours at 10-15 Ah to get to temperature (so 20 A to 30 A there). In the end to be conservative, I would recommend anyone right now that is going to be taking this unit out dry camping, use the 150Ah/day.... we will get better numbers as we test these units... and bug Furrion for more information. By the way that 84Aish number was confirmed by Furrion testing... starting from warm it drained a 27 series battery (wet cell) at 23 hours.

[Cate&Rob]

[USER="11279"]... starting from warm it drained a 27 series battery (wet cell) at 23 hours.

Just a reminder that completely discharging a lead/acid battery will damage it. Most manufacturers recommend not discharging below 50% state of charge. Also, charging above 80% takes a long time. So . . . in reality if you have a 100 Ah Group 27 battery, you should try to live between 80% and 50% . . . or, 30Ah per battery. The new lithium battery technology dramatically increases this, but at a significant increase in cost of the batteries.

Rob

[On The Fly]

I was out, and several members have replied to my post.

I gathered the amperage numbers while the trailer sitting in a storage yard. The battery disconnect was off, so the only items powered other than the refrigerator were trivial as to total amp draw. The small number quoted by Furrion is if you set the refrigerator on Vacation Mode this uses less energy but the temperature is above Health Department standards so your food will spoil quickly. The 150amp per day draw is keeping the refrigerator at 40 degrees, which is the upper temperature limit for food safety. So, plan on the refrigerator using 150 amps per day.
I would suggest that anyone that purchases the sixteen cubic foot refrigerator have a minimum of two 165w solar panels and 200amp hours of usable battery bank. The problem with this approach is that you can than only add 330w of solar for your other needs before you max out the factory solar charge controller.
I needed this information prior to making the purchase. We love the 303 but this discussion should have taken place prior to purchase.

I hope I answered all questions

[gtippett]

On The Fly so I am going to run the fridge off grid for the first time tonight. I want to test it overnight as we are going on our maiden voyage this weekend. Our solar system has been installed (an additional 190w panel and 200AH Lithium batteries). I am going to run it on off grid overnight and bump it up to regular mode in the morning. It will be about 14 hours running with only late evening sun and early morning sun, so I am thinking it will drain about 80A out of the battery including other system draws. I see above you have left the battery disconnect off, I would assume I could do it that way without issues as well to reduce the draw to somewhere around 70A... thoughts?

[bellis]

I like oversizing the inverter and am not familiar with the settings on that brand....but I want to stress what has been stressed before - I doubt your batteries can keep up with the draw of the inverter....not to mention small 12VDC draws that may be occurring in addition to the inverter draw. A practical suggestion so as not to overload it would be to turn breakers off. I am assuming you are wiring it in to go from the inverter back to the breaker box and not to the refrigerator only. My inverter shuts off if low voltage is hit or if we try to over tax the 3000 watt inverter. Say if we try to run the AC/microwave/coffeemaker/electric hot water or any larger loads all at once. Depending on which 2-3 of them could throw an overload.

I get the money thing - try to get that third battery soon to be a better match to the inverter or try to find a way to limit it in the meantime.

[gtippett]

bellis completely understood. I have already designed the next upgrade and will be looking to do it after I test the system out. As for the fridge, it is just a 12 volt so the inverter will be off. in the short term, we will be limiting the inverter use to just the TV, a few plugs, a Keurig, and Microwave and only one large draw at a time. The oversized inverter was to be able to use the AC with the power share function on the inverter, which will not occur until we get the third battery. I will be getting photos of the install tonight and will be uploading it for comments shortly.

[gtippett]

Hey Everyone,

Update from this weekend. I tested out the 16 cubic foot furrion fridge prior to our trip and this is what I found out:

• With the battery disconnect on - so everything getting 12V, and the fridge in regular mode or off-grid the current draw was around 7.5amps. This was real time from my battery monitor. So close to the published numbers of 6.25amp/hr. I estimate based on the monitor that I have about 1.5amp of constant draw from the battery (TV antenna, sensors, compass connect, etc). Also the solar was producing about 0.5 amps, which is included in the above total.
• From 7pm to 8pm it used about 7amps in off-grid. Based on Furrion, it will run for about 2 hours to initially chill the fridge. So depending on the ambient temperature, they say it could use 30ah.
• From 7pm to 10am (15hrs) it used about 50amps in off-grid. Now I did have the solar on but the panels were not generating much as we were getting off and on showers and clouds. So based on what I was seeing on the monitor, the solar system was only producing what the fridge used and the fridge seems to run about 50% of the time (with the current ambient temperature of about 13C @ 10am).
• The amp draw for the off-grid and regular modes is the same. Just the cycles are different. So expect to hit the numbers by furrion when in regular mode.
• When on super chill, it reaches about 11amps (total draw including other rv draws).
• I would assume the only time the fridge would hit its maximum of 15-19amps is when the defrost was running . (guessing here)

During the above test the RV temp at start up was 26C and so was the Fridge. The overnight low it got to about 10C. So I think if we had warmer temps overnight, the fridge would be closer to the 80amps (off-grid mode with initial cool down of 2 hours).

In about 4 weeks we are going off grid with it, so I will update everyone again.

[gtippett]

Hey Everyone,

So just got back from our first boondocking trip. It was only a two night outing. The findings of the solar and battery system we installed is as follows (see post #1 for system details):

• With the three panels (Furrion solar controller with a 165W and 190W panels and a portable 130W panel on a separate PWM), it was able to keep up with the fridge and other usage (radio, lights, furnace and pump and inverter). We used everything but kept it to a minimum. However, that largest use was the pump, as we wanted to get enough volume in the black tank.
• First day we had the fridge on normal mode. After a four hour cool down period, we loaded a bunch of stuff in the fridge (wasn't pre-cooled, like beer). Also, due to the short trip... the fridge was quite empty.
  • Due to the lack of items in the fridge and warm items, I think the fridge ran a little more then usually over the first day as it had a large volume of stuff to chill, without a lot of products to hold that temperature (think thermodynamics).
  • But on normal mode, it kept the fridge in a range of 4 to 6 C degrees.
  • The net usage of the batteries was 75amps over a 24 hour period. I was happy with this.
• At the start of the second day, we ran the generator to top up the batteries as I wasn't expecting a good solar day (however that changed in the afternoon, the sun came out)
• The second day we switch the fridge to off-grid mode.
  • During this time the fridge was able to keep the temperature to 5 to 7 C degrees.
  • We ran the fridge like this for another 24 hours and the net battery usage was 40 amps.
• At the start of the third day (pack up day), the fridge started a defrost cycle. It draws about 17 to 19 amps during this time and it appears to run at least an hour (but not sure as it happened at the same time we brought the slides in).
• Over the three days, we didn't really get clear skies, so we topped out at about 20amps peak output from the solar panels. Based on the system, I was expecting a peak output of 25-30 amps.. (depending on what efficiency/loss number you put in the calculation), so close. Total solar output for day is unknown as I am unable to get this from my setup.