AC Fridge In Campervan -.Power Consumption Test

[Duckato]

Now why didn't I think of doing that
Off to Amazon I go.........

My fridge was moved into our Bedroom this afternoon so it will get a few days of "is it annoying whilst sleeping" testing
I had in running in our conservatory yesterday and I did find the Inventor surprisingly quiet

All I can so is so far it has been £35 well spent!

 

[wildebus]

Now why didn't I think of doing that
Off to Amazon I go.........

My fridge was moved into our Bedroom this afternoon so it will get a few days of "is it annoying whilst sleeping" testing
I had in running in our conservatory yesterday and I did find the Inventor surprisingly quiet

All I can so is so far it has been £35 well spent!

£35 for the Fridge? how come?

I added a fan pointing at the compressor which comes on in high temps and I can hear that fan over any Fridge noises.
The Fridge is only on for about 12 minutes every 100 minutes or so overnight as well - and at 32W when running (ignoring inverter losses) the efficiency is amazing! the Lightbulb in it adds 25% to the running costs while the door is open

 

[Duckato]

My Fridge is brand new but it looks like it was used as a Football it has quite a few dents in it!
I just happened to have been directed to your blog post by @trevskoda and just happened to notice one on Ebay at the same time et Viola!

I just bought a Victron Inverter from http://www.onboardenergydirect.co.uk/
Using Jonos 15% Discount code which made it significantly cheaper than both Amazon and eBay.

So I now have my Fridge sorted total cost £180 thanks to you
I will buy you a beer if we ever get to meet or you can wild camp in my field one day (Mud permitting i.e not in the Winter) if you don't mind the odd inquisitive Chicken or three

 

[wildebus]

My Fridge is brand new but it looks like it was used as a Football it has quite a few dents in it!
I just happened to have been directed to your blog post by @trevskoda and just happened to notice one on Ebay at the same time et Viola!

I just bought a Victron Inverter from http://www.onboardenergydirect.co.uk/
Using Jonos 15% Discount code which made it significantly cheaper than both Amazon and eBay.

So I now have my Fridge sorted total cost £180 thanks to you
I will buy you a beer if we ever get to meet or you can wild camp in my field one day (Mud permitting i.e not in the Winter) if you don't mind the odd inquisitive Chicken or three

When you check the reviews for the Fridge, there is one recurring theme .... damage on delivery
The first one I got had a damaged door at the bottom and cracked salad tray. They sent me a replacement straight away and told me to throw the old (brand new) one away! Fixed the door and sold it on for £70.
It's a cracking fridge for house or camper

 

[wildebus]

After updating my Inverter Setup over Christmas, I am able to see very clearly the power the Fridge is using and thought I would post an update to let people see just how much energy is being used by it ….


Fridge Running by David, on Flickr
When the fridge is in use, it pulls around 34Watts, and it is on for a total of 3 hours per 24 Hour Period, so that is just 100Wh per day.
When running from an Inverter, there are conversion overheads when running of course, but I have put the inverter in the "AES" Energy Saving Mode, which means it comes on every few seconds to look for a load and then goes off again if none there -this results in an additional power usage in the 24 hours of something like 10Wh in total.

 

[trevskoda]

I just bought a new unused we fridge of a lady for £50,it does have a we ice box,so next step will be a we test before fitting if all is as above posts,dont like the idea of a open flame behind 3 way fridge with batterys 6 inches away in next cupboard.

 

[Duckato]

I have just bought a smaller inventor (still A++) for my other van.
I reckon the combined savings compared to horrendously expensive 12V fridges has now paid for our Awning and Cooker (which were also horribly over priced)

 

[Squiffy]

Did he invent perpetual motion generator for you then Duckato. Phil

 

[trevskoda]

This is what i got el cheapo never used £50

 

[wildebus]

Looks decent. Being A+ it will be less efficient then the A++ models but still do the trick I am sure.
You might want to get the Victron 500W Inverter on a sale/return basis just in case as the peak could be higher than 900W on an A+ Fridge? Maybe consider the 800W unit instead?

 

[trevskoda]

Im going to do some tests at weekend with a standard mod inverter 600w just to see if it starts,fingers crossed.

 

[Wissel]

One small thing I found using a 500w inverter (same setup as @wildebus originally used), was it worked much better if the inverter was switched on before the fridge was plugged into it.

It was only once, but I'd disconnected the battery with a cut-off switch. When I switched it all back on, the inverter came up with a load error. A quick unplug of the fridge, inverter off then on, then fridge plugged back in and all fine. Apart from that I had it running continuously for about 6 months without issue.

 

[wildebus]

One small thing I found using a 500w inverter (same setup as @wildebus originally used), was it worked much better if the inverter was switched on before the fridge was plugged into it.

It was only once, but I'd disconnected the battery with a cut-off switch. When I switched it all back on, the inverter came up with a load error. A quick unplug of the fridge, inverter off then on, then fridge plugged back in and all fine. Apart from that I had it running continuously for about 6 months without issue.

That's interesting. When I first did my testing of the setup I didn't think having the inverter in ECO (so essentially off) worked with the Fridge. I can't recall exactly what it was that made me conclude this, but later on I found the ECO mode did actually work fine with the fridge.
the compressor on-surge is close to the peak capability of the Victron 12/500 inverter (400W normal, 900 Peak, ~1400W overload?) Maybe the compressor was stuck ina one-off situation?
I'm running the Multiplus in AES mode which is essentially off except for a split second every few seconds and working nicely (But it is a much larger inverter than the 12/500 as I conslidated my twoi inverters to a single unit)

Im going to do some tests at weekend with a standard mod inverter 600w just to see if it starts,fingers crossed.

Trev. Just a heads up ... the Victron Inverters are quite unusual with how they deal with peak surges from Compressors (they are actually specifically designed to manage that situation) and your 600W inverter may well not run your little fridge (or more specifically start it) - but it doesn't mean neccessarily that the Victron 12/500 (a 400W inverter) will not. Check my post here for more info - http://www.motorhomebuilder.com/threads/selecting-the-right-inverter-for-an-ac-fridge.66501/

 

[trevskoda]

Well my we el cheepo standard inverter is running the fridge 100% from about 11am this morning with some of and ons,it goes into a sleep moad using almost nout on a ammeter,voltage from 13.7 down to just above 12v on first cycle to get fridge down to almost 0c ,it then holds a long time to fridge rises to just above 2c and on its comes for around 8mins run time,and only has done a few on ofs so far.
I have also connected a small 2 ah smart charger to batts and it has it up to float long before compressor starts,so im thinking my 200w of solar and two 90ah batterys are going to be no prob to this we baby.
Tomorrow im going to try a smaller inverter just to see how low a unit i can go,cheers for all info i have received so far.

 

[wildebus]

Well my we el cheepo standard inverter is running the fridge 100% from about 11am this morning with some of and ons,it goes into a sleep moad using almost nout on a ammeter,voltage from 13.7 down to just above 12v on first cycle to get fridge down to almost 0c ,it then holds a long time to fridge rises to just above 2c and on its comes for around 8mins run time,and only has done a few on ofs so far.
I have also connected a small 2 ah smart charger to batts and it has it up to float long before compressor starts,so im thinking my 200w of solar and two 90ah batterys are going to be no prob to this we baby.
Tomorrow im going to try a smaller inverter just to see how low a unit i can go,cheers for all info i have received so far.

Sounds very promising, Trev. Keep us posted

 

[trevskoda]

Here is the inverter used on ebay for little money,it goes into a sleep mode when not working so must be load sensitive.

So far test with battery charger connected to two 90ah batterys the charger when fridge and inverter on load shows 4ah pull for 8 mins,next il try and see how many times in a hr it runs.

 

[wildebus]

Here is the inverter used on ebay for little money,it goes into a sleep mode when not working so must be load sensitive.

So far test with battery charger connected to two 90ah batterys the charger when fridge and inverter on load shows 4ah pull for 8 mins,next il try and see how many times in a hr it runs.View attachment 1139

Be interesting to see what size load wakes it up. if you say plug in a 240V USB Phone Charger will that come on?
It sounds decent enough but I would consider aspects like heat and noise as well - most inverters are not dsigned to be powered for 100% of the time (even if mostly in a sleep mode).

 

[trevskoda]

Well fridge has been running all day on one battery with a 4ah numax charger linked,this is what im hoping i will get from 200w of solar at worst,voltage at start is 14.3 dropping to 12.3 when fridge cuts out and inverter goes into standby,fridge holding 0c to just above 2c when requiring boost,this is all tested in garage at 8/10c ,so next test will be to heat garage to 25/30c to emulate summer time temps in van.

 

[trevskoda]

Be interesting to see what size load wakes it up. if you say plug in a 240V USB Phone Charger will that come on?
It sounds decent enough but I would consider aspects like heat and noise as well - most inverters are not dsigned to be powered for 100% of the time (even if mostly in a sleep mode).

My phone chargers work of 5v usb sockets in van which are linked to batterys and use almost nothing,tv if used may cause probs.

 

[wildebus]

My phone chargers work of 5v usb sockets in van which are linked to batterys and use almost nothing,tv if used may cause probs.

Trev, I am sure they do as does everyones in their vans. I meant it as a test to determine what wakes the Inverter up.

For example, I have set up my inverter so it wakes up when the Fridge Compressor starts but it won't wake up when the fridge door is opened and the little light comes on....