12/120V Portable Refrigerator/Freezer

[cscott]

Dometic CF-35 Refrigerator/Freezer​

Just purchased a Dometic CF-35 Refrigerator/Freezer to use on my 26M. I plan to set the temperature at 38 *F. I have following questions:
1) Does anyone know what duty cycle I might expect with ambient temp around 70 * F?
2) What current drain should I expect when it is running?
3) Would a 50 or 55 watt solar panel be adequate to keep battery charged? About 27 AH/day.
4) Answer to 1,2,3 if set to 0 *F
5) Anyone have curves of Duty Cycle vs ambient temperature at various set temperatures?
6) For those who have one of these 12/120V Refrigerator/Freezers, what temp do you normally set it to? How do you keep your battery charged?

Thanks for your inputs. Chuck

 

[doehunter]

Dometic CF-35 Refrigerator/Freezer​

Just purchased a Dometic CF-35 Refrigerator/Freezer to use on my 26M. I plan to set the temperature at 38 *F. I have following questions:
1) Does anyone know what duty cycle I might expect with ambient temp around 70 * F?
2) What current drain should I expect when it is running?
3) Would a 50 or 55 watt solar panel be adequate to keep battery charged? About 27 AH/day.
4) Answer to 1,2,3 if set to 0 *F
5) Anyone have curves of Duty Cycle vs ambient temperature at various set temperatures?
6) For those who have one of these 12/120V Refrigerator/Freezers, what temp do you normally set it to? How do you keep your battery charged?

Thanks for your inputs. Chuck

Congrats on your new fridge.
I bought the same one that Sumner has. It's a Edgstar 64.
I keep mine set about 28-34F.
I tested it last summer just sitting on my trailer. I had 2 group 27 batteries, and I have 100 watts of solar.
IIRC, it ran 5 or 6 days before I needed to put it back on shore power.
It was about half full of drinks, ambient was all over but I'm in Houston, so it could have been high 70's at night and 100 in the afternoon.
I believe mine pulls about 5 amps, and NO, one 50 watt panel will not keep up with it. Two of them gets close but I don't think it'll be enough.
For me it works out because I'm rarely on the water more than a few days.

 

[cscott]

Congrats on your new fridge.
I bought the same one that Sumner has. It's a Edgstar 64.
I keep mine set about 28-34F.
I tested it last summer just sitting on my trailer. I had 2 group 27 batteries, and I have 100 watts of solar.
IIRC, it ran 5 or 6 days before I needed to put it back on shore power.
It was about half full of drinks, ambient was all over but I'm in Houston, so it could have been high 70's at night and 100 in the afternoon.
I believe mine pulls about 5 amps, and NO, one 50 watt panel will not keep up with it. Two of them gets close but I don't think it'll be enough.
For me it works out because I'm rarely on the water more than a few days.

doehunter,
Thanks for reply. Mine is half the size as yours and Sumners, so will see what hapens. I am moored at a marina on the Columbia River now until last of August. Will put it on the boat Saturday. Will check battery than run it at 38*F and monitor Bat voltage. Will see how long it takes to run it down. Good way to test it. Our ambient is runing 80 to 85.

Take Care---Chuck

 

[doehunter]

doehunter,
Thanks for reply. Mine is half the size as yours and Sumners, so will see what hapens. I am moored at a marina on the Columbia River now until last of August. Will put it on the boat Saturday. Will check battery than run it at 38*F and monitor Bat voltage. Will see how long it takes to run it down. Good way to test it. Our ambient is runing 80 to 85.

Take Care---Chuck

It's even better if you can be on the boat for a few days, the the fridge stays full of beverages!

 

[cscott]

It's even better if you can be on the boat for a few days, the the fridge stays full of beverages!

doehunter,
Thats what I mean. I go down for about 3 days at a time. I will monitor run time over several hours to check duty cycle. I ordered a recording killowatt meter that records V, A, W over time. I should get it next week. I can check Duty Cycle, AH, etc with that.

Thanks---Chuck

 

[Sumner]

I think that the 50 watt panel might make 3-4 day trips possible and keep the batteries above 50% discharge, but it will be a loosing cycle and eventually the panel is going to loose out. 100-120 watts might work for an extended trip depending on your other uses.

In 7+ weeks 180 watts took care of over 95% of our needs, but we still ran the gen-set ...

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor/outside-13.html

about 3-4 hours total in that time to catch up a few times. We now have 200 watts on the Mac and I doubt we will need the gen-set much.

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor/inside-index.html

We keep ours about 37 deg. and add about 2-4 12 oz drinks a day that need to be cooled down from hot. I also run a CPAP machine for about 6 hours each night and that is about 9 amp/hr. The 12v computer was about 10 amp/hr a day (5 hours) if on anchor.

The fridge ran about 40% of the time in 75 to 90 deg. weather. Ours uses about 5 amps on start-up but seems to settle in on about 3 1/2 amps. I'll bet yours will be about the same and even though somewhat smaller I'll venture a guess that it will use close to the same amp/hrs from the studies I've seen. Ours is using about 35 amp/hr a day on the average.

Of interest is that the one....

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/endeavour-inside-mods/inside-index.html

...I made for the Endeavour is almost twice as big and has a freezer section but uses about 20 amp/hr a day but it has way more insulation....

I do know one thing and that is you will love it,

Sum

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[cscott]

Sumner,
Thanks for all the good info. I also have something else going for me. We generally Tie up at a moorage about every 3rd night where I can connect up to shore power and bring my batteries back up to full charge.

Again thanks for info.--Chuck