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Subject Topic: Solar panel, leisure battery and fridge
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Personkittykat87
via mobile 23/6/2019 at 10:59am
 Location: Kent
 Outfit: Pennine Pullman 535 View kittykat87's Profile View Profile   Reply to kittykat87 Reply   Quote kittykat87 Quote  
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Hi back again,

New and extremely naive.
We had high hopes for our FC, as we are camping up in the Glastonbury fields for 10 days without access to mains hook up we decided to invest in a solar panel to enable us to keep our drinks cool and phones charged.

We have since discovered that the fridge doesnt run from the leisure battery :-(

We are now in possession of a fairly expensive phone charger.

Has anyone had any experience getting their fridge to run from their leisure battery and solar? Any tips welcome.

I am aware that the fridge would drain the battery a lot overnight but hoped the solar panel would charge it back up during the day.

Thanks

Kat


Persongedsjeep
23/6/2019 at 11:18am
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is it the fridge that was originally in the 535?

if so, it will run on gas.


PersonHelen04
via mobile 23/6/2019 at 11:53am
 Location:  Hinckley Leicesters
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Can you not run the fridge off the gas?

-------------
Helen


Personkittykat87
via mobile 23/6/2019 at 12:04pm
 Location: Kent
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We are going to attempt it. We tried last night and couldn't get it to start.

We were struggling to get gas as apparently there is a shortage of 4.5kg.

We also liked the idea of the renewablity of the solar panel.


Persongedsjeep
23/6/2019 at 1:15pm
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you have two choices here to run the fridge.

some sort of EHU, either mains or generator or gas.

i wouldnt take a genny to glastonbury, coz it wont last 5 mins.

so that leaves gas.

have you had a gas service since you bought it?


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Personspiritburner
via mobile 23/6/2019 at 1:24pm
 Location: N.E. England
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With our 12v compressor fridge on its warmest setting we find our leisure battery & 150w solar will run it fine. Not done it for more than a couple of days yet as still fairly new. On its coldest setting leisure battery cut out early evening. I was chilling beers & forgot to turn it up. So cold we had ice in the fridge section. You'd need a lot of juice to do that with absorption type fridge.


Personkittykat87
via mobile 23/6/2019 at 1:42pm
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The whole thing was serviced last month, a pipe has been replaced on the gas to fridge.

We still don't really have enough gas to run it due to not being able to get another gas bottle.

The issue is that the fridge doesnt take any power from leisure battery. I didn't know if there was a way around this so that it would take power from the leisure battery. We brought a fairly hefty solar panel for this purpose.

It is the original fridge. 3 way Electrolux


Personnavver
23/6/2019 at 10:43pm
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You have 2 options.
1. Buy an invertor which will convert the 12 volt power from the battery to 230 volts mains power to run the fridge using its 230 volt element. This is probably 120 watts so 10 Amp draw plus the losses in the invertor perhaps another 2 Amps making 12 Amps total. This is probably too much.

2. Modify the camper wiring so that the fridge 12 volt element can be run direct from the battery. This is probably about 60 watts so 5 Amps draw and may work but the fridge won't be very cool.

It usually pours with rain at Glastonbury so don't expect much from the solar panel.


PersonDannyh2019
26/6/2019 at 9:06pm
 Location: Salisbury
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The fridge will only run off 12v when connected to a vehicle and with the engine running.
When onsite you have to use either EHU or gas. As you won’t have EHU it’s looking like gas is your only option.
A solar panel, depending on wattage should be enough to keep your battery charged even when charging mobile devices.



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