Shake-down cruise with a Norcold compressor fridge

[John in Santa Cruz]

somehow I skipped the 8 track era. mostly because I was a bicyclist, and didn't own a car until my late 20s, when I did start driving, decent cassette decks were readily available

[Dave Miller]

I have the Norcold compressor fridge N2195. I’m doing my own Lithium and solar so I picked up my 19 in Chilliwack with the standard single 12v LA battery. Most of the trip we had hookups. We had a long drive one day, and a hotel for the night. The battery was still fair in the morning. Only the fridge was running overnight.

We spent 4 nights in a forest service campground with no hookups. Use included the fridge, lights, charging phones and an iPad, max fan, water heater and water pump. The battery was fair in the morning when I fired up the generator around 0830 and I would charge again around 1930 each evening. Both times for 30 minutes or so. One morning I was late with the charge and the fridge flashed a red light.

Love the fridge but definitely need a better battery bank! I have two 230AH Lithium batteries ready to install.

[SageRpod]

Originally Posted by Dave Miller

We spent 4 nights in a forest service campground with no hookups. Use included the fridge, lights, charging phones and an iPad, max fan, water heater and water pump. The battery was fair in the morning ...

Dave, not sure what size your LA battery was but I'd say you did quite well given my experience with 200Ah of LA battery on our Rpod. Are you running a tankless 12v water heater? We have 400ah of Lithium battery and barely put a dent in the capacity in a given day. Your 460AH setup should do very well.

[Dave Miller]

I assume 100AH LA battery, but don’t really know. Just needed it for the trip home. I have the standard water heater. 5 gallon Tank? It uses 12v for the control and propane for heat. It has 110v heat as well.

And if you forget to shut the 110v off and plug into a 2200 watt generator and the battery needs charged, you’ll trip the overload protection on the generator!

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by Dave Miller

I assume 100AH LA battery, but don’t really know. Just needed it for the trip home. I have the standard water heater. 5 gallon Tank? It uses 12v for the control and propane for heat. It has 110v heat as well.

And if you forget to shut the 110v off and plug into a 2200 watt generator and the battery needs charged, you’ll trip the overload protection on the generator!

the single 12V LA is probably a group 31M... Those are indeed rated at 100AH 20 hour rate, but if they are the common marine/rv style and not true deep cycle, then you should treat them as half their rated capacity if you want to get a few 100 discharge/charge cycles out of them. If they are true deep cycle, then you can pull up to maybe 75% out of them each cycle.