I have an LG 310L Linear Inverter fridge at home. The compressor uses the same principal as the Engel fridges. When running the power consumption varies from 12W to 50Watts. On defrost cycle its 150Watts. When the power goes out it will happily run on a 300Watt pure sine wave inverter.

The LG fridge has the condencer in the back of the fridge not the sides. So if you realy wanted to you could add insulation.

-- Edited by DeBe on Monday 17th of August 2020 05:10:04 PM

I bought a large LG 2 door inverter fridge for the HINO when the original fridge thermostat failed. It was close to 1000 dollars but is fantastic. As for where the condenser is, obviously it is inside the case, but there is no obvious warm spots anywhere so I guess it is everywhere. We use a time switch to switch it off overnight just to ease up on the loading when solar input is scarce. One thing to watch is they say not to move it when running so I try to remember. I mentioned it on a US forum a few days ago and it was confirmed that they make a hell of a racket, presumably because the compressor is bashing away at the casing and the only way to get it to stop is to switch it off. As for power consumption. Never bothered to pick its consumption out of the background usage, but I am well satisfied that it isn't worth worrying about

I have been using a Samsung 228l DI fridge in the van for almost 5 years now, it's paired with a Victron 350Va Inverter, when mains power is not available. Would I ever consider a 12/24v or 3 way fridge, never in a million years.

We have been running a Samsung 255l digital inverter fridge/freezer in our motorhome for the last six years of full-time travel here in NZ. It is powered by a $100 300W PSW inverter that has operated for the same period 24/7. We have some seriously corrugated unsealed roads here too. The original large external Dometic vents are covered with 3mm white opaque acrylic sheet. The beer is cold and the ice cream hard. Automatic defrosting is a bonus. I logged the first three years of use. Average 770Wh daily including inverter losses which equates to about 58Ah for our lithium setup. Expect a little higher in northern Australia.

Hi Mike,

looking at your calculations I think you might have missed the fact that a domestic fridge runs on 240 volt - which I believe leads you to quite an incorrect result.

1: 240V fridge uses about 260kWh per year
2: 260kWh per year = 0.71kWh per day
3: 0.71 kWh at 240 volts per day = 2.958 Amp Hours per day (see www.inchcalculator.com/kwh-to-ah-calculator/)

If I haven't stuffed this up, then your calculated usage is too high by a factor of 20 and a good domestic fridge can actually use less than some dedicated caravan fridges (which matches what I have seen others say during my fridge research).

The digital inverter compressor on digital inverter fridges by the way essentially seems to allow you to reduce the size of the 12 volt > 240v inverter in your van, as it needs less power to start up, which can be useful.  But the smallest digital inverter fridge freezer combo I have found is around 250 liters (Samsung), and it is not very energy efficient - see https://www.rpc.com.au/solar-news/selecting-an-efficient-fridge.html. Apart from that my toaster power spikes anyway, so that's not much of a benefit to me.

So if you have a large enough 12>240v inverter then any highly star rated fridge should be acceptable:  For consumption by star ratings see https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/energy-efficiency-and-reducing-emissions/save-energy-in-the-home/reduce-fridge-and-freezer-costs-at-home

For example the CHiQ 202L Top Mount domestic Refrigerator has 4 stars. It costs around $450 and uses around 2.5 Ah per day based on its star rating. Even if you double this on a 40 degree day, you are still looking at a fairly reasonable consumptions.

The Vitrifrigo 130l 12 volt dedicated caravan  fridge freezer which I currently have in my van costs around $1300 and uses about 3.75 Ah per day according to its specifications and double that on a 40 degree day.

As these number are quite different from Mike's numbers, I'd be happy for anyone to confirm this. They also contravene what I used to believe, so please verify. If this is correct, I would have bought a 4 star domestic fridge last time.

Steffan

PS: I know this thread is from last year, but I am guessing not many of us have been out and about in a big way, and others might read this too.

-- Edited by sgk on Tuesday 7th of December 2021 12:37:53 PM

Hi Steffan

My calculations are correct but I failed to explain I was making a switch from 240V to 12V because of the inverter so the 60Ah *at 12V* is correct. It would have been better had I simply stayed with Wh.

If we use a figure of 800Wh per day that should be close to worse case and, guessing, it would be about 500Wh in a Victorian winter.

I now have 800W of solar and am camped in low density forest; I can produce 1kWh on average days and probably double that on sunny days so believe I can now support a 240V domestic fridge with, perhaps, occasional top-ups from the generator.

I agree that finding a small-ish (~200L) inverter fridge freezer is not easy but the big stores do carry a few.

I'll probably do the conversion next winter, it's a fairly big job and will need three people for the lifting I think.

DeBe wrote:

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2 people should handle a modern fridge these days as they are fairly light.

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Unfortunately I think getting the old one out (and probably the new one in) through the front window will take three :)

"We're just gunna 'ave to leave it standing on the landing...."