How many watts solar will I need to run my Norcold fridge

[Deekay]

HI

 

[rando]

I am afraid the answer is too many.

It is not practical to run a 3-way fridge on DC for more than a few hours, you either need to use propane or upgrade to a 2-way compressor fridge.

 

[Beach]

You'll need a trailer with a solar array and enough batteries to power a golf cart to generate/store enough power to keep up. Propane is the way go. You might be surprised how little propane the fridge uses. I can run the fridge for 2- 2.5 weeks on the 20 lb tank depending on outside temp. I don't use my tank propane for anything else so it's dedicated for fridge use. I use 1 lb bottles for the camp stove.

 

[Jack]

Running a 3-way fridge on DC is one of the easiest and quickest ways to kill your battery. DC is usually OK as long as your engine is running, but turn off the engine and forget to switch from DC to propane and ... one battery later, I installed a battery shutoff switch and ran on DC only on the few times we were low on propane. This was all on our previous 2005 Eagle.

 

[Vic Harder]

To put numbers to it... 12A at 24 hours a day = 288AH. If you are using AGM/Lead acid batteries, you need 2x that so you only drain the batteries to 50% which is necessary to help them live a reasonable amount of cycles. Add in some inefficiencies and lights/fans/furnace and you are looking 600+ AH of AGM LEAD in your camper. That's a LOT of battery/weight.

 

[Deekay]

Thanks guys I will stick to propane to run the fridge.