My 2001 Granby had a broken 3-way fridge. I replaced it with a Waeco Fridge powered by a 185-watt solar. And it doesn't work. Let's review:
Fridge: uses 576 watt hours per day
I installed a Waeco CR65 (after reading a number of threads).
The CR65 claims to use about 1.9amp-hours/hour on average (at 80F). Let's call it 2ah/h.
2ah*12volt=24 watt-hours per hour.
24 wh/h * 24 hours in a day = 576 watt-hours per day.
Solar: produces ~641 watt-hours per day (est)
I happened to have a Sharp 185-watt Solar Module (I used to work in the solar industry).
185 watts (rated) * 77% (derate for real world conditions etc) * 4.5 sun hours (ave. light intensity in CA) = 641 watt hours per day.
Now in the summer this will be much higher, as high as 7 sun-hours per day giving me... 185*77%*7= 997 watt-hours per day.
(note: sun-hours per day are a measurement of sunlight intensity and time... it's not how many hours the sun is up).
the solar runs through a Morningstar high-voltage charge controller (Sunsaver MPPT will handle the high voltage of this particular solar module at 40volts, and charge a 12-volt battery) and charges my battery bank:
Battery Bank 660 watt-hours
so for storage I have two Blue Top Optima Batteries. They are each rated at 55-amp hours. at 50% max degree of discharge... that's 55ah*12-volts*50%*2 batteries =660 watt-hours
to recap:
fridge uses 576 watt-hours per day
Solar produces 640-997 watt-hours per day
batteries can hold 660 watt-hours.
Why am I writing this all out? Because it doesn't work!!! With full sunlight the battery bank goes dead in about three days. Arrrggghhh!!!
Either the fridge is pulling way too much, or I have a bum battery.
I tested the batteries by running a large 12-volt air compressor of each one separately.
Voltage before test: 13.1 volts
Voltage during load (lasted 5 minutes, probably 500 watts) 12 volts
Voltage after load test: 12.7
Still with me? Yeah, this was a long nerdy post... any ideas would be helpful.
Fridge: uses 576 watt hours per day
I installed a Waeco CR65 (after reading a number of threads).
The CR65 claims to use about 1.9amp-hours/hour on average (at 80F). Let's call it 2ah/h.
2ah*12volt=24 watt-hours per hour.
24 wh/h * 24 hours in a day = 576 watt-hours per day.
Solar: produces ~641 watt-hours per day (est)
I happened to have a Sharp 185-watt Solar Module (I used to work in the solar industry).
185 watts (rated) * 77% (derate for real world conditions etc) * 4.5 sun hours (ave. light intensity in CA) = 641 watt hours per day.
Now in the summer this will be much higher, as high as 7 sun-hours per day giving me... 185*77%*7= 997 watt-hours per day.
(note: sun-hours per day are a measurement of sunlight intensity and time... it's not how many hours the sun is up).
the solar runs through a Morningstar high-voltage charge controller (Sunsaver MPPT will handle the high voltage of this particular solar module at 40volts, and charge a 12-volt battery) and charges my battery bank:
Battery Bank 660 watt-hours
so for storage I have two Blue Top Optima Batteries. They are each rated at 55-amp hours. at 50% max degree of discharge... that's 55ah*12-volts*50%*2 batteries =660 watt-hours
to recap:
fridge uses 576 watt-hours per day
Solar produces 640-997 watt-hours per day
batteries can hold 660 watt-hours.
Why am I writing this all out? Because it doesn't work!!! With full sunlight the battery bank goes dead in about three days. Arrrggghhh!!!
Either the fridge is pulling way too much, or I have a bum battery.
I tested the batteries by running a large 12-volt air compressor of each one separately.
Voltage before test: 13.1 volts
Voltage during load (lasted 5 minutes, probably 500 watts) 12 volts
Voltage after load test: 12.7
Still with me? Yeah, this was a long nerdy post... any ideas would be helpful.