Inverting on the road to run refrigerator on AC instead of LP

[NoGas]

Originally Posted by Shahin

Not much of LP cost concern! But the phobia of running with LP on! We just installed the solar and hit the road early morning! Haven’t checked to see what charge we are getting! Is there a way to know what we have gotten all day? Does PT 100 show?

Congrats on the solar. Wired correctly (which I’m sure Kev did), it should run almost autonomously. Running stand-alone, the PT100 display does not show the totals you are asking about. However if you are running a “linked” remote control panel & BMK with your Magnum Inverter/Charger and PT100, it’s easy to check totals and solar charging stats on the “07 PT Meters” displays. Look in the Remote’s manual for the menu procedures. If you don’t have the BMK for your Magnum setup, get it!

As to ammonia system LP refers, none of them run efficiently on electric. From your comments it sounds like your refer is a 2-way model not a 3-way that’s designed to use either 12v DC or 120v AC. It’s likely BB didn’t wire it to the inverter on purpose. Most “ice melter” refers use a resistance heating element to substitute for their LP burner and those use allot of juice. If the BMK is installed, use the 05D DC Amps-BMK display of the Magnum Remote to see how many amps the refer uses when it’s electric is ON vs OFF. Before you go to the trouble of rewiring, you can temporarily test this using an extension cord to connect the refer to one of those inverter powered AC outlets. If you don’t have a BMK, you could also use a Kilowatt energy meter. These are handy tools for understanding electrical usage & eliminating phantom loads. Either way I bet you’ll be surprised.

Back when I had LP, I ran it on-the-road. But what do I know? Then I installed a flue fire extinguisher. And finally I eliminated all propane from my coach for several reasons with the biggest being it’s inherent fire risk. If you want to scare yourself, check out all the “RV refrigerator fire” videos on YouTube .

No one “needs” a house style refer, but they sure are nice!!

[DW SD]

I was going to offer the same info on the Magnum products as Van.
I love having the BMK and ARC50 advanced remote. They give great resolution to what is happening at the batteries.
I'd encourage adding BMK if you don't have it. As then you can charge completely. (battery mfg should offer custom charging criteria for complete charge). In my case, absorb charge rate of .5% of Ah capacity. (~ 3 amps of 630Ah capacity). Otherwise, it is guesswork about what full charge really means.

Even without the BMK or Magnum remote, you can see output of PT100 via the on-screen readout. The output rotates through volts, amps and output power (volts x amps).

Post your numbers here from the PT100 even if that's all you have! You have a powerful solar system. I bet it is cranking, especially when your fridge is sucking a lot of watts.
cheers,
Doug

[isp2952]

There are two junction boxes under the fridge. You may have access to them without removing the fridge from the outside fridge vent. Remove the board at the floor of that vent. You should see them underneath. It won't be easy if the fridge isn't moved, but that is the closest thing to provide you with inverter power if you want it. http://www.wanderlodgeownersgroup.co...9&d=1462396818 One of the boxes is for inverter power and the other for AC

[Shahin]

Originally Posted by isp2952

There are two junction boxes under the fridge. You may have access to them without removing the fridge from the outside fridge vent. Remove the board at the floor of that vent. You should see them underneath. It won't be easy if the fridge isn't moved, but that is the closest thing to provide you with inverter power if you want it. http://www.wanderlodgeownersgroup.co...9&d=1462396818 One of the boxes is for inverter power and the other for AC

Thank you for the tip, the link doesn’t work though!

[Shahin]

Originally Posted by DW SD

I was going to offer the same info on the Magnum products as Van.
I love having the BMK and ARC50 advanced remote. They give great resolution to what is happening at the batteries.
I'd encourage adding BMK if you don't have it. As then you can charge completely. (battery mfg should offer custom charging criteria for complete charge). In my case, absorb charge rate of .5% of Ah capacity. (~ 3 amps of 630Ah capacity). Otherwise, it is guesswork about what full charge really means.

Even without the BMK or Magnum remote, you can see output of PT100 via the on-screen readout. The output rotates through volts, amps and output power (volts x amps).

Post your numbers here from the PT100 even if that's all you have! You have a powerful solar system. I bet it is cranking, especially when your fridge is sucking a lot of watts.
cheers,
Doug

Thank you for the recommendation. I don’t have a BMK, I know that Kevin hooked up the solar independent of the inverter charger, the only connection between the two are a yellow data cable. I looked up the BMK and it has a connection to the negative line going through what should be an existing shunt! I would have to follow the negative from the inverter and find that shunt.

[isp2952]

Originally Posted by Shahin

Thank you for the tip, the link doesn’t work though!

I don't know what happened but this is the pic

[NoGas]

Shahin - No, get the BMK and it comes with its own shunt. Do not use some other shunt that might be previously wired into your battery bank! Install the shunt between the Battery Neg coach terminal and ALL coach loads. There is a twisted blue-orange pair running from it that goes to the small BMK box. This box needs both Pos and Neg 12v power, and there’s a port on it to connect the Magnum telephone LAN cable to the inverter/charger. For the multiple black boxes to share the inverters LAN you will need a splitter on the inverter/charger port (note connection order is important). Check pic #2, post #1 at this link to see how I did this. Do you have the remote inverter controller, whose head is shown in pics below? If so it’s likely already connected to the inverter. When the PT100 is on the same Magnum LAN as the BMK, the controller will recognize your PT100 and link everything to the controller. It will also ignore the DIP switch settings Kev entered into the PT100. While it’s possible to run the PT100 as a stand alone, connecting all the pieces via Magnums LAN is one of the cool advantages of going all Magnum. That interconnection will allow you to tweak/fine tune the charging of your specific battery bank and solar array. It will also provide all kinds of cool information as to how your solar array and batteries are performing together. Lastly, you’ll also have a battery % gas gauge and that comes in real handy.

Pics - Note that in perfect conditions with full straight up sun at roughly noon and the PT100 charge controller in bulk (batts we’re close to full but I was running the microwave!), I’m getting the FULL rated capability of my panels which is 1,425 watts!! With the other pics, those numbers were taken when the day wasn’t even close to being over.

[Shahin]

Originally Posted by DW SD

I was going to offer the same info on the Magnum products as Van.
I love having the BMK and ARC50 advanced remote. They give great resolution to what is happening at the batteries.
I'd encourage adding BMK if you don't have it. As then you can charge completely. (battery mfg should offer custom charging criteria for complete charge). In my case, absorb charge rate of .5% of Ah capacity. (~ 3 amps of 630Ah capacity). Otherwise, it is guesswork about what full charge really means.

Even without the BMK or Magnum remote, you can see output of PT100 via the on-screen readout. The output rotates through volts, amps and output power (volts x amps).

Post your numbers here from the PT100 even if that's all you have! You have a powerful solar system. I bet it is cranking, especially when your fridge is sucking a lot of watts.
cheers,
Doug

Hi Doug,

Here are some numbers for today
10am
PV array
Kw 0.05
Volts 28.5
Battery bank
13.4 volt
3.8 amps
Magnum Remote
Float Charging
13.4V
+15A
2pm
PV array
Kw 0.21
Volts 31.2
Battery bank
14.3volt
13.8 amps
Magnum Remote
Float Charging
14.2V
+0A

[badandy]

All good info here so I have nothing to add there. An LP/120v fridge uses tons of power, I think my 24" wide small one used 13 amps on AC power. If you can handle that load all the time then there's no reason not to use your solar/inverter to do so. Eventually you will put in a residential fridge that just sips the electricity, though

[Shahin]

Originally Posted by badandy

All good info here so I have nothing to add there. An LP/120v fridge uses tons of power, I think my 24" wide small one used 13 amps on AC power. If you can handle that load all the time then there's no reason not to use your solar/inverter to do so. Eventually you will put in a residential fridge that just sips the electricity, though

I don’t have a problem with putting a house fridge but it will have to be the same size as the small one that is in there right now. Otherwise, it would require major remodeling inside that I don’t want to do!