Refrigerator on battery and propane

We ran the fridge on propane whenever we weren't plugged in and over two weeks, including one night running the furnace, cooking everyday with the stove, and running the water heater a few of the days - we only used $2 of propane.  Not bad for two weeks!  The fridge definitely sips propane.

Originally posted by alan7170 Originally posted by Tars Tarkas Unless you have shore power, run the fridge on propane. The propane is what will keep it cold. The fridge has LED indicator lights and a contol board that use battery power even when the fridge is on propane but the battery usage is minute and relatively inconsequential. For dry camping your single 12v battery will last maybe 4 days before needing recharging. If you're going to be out that long you need some kind of plan to recbarge. TT We have a 177 and I can easily go more than a week dry camping in summer with no recharge...fridge on propane, LED lights, the water pump is infrequent...there is really not much to drain the battery... Alan

Originally posted by Tars Tarkas Unless you have shore power, run the fridge on propane. The propane is what will keep it cold. The fridge has LED indicator lights and a contol board that use battery power even when the fridge is on propane but the battery usage is minute and relatively inconsequential. For dry camping your single 12v battery will last maybe 4 days before needing recharging. If you're going to be out that long you need some kind of plan to recbarge. TT

Unless you have shore power, run the fridge on propane. The propane is what will keep it cold. The fridge has LED indicator lights and a contol board that use battery power even when the fridge is on propane but the battery usage is minute and relatively inconsequential.

For dry camping your single 12v battery will last maybe 4 days before needing recharging. If you're going to be out that long you need some kind of plan to recbarge.

TT

WillThrill,

Recharging with the TV is certainly simple and cheap, but it might not be too effective. I recommend recharging through the 7 pin Bargman only in an emergency and only to bring in the slide. Due to the long length of #12 or #10 wire used in most TVs the best you can expect is 10-15 Amps, dropping quickly as the battery begins to charge. The more effective way is to use heavy gauge jumper cables directly from TV battery to TT battery. I ran some tests on a 50% discharged battery using 20 ft. #4 copper jumper cables and got 69A initially. Even after 35 minutes it was still charging at 28A. The jumpers are more of a hassle, but far more effective than the 7 pin connector. For comparison the on board charger plugged into shore power only achieved 38A to start and also dropped off quickly. However the on board charger will charge to 13.6 or 14.4 volts whereas the jumper method is limited to a little over 13 due to the built in limits of the auto charging system.