Transcend owners with 12V fridge

**yobigal** · 04-07-2021, 08:58 AM

Does the 12V fridge work off of converter when hooked to shore power or is it strictly battery and the solar panel?

Thanks.

**goducks14** · 04-07-2021, 09:23 AM

Your batteries are being charged when on shore power. The fridge won't know the difference.

**huntr70** · 04-07-2021, 09:47 AM

The above answer is correct.....

**Mokey59** · 04-18-2021, 05:26 PM

Fridge runs from battery power only. Battery will charge while you are on shore power.

**fireflyer** · 06-09-2021, 03:55 PM

Anyone recommend the 12v DC fridge or suggest the 120V AC/propane fridge is more reliable/efficient?

**Heavy Half Ton** · 06-09-2021, 05:17 PM

The 12 volt fridge will consume around 80 amp hours a day. If you are boondocking, a minimum requirement in my opinion is 200ah of lithium, maybe 300, and (optionally, but you better have a plan or like the sound of generator drone) a few hundred watts of solar, AND a dc to dc charger.
A typical rv lead acid battery has about 80 to 100 ah capacity. You really only want to go to 50% state of charge on them, go deeper and shorten their life considerably. So realistically, 50 ah capacity useable. Read: half a day.
IMHO, 12 volt fridge NEEDS lithium for happy camping. If you are strictly a hookups type, I would still want a dc to dc charger.

**rootusrootus** · 06-10-2021, 01:24 PM

Originally Posted by Heavy Half Ton

The 12 volt fridge will consume around 80 amp hours a day.

That's about the maximum it will consume. Mine consumes about half of that on a typical day in a temperate climate (60-80F most of the time).

Otherwise I agree with your conclusion. 200 Ah of LFP to be on the safe side. On a sunny day, the OEM solar panel can replenish the battery by around midday after it has been depleted by running the freezer all night. On a cloudy day, it is more sketchy, I'm only up to 90% right now and it is just after noon (low point was 82% this morning). And if your panels are shaded by trees while you're camping, you may get hardly anything at all.

My short-term strategy is a 100Ah LFP that I have now, the OE panel (165W), and an inverter generator that I bring along just in case. Nice thing about lithium batteries is they charge *much* faster than FLA, so you can completely charge a drained battery in a couple hours.

I am also considering a 165W companion panel with similar specs to the OEM panel that I can use in parallel, but portable, so when we're camping in the woods I can put it somewhere getting more sunlight. And if I start to have regular problems running out of power and having to break out the generator, I may buy a second Battle Born. This winter I'm probably going to build a pair of DIY 270 Ah batteries and use those in the future.

**goducks14** · 06-10-2021, 02:11 PM

Adding a portable panel is cheap and easy and adds to the already OEM stuff. The nice thing about a portable is you can take full advantage of the suns angle. In the morning when the suns lower you can grab some good power vs the flat panel on the roof that won't be getting the full power until optimum conditions.
I recently bough a Renogy 100W panel to use as a portable to go with my 400W on the roof. I use the Zamp side port and already had a used 30A MPPT controller that I installed for it. Overkill but sorta free for this situation.
Last trip out dry camping, the spot we had made 1/2 the panels under tree shade for part of the day. Using my Renogy as a portable really help make up for the shaded panels.
One thing to note though. With the Renogy plugged directly into the Zamp panel running through the MPPT controller in the full sum it showed 21.5-7+ volts. I made up two extension cables, 1 at 20' and the other at 10'. With the full 30' of 10ga cable the max volts out of the panel was on around 15.9.
Thinking about adding another 100W Renogy in parallel. Beats having run the gen. The Renogy Compact Design 100W panel is only $93.14 on Amazon

**Heavy Half Ton** · 06-10-2021, 02:53 PM

I have two 100 watt hqst mono panels, soon to be hinged together ala suitcase style. We camp in shady spots in NY, and they work very very well, about 13 amps into a 280 ah diy lithium battery. Having them on a 50’ cord works perfect as we are often tucked in the shade. No 12. volt fridge, but using the furnace and heating mattress pad, and even the microwave a little bit, and the battery is full charged by noon or one.