Stock Furrion Solar - keeping up with fridge?

[RV Sailor]

That’s a perfect example of a system which is robust, doesn’t need lithium and is affordable at around $1000 or less.

Requires maintainence of H2O and the wet cells generally have 1000.cycles or 4 years. You could upgrade to AGM and get 4-5000 cycles or 8-10 years with a little more investment and these have zero maintainence.

I went with the lithiums only because I also have a 3000 lithium multiplex /charger which also electrifies all our 110 outlets when boondocking. Makes it super comfortable to use all outlets. We are a 30 amp 2500RL

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Relion RB200, 12volt 200 Ah $1999.99. Then add tined cables approximately 10ft low gage and a new converter that will handle multiple batteries. Yea a few thousand.

[sirtate]

I have a GE 12V 9.8 Cu.Ft. fridge in my TT and have 400W of roof solar running through a 100/30A Victron controller charging 4 Interstate 6V GC batteries for a total of 450ah with 225ah usable.
According to my history readout on the Victron when leaving the fridge on 24/7 the batteries don't ever drop below 12.4 and hit 14.2-4 the next morning on bulk. It will read like that day in and day out.
Just posting this as a reference for those with a 12V fridge and wondering how much solar and battery size they may need. My system is not high end by any means and is very affordable and meets my needs.

I should add that the above info is with my TT sitting at my house and only the fridge and other parasitic draws running.

I installed another 200w on my roof.
I now have 365w in series (knocked down to 340 because of a variance in amperage)...

I'm still using the stock furrion mppt SCC.

My experience is mimicking yours.

I lose about 35Ah over night, and gain them back by 10am on a hard-sun morning.
We had two days of cloud, and I was back to 100% by 1pm on the sunny day that followed...

I can still see about 8amps of charging on a bright cloudy day.

Sent from my LM-G900 using Tapatalk

[huntindog]

I installed another 200w on my roof.
I now have 365w in series (knocked down to 340 because of a variance in amperage)...

I'm still using the stock furrion mppt SCC.

My experience is mimicking yours.

I lose about 35Ah over night, and gain them back by 10am on a hard-sun morning.
We had two days of cloud, and I was back to 100% by 1pm on the sunny day that followed...

I can still see about 8amps of charging on a bright cloudy day.

Sent from my LM-G900 using Tapatalk

You may just do better than you are thinking. I too started with the Momentum factory 300 watt panel/Jaboni 30 amp controller. When my original attempt to expand that system started having issues (Jaboni controllers are junk IMO) I scratched that plan, put the factory system back to stock, bought a Victrom controller to run my expansion panels and........Decided when choosing the Victron controller to go big or go home... A 250/100 model. Unfortuantly when ordering more panels I found that they had been discontinued. So I had to get th,, 1023 watts when correction for mis matched panels was calculated. That has not held true. I just returned from a 11 day boondocking trip. The history on the bluetooth shows that it routinely beat the 1023 watts. 1040-1060 avg. In fact one day it even beat the uncorrected 1080 watt total.... 1083!!!
Meanwhile tha Jaboni Controller running the stock 300 watt panel continued to fade. I have now replaced it with another Victron, a 150/60 model and MORE panels! I got 4 more Aims 120 watt panels to pair with the factory 300 watt panel. So that array totals 780 watts, which in theory should be cut to 690.. But based on my last trip, I bet it will do a lot better that that.
Even if it doesn't, Since I know the large Victron array of 9 120 watt panels can do 1083 watts, adding the adjusted 690 figure in equals 1773 watts out of a supposed max of 1860 watts.. I haven''t quite finished the install (last two shipping damaged panels arrived today) would mean 95% of rated output is achieved. I bet it will do better. I am thinking proabably 1800 watts or 97%I would not be suprised if it ends up over 100%

[KDutchover]

Hello,

I tried searching all over the forum but cannot quite get an answer to what I am looking for. I am also have no sense in electricity and watts/amps/volts etc just boggle my mind.

I traded in by Imagine 2400BH and took in a 2022 2910BH. It came with the stock Furrion 165 watt solar panel, 25 amp charger controller, and the Furrion 12V refrigerator. As best as I can tell, the purpose of the panel is to assist that refrigerator along during travel days. From Furrion's website, the fridge draws 1.08 kWh per day.

The other day, I attempted to see how long the fridge/solar/battery would last while in storage and without any other draws. I set the fridge to the boondock settings and measured with a multimeter a couple times per day. All of the days we had full sun; location is the midwest so its got sun from at least 7:00am-7:30pm right now.

Battery was showing 12.4-12.6 volts on day 1 and 2 both in the morning and night; fridge was keeping cool. It was very hot outside though (90-95 degree days). The morning of Day 3 the fridge was found to be completely off (no power at all, including lights) with the likely cause being a failure in the glass bulb inline fuse.

So, can the Furrion charger even support the refrigerator? Obviously there were no other draws such as lights, pump, etc. I wonder if the failure occurred because the fridge was trying to draw so much power at night, particularly with it being so hot.

Anyone have thoughts or experience with this? Any insight is appreciated!

We just finished a 3 night dry camping trip to June Lake, California. We have a 2022 Reflection 280RS with a 10 cu ft 12v fridge, 165w factory solar and 2 6v golf cart batteries. This is what I learned about this system.

Fridge was set on "Off Grid".

Each morning my batteries measured 12.3v by 10am the batteries had recovered to 13.1v.

Our dairy (Milk) was stored on the middle shelf towards the back as suggested in the fridge owners manual. I used a laser temperature gun an measured the milk and freezer each day two or three times. The milk stayed at 38° and freezer measured between 1° and 5°. We did not run our generator and the weather was sunny with daytime highs of 80° and night time lows of 40°.

We have confidence in the factory set up with two 6v batteries for our dry camping trips.
Your milage may vary.

[Soundsailor]

We just finished a 3 night dry camping trip to June Lake, California. We have a 2022 Reflection 280RS with a 10 cu ft 12v fridge, 165w factory solar and 2 6v golf cart batteries. This is what I learned about this system.

Fridge was set on "Off Grid".

Each morning my batteries measured 12.3v by 10am the batteries had recovered to 13.1v.

Our dairy (Milk) was stored on the middle shelf towards the back as suggested in the fridge owners manual. I used a laser temperature gun an measured the milk and freezer each day two or three times. The milk stayed at 38° and freezer measured between 1° and 5°. We did not run our generator and the weather was sunny with daytime highs of 80° and night time lows of 40°.

We have confidence in the factory set up with two 6v batteries for our dry camping trips.
Your milage may vary.

Thanks for sharing your real-world experience. Good to know that the system worked for you. How sunny was it?

[KDutchover]

Thanks for sharing your real-world experience. Good to know that the system worked for you. How sunny was it?

We were in full sun. However, the solar panel was not oriented south. The front air-conditioner did cast a late afternoon shadow on the panel.

[NDIrishLacrosse]

We just finished a 3 night dry camping trip to June Lake, California. We have a 2022 Reflection 280RS with a 10 cu ft 12v fridge, 165w factory solar and 2 6v golf cart batteries. This is what I learned about this system.

Fridge was set on "Off Grid".

Each morning my batteries measured 12.3v by 10am the batteries had recovered to 13.1v.

Our dairy (Milk) was stored on the middle shelf towards the back as suggested in the fridge owners manual. I used a laser temperature gun an measured the milk and freezer each day two or three times. The milk stayed at 38° and freezer measured between 1° and 5°. We did not run our generator and the weather was sunny with daytime highs of 80° and night time lows of 40°.

We have confidence in the factory set up with two 6v batteries for our dry camping trips.
Your milage may vary.

This is great information. Thank you for sharing.

[crumbod]

Hi Dale, my name is Dave. I am in the process of taking delivery of a 31mb. Trying to understand the whole electrical load thing. This is probably wrong but help me understand. If I am charging batteries at 6.25ah for 12 hours then I am putting 75ah back into the batteries? If the charge rate on the solar is greater than 3.75 and we assume 12 charging hours a day won't I be ok? Thanks

[NDIrishLacrosse]

Hi Dale, my name is Dave. I am in the process of taking delivery of a 31mb. Trying to understand the whole electrical load thing. This is probably wrong but help me understand. If I am charging batteries at 6.25ah for 12 hours then I am putting 75ah back into the batteries? If the charge rate on the solar is greater than 3.75 and we assume 12 charging hours a day won't I be ok? Thanks

Hi Dave,

I am not the expert in this but rather the original poster. My understanding is, after everyone helped me, was that yes you may be putting 75 ah back in your battery but you'll be 1. using power during this period so that will decrease what you take in and 2. you won't get perfect sunlight all the time and likely wont get peak re-charge. The panel would have to be hitting the sun at the entire period described which isn't likely until late morning and then the same effects occur when the sun moves over in mid to late afternoon.

It is important to determine how much power your unit will be using during the periods you will be relying on solar.

Hope this helps!