Norcold 2118......It's Alive and Working Well....

[bhbery]

Is it necessary to run power directly off the battery? My converter is about 6' from the refrigerator. It would be a lot easier to connect it there.

[xrated]

Is it necessary to run power directly off the battery? My converter is about 6' from the refrigerator. It would be a lot easier to connect it there.

Getting a heavy enought 12VDC supply back to the fridge area is imperative, according to JC Refrigeration, and if I'm not mistaken, they clearly state on their website it should come from the battery. The 12VDC compressor or compressors will have a pretty large inrush of current the the compressor or compressors state up. Many converters would simply not be capable of providing that inrush without pulling the voltage down significantly. The units have a built in low voltage protection, so my advice would be to contact JC Refrigeration with your question. And it would be up to their discretion whether you could do what you are proposing.

[Ranchertx]

I am curious if you considered going with a 120V residential style fridge?

[xrated]

I am curious if you considered going with a 120V residential style fridge?

That would be a No! And my reasoning behind it was as follows. 1. I don't have an inverter and didn't want to spend the extra money/time to install one. 2. Battery upgrade was going to be necessary for me, so it was a wash in that category....add an inverter and need battery upgrade vs. adding a 12VDC fridge and needing an upgrade on the battery. 3. I simply do not want a refrigerator that is designed to work in a house....where there is zero movement, no bouncing around on rough roads, etc. 4. The 12VDC unit that JC refrigeration provides is made to work/withstand being in a RV.....heavy duty tubing, rubber feet mounting of the compressor, etc.

For me, it was a no brainer to NOT go with a residential unit.....120VAC

[offtohavasu]

Looking forward to seeing your updates. We're budgeting to do this in 2023.

[Redapple63]

That would be a No! And my reasoning behind it was as follows. 1. I don't have an inverter and didn't want to spend the extra money/time to install one. 2. Battery upgrade was going to be necessary for me, so it was a wash in that category....add an inverter and need battery upgrade vs. adding a 12VDC fridge and needing an upgrade on the battery. 3. I simply do not want a refrigerator that is designed to work in a house....where there is zero movement, no bouncing around on rough roads, etc. 4. The 12VDC unit that JC refrigeration provides is made to work/withstand being in a RV.....heavy duty tubing, rubber feet mounting of the compressor, etc.

For me, it was a no brainer to NOT go with a residential unit.....120VAC

X2 for updates!

While our Norcold has not had any problems yet, it is only a matter of time.
We are still working full time but do plan to retire in the next couple of years and really hit the road (not full time but significant time spans of months at a time), so all the stuff you are doing now is like path funding for us.

Bill

[xrated]

The only update so far, that I might have missed when I posted originally, was all the numbers that I listed and the times that it took to get those temperatures, was with a basically, totally empty fridge. We used a Yeti cooler for the trip up to Shipshewana, since we wanted the fridge to be at room temperature when they got in on Tuesday morning. So on the return trip, we had maybe 7 or 8 bottles of water, a couple of half full cartons of milk and a half bag or so of ice for the freezer compartment. So if it did that well while almost totally empty, I'm really going to be impress once it's loaded up with food/drinks/condiments/etc because that will help keep the temperatures more steady.....and likely not run as often. It showed about a 50% runtime, so maybe about 30 minutes every hour.

[fmartinmn]

@xrated We are on our first outing with the new 12V conversion of our Norcold 1210. My wife is totally blown away. Turned the fridge on when we started loading the trailer and arrived at our campsite about 4 hours later. After set up, I asked my wife if I could put the cooler away. She said no, she was waiting for the fridge to cool down before transferring food. She then checked the temp for the first time, 35 degrees! She could not believe it. After all the years we have suffered through the poor performance of the Dometics and Norcolds. She is one happy camper.

[xrated]

@xrated We are on our first outing with the new 12V conversion of our Norcold 1210. My wife is totally blown away. Turned the fridge on when we started loading the trailer and arrived at our campsite about 4 hours later. After set up, I asked my wife if I could put the cooler away. She said no, she was waiting for the fridge to cool down before transferring food. She then checked the temp for the first time, 35 degrees! She could not believe it. After all the years we have suffered through the poor performance of the Dometics and Norcolds. She is one happy camper.

Hi Frank.....good to hear you too got great results for the JC mod. I don't know of any one thing that I've done to the trailer, mod wise that could be any better than this. It is just totally awesome for sure. It makes me want to just go outside and turn it on and let it cool down, for no good reason.....other than I can!

[fmartinmn]

@xrated, ...other than I can, LMAO