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

**xrated** · 05-20-2022, 03:05 PM

Originally Posted by MoonShadow_1911

Nice! Just curious, what was the total cost?

About $3000..........counting the diesel fuel to get there and back, plus campgrounds!

Seriously though, the purchase of the unit, the installation cost, the added internal fans in the fridge compartment and sales tax came to like $1785. I had given some thought to just buying it and having it shipped to my house and installing it myself, but old age and moving heavy refrigerators just totally killed that thought....so I paid to have it installed. I had already ran a new 12VDC circuit from the battery compartment back and into the slide, so no charge for that. If you need to have that done, and you probably would, they charge about $200 additional for running new wiring/2 conductor cable and a breaker for it.

The install took right at 2 hours for them. For me, counting the work time and the hospital stay after hurting myself getting it in and out.....probably 2 weeks! Money well spent....it cools just like a residential refrigerator with compressors or a compressor and hardly takes anytime at all to go from ambient air temperature down to 34 in the fridge and around "0" degrees in the freezer. To say I'm happy with it would be an understatement.

**xrated** · 05-20-2022, 03:16 PM

Originally Posted by Redapple63

Nice setup. Very interested in the real life usage numbers. Glad it is working out.

Real life usage as in? Temperatures? Power used? All of the above?

**MoonShadow_1911** · 05-20-2022, 03:16 PM

Originally Posted by xrated

About $3000..........counting the diesel fuel to get there and back, plus campgrounds!

Seriously though, the purchase of the unit, the installation cost, the added internal fans in the fridge compartment and sales tax came to like $1785. I had given some thought to just buying it and having it shipped to my house and installing it myself, but old age and moving heavy refrigerators just totally killed that thought....so I paid to have it installed. I had already ran a new 12VDC circuit from the battery compartment back and into the slide, so no charge for that. If you need to have that done, and you probably would, they charge about $200 additional for running new wiring/2 conductor cable and a breaker for it.

The install took right at 2 hours for them. For me, counting the work time and the hospital stay after hurting myself getting it in and out.....probably 2 weeks! Money well spent....it cools just like a residential refrigerator with compressors or a compressor and hardly takes anytime at all to go from ambient air temperature down to 34 in the fridge and around "0" degrees in the freezer. To say I'm happy with it would be an understatement.

LMAO! Thanks for the humor! Yeah, for me it would be more like a month. I don't recover as fast as I used to pretend to.

Thanks for the info. I can run the DC circuit myself, I'm thinking 12 GA wire, direct from the fuse panel. Easy peasy. Just drop the coroplast and lay on my back in the rocks for hours on end! Like during on my truck or greasing the wet bolts!

**orbsah** · 05-20-2022, 03:45 PM

I wanted to update with a few pics

Thanks for the info! Any noticeable difference in the sound while it’s running? I thought I read somewhere the 12V fridges are noisier.

**xrated** · 05-20-2022, 03:58 PM

Originally Posted by MoonShadow_1911

LMAO! Thanks for the humor! Yeah, for me it would be more like a month. I don't recover as fast as I used to pretend to.

Thanks for the info. I can run the DC circuit myself, I'm thinking 12 GA wire, direct from the fuse panel. Easy peasy. Just drop the coroplast and lay on my back in the rocks for hours on end! Like during on my truck or greasing the wet bolts!

Back in the fall, last year when I was researching doing this or having it done, if I'm not mistaken, they recommended running 8ga wire for the twin compressor model, and that is what I did. I don't know if they have changed/revised that, but it seems that 10ga might be enough. It would probably be best to contact them for the specifics. I ran the 8ga/2 conductor cable (rubber covered like an extension cord...SOOW) as it would be exposed to the elements on the underside of the trailer. I ran mine along side the 1/2" black iron propane pipe and then into the slide's pivot arm and then up through the bottom of the slide. Inrush current is probably significant when you first turn it on with both compressors starting up. Current draw when running, is right at 12.6 amps.

**MoonShadow_1911** · 05-20-2022, 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by xrated

Back in the fall, last year when I was researching doing this or having it done, if I'm not mistaken, they recommended running 8ga wire for the twin compressor model, and that is what I did. I don't know if they have changed/revised that, but it seems that 10ga might be enough. It would probably be best to contact them for the specifics. I ran the 8ga/2 conductor cable (rubber covered like an extension cord...SOOW) as it would be exposed to the elements on the underside of the trailer. I ran mine along side the 1/2" black iron propane pipe and then into the slide's pivot arm and then up through the bottom of the slide. Inrush current is probably significant when you first turn it on with both compressors starting up. Current draw when running, is right at 12.6 amps.

Good point! I'll run 8 ga then. Thanks!

**Redapple63** · 05-20-2022, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by xrated

Real life usage as in? Temperatures? Power used? All of the above?

Yes, all of the above. This has the potential to be on the best dollar for dollar upgrades.

**Second Chance** · 05-20-2022, 04:05 PM

Originally Posted by xrated

... but old age and moving heavy refrigerators just totally killed that thought....so I paid to have it installed.

OK... define "old age." I often struggle with feeling guilty about paying someone to do things that just a few years ago I wouldn't have hesitated to do myself.

Rob

**xrated** · 05-20-2022, 04:58 PM

Originally Posted by Second Chance

OK... define "old age." I often struggle with feeling guilty about paying someone to do things that just a few years ago I wouldn't have hesitated to do myself.

Rob

Well, for me "old age" is paying someone to do something that I could have done in my past. When researching this mod, the electrical would have been a cake walk for me, as I am a retired Journeyman Electrician (I topped out in 1980).....but the other side of the coin is that I will be 68 years old in November and even though I am in reasonably good health, it's just not the same as far as my body being able to take on strenuous jobs that require heavy lifting and such. So pretty much, you and I are in the same boat with feeling guilty about paying someone to do things that just a few years ago I wouldn't have hesitated to do myself. I'm slowly coming to terms with accepting it, but it's hard to do if you've spent your whole life being a DIYer.

In the last year or so, I've installed a set of airbags on my truck, installed a class III hitch to the back of the Momentum, did the Microwave/Convection recall on the trailer, and the one that probably got me the most was new trex decking on a 16' x 24' deck....including tearing off all the old wooden decking and installing all of the new trex decking and replacing some of the deck joists. My body hurt for at least three or four days even after the job was done.

**xrated** · 05-20-2022, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by Redapple63

Yes, all of the above. This has the potential to be on the best dollar for dollar upgrades.

Obviously, not much in the way of "history" yet, as it was just done this past Tuesday, so here goes.

Temperatures. Install was done at 12:30 and by 3P, the temperature inside was 34 in the fridge, and 5 in the freezer, by 4:30/5P, the fridge was like 31 and the freezer was -2. I waited until around 6PM to put the cooling setting to a lower number. I went from 4 down to 3 and fridge temps seems to have stabilized at around 34 degrees. I left the freezer controller set to "0" degrees, and it seems to go from about 1 degree to about 3 degrees.....I may lower it just a bit, I may leave it where it's at.....but it sure is nice to be able to control the two sections separately. As you can see, the amount of time to cool the fridge/freezer down is dramatically reduced vs. the absorption fridge, which I would usually turn on at least 24 hrs before I was going to use it. With this one, probably 3 to 4 hours will be more than enough.

Power used: When both compressors are on at the same time, my clamp on amprobe is showing 12.64 amps, and that includes an added twin fan in the fresh food compartment. I haven't checked the compressors individually yet, but one is definitely smaller than the other, and the big one is for the freezer and the smaller one for the fresh food compartment. So using power while driving/towing the trailer. If I were to assume that the fridge ran 100% of the time it was turned on, and I have 302 AH of battery that I would feel comfortable taking down to about 20% state of charge left, here are the numbers for that. Using 80% of the battery is about 242 AH consumed and assuming nothing else is running in the RV. So the 242 divided by 12.64 amps when running and assuming 100% run time, that is just over 19 hours for the battery. The estimated run time is approx. 50%, so the 19 hours doubles and now you are looking at 38 hours of run time before the battery needs charged back up. I would think that the freezer section may not run quite as often as the fresh food section, so it may only start once ever hour or so....but it's unknown so far. That of course would increase the 38 hours of run time to maybe 40....45....???? who knows? Yesterday, when we travelled home from Georgetown, KY, (our mid overnight stop from Shipshewana) from the time I unplugged from shore power and let the battery run the fridge, and then arrived home a got done unloading the trailer, it was about 6 hours for the battery to have been supplying power to the fridge. It consumed almost 37 AHs in a 6 hr time slot.....so that figures in pretty close to it running for about a half hour of every hour. Ambient temperatures will affect that run time, and obviously with the doors of the fridge being closed the entire time of travel, helped a bit too. One thing I will point out though, all of this was done with an almost completely empty fridge....several bottles of water, a couple of Root beer soda, and a few left over slices of pizza from the night before...so basically empty. We all know that an empty fridge will not stay as cool as one that is loaded up, so my above numbers hopefully will improve when the fridge is loaded for several days of camping.

That's about all I can offer right now, other than how impressed I am with the results....a big thumbs up to JC Refrigerator and their employees for a very good experience so far.