[Don L]

Been running my frig and freezer off the battery for 10.5 years. Even right now I am plugged into shore power, but the battery charger is off and all DC loads are running off the batteries and solar.

but no way to answer your question without knowing the battery capacity and what you are doing for charging.

 

[Don L]

Fair enough. I'll have to go look and see what batteries I have. All I know offhand is that they're Group 24 West Marine batteries. I'm on shore power most of the time. I'm on Rock Creek on the south shore of the Petapsco River, just off Chesapeake Bay. I've got no plans for any long passages, so I'll be doing mostly day sailing. I'd like to do some overnights down the Bay, at night either on the hook or at a slip somewhere.

Well then the answer is yes you can run your refrigerator. When at a dock with shore power your battery charger powers it. When not your batteries will and you will need to run engine as needed to recharge before you discharge them too low.

 

[Don L]

someone needs to do some reading up because there isn't any reason to reinvert this wheel

 

[Don L]

Why is this being made so hard?

 

[Don L]

My 6" (with conduction, radiation and air barriers, plus double - inside and outside edges - gasketing) extruded polystyrene insulation 3.5/6.5CF freezer/spillover reefer pulls, on average 10 amps (240-ish AH daily).

Well my same size freezer/refrig with separate units (separated and got rid of the spillover system last year) with 20 year old factory insulation also uses about 10 amps when both cycled on. But only uses around 120AH per and day my 640W solar currently is easily keeping up. Back in my spillover days the system still used around 100-120AH a day, but didn't keep food as cold.

And I am just up the road from you in Florida

 

[Don L]

I don't know my freezer and frig size offhand. I can put enough meat in my freezer to make over 2 months of dinners for the 2 of us. My refrig is larger, but the issue with it is arranging stuff in it. I can put 3-12 packs of drinks in it, plus sandwich meats, bacon, eggs, cheese, coffee cream, and some misc.

I don't bring ice to the boat except if I am having a group over. Other wise i have 2 ice trays that make 2"x2" cubes and I just dump and refill them.

I installed my first solar system on the oat just so the system could run all week while out on its mooring and there would be food and cold drink anytime I showed up.

 

[Don L]

Since it consumes 2.7amps per hour, it seems the compressor never shut off... I am disappointed, It was very warm, but I was hoping the box was better insulated.

Well to me that is low amps and around half of what my freezer/frig system uses, but I have large boxes and 2 systems.. Try putting a blanket etc on top and repeat and seen if that changes it.

Btw - I don't care what units you use and fully understood your post.

 

[Don L]

the unit never appeared to have a fan isntalled, nor was there any evidence of a fan plugged into the orginal controller, which never worked since ive owned th eboat. of course the lack of fan could be what casued the controller to "go south" while under the care of the PO.

unless you can find that it is/was seawater cooled condenser the odds are 100% it had a fan

a good quiet fan is only about $20