Isotherm fridge in camper?

[iwanttoretireea]

Isotherm fridges are quite common in modern day vanlifers but not in the RV industry. Is it just because of the price point? I see it on the 590k Overlander but that doesnt count.

Has anyone had experience replacing their 3 way residential fridge with an isotherm for more electric efficiency? I've seen a couple videos of people having trouble replacing the fridge because it won't fit through the door of their camper. That doesn't seem like a good design choice.

[jaycocreek]

You mentioned Overlander..I watch a bunch of there video's on youtube for idea's that will work with a TC..There off-road boondocking guru's with lot's of cool ideas..There favorite fridge by far for the ones I have seen,is the ARB fridge/freezer..Why,I have know idea because I think the CFX and Engle are better especially in the battery use department..

But that is for hard core boondocking in rough terrain..

[toddb]

I converted mine to a DC compressor. It's a 6 cu ft norcold, and it'll consume 100ah+ on a warm day. I have 300W of solar and a single 100ah lithium battery. The freezer struggles in cold weather because the fridge doesn't cycle much, warmer weather it works great, particularly driving and in the hills. The absorption fridge didn't work and took for ever to recover.

[markchengr]

4 cu ft would never do it for us. Especially with that tiny little freezer compartment.

[kohldad]

The odds of having to remove a fridge from a unit over it's life is extremely small so the sacrifice of having to remove the door to change it out is an acceptable risk. General the same size danfoss compressor fridge will fit through a door so getting the upgraded unit in is a piece of cake. The old unit can be removed without removing the door by removing the cooling unit from the back. If the unit was operational, it can be reinstalled fairly easy with the only additional item of some heat transfer paste.

[JimK-NY]

There are several manufacturers of small 12 volt compressor refrigerator/freezers. I have a NovaKool unit. One issue is electric consumption. My unit is small, about 4 cuft. When running it pulls about 3 amps. In 70 degree temps it will run about 1/3 of the time pulling a modest 25 AH/day. When ambient temps are a few degrees warmer or you open the refrigerator numerous times, or you add some room temp items, then power consumption can easily double to about 50 AH/day. Since most of my RV travel is in the warmer months, that is probably about my average power consumption. So for 50% battery depletion, the refrigerator will use the equivalent of about one RV battery per day. I do have a couple of decent AGM batteries and a solar system, but I still need to run a generator if I am camped in the shade for more than a couple of days or it is cloudy for that period of time.

Also consider a 4 cuft unit is quite small. There is a trend towards larger refrigerator/freezers. A larger unit with the larger Danfoss compressor can easily pull over 100 AH/day.