Conrad J Posted September 24, 2021 Share Posted September 24, 2021 Is there any way of getting my Thetford fridge to benefit from my 'van having a solar panel, and run on the leisure battery? Our (albeit smaller) fridge in the VW camper we had before our big white monster would run on the battery for a couple of days. I'd hoped that having a solar panel would mean enough electricity would be generated to enable the battery to keep up with the demands of the fridge, but unless I'm driving or plugged in to mains electricity, it resolutely switches to gas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spirou Posted September 24, 2021 Share Posted September 24, 2021 One was probably a compressor fridge, the other is a 3 way absorption which default to gas. The 12V mode is nearly useless anyway, it might at best hold temperature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddy Posted September 24, 2021 Share Posted September 24, 2021 Your Thetford fridge is a 3 x way absorption type and would run down a 12v battery very quickly if it was used without the engine running or connected to the leisure battery. (even with solar). I expect your VW had a compressor type fridge which operated on 12v only but these work in a different way and can run from a 12v battery for a while, but not for many days in a row, as often needed, which the 3 x way fridge can do using 12v (engine running)/240v/ or gas as required. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted September 25, 2021 Share Posted September 25, 2021 Conrad J - 2021-09-24 6:39 PM Is there any way of getting my Thetford fridge to benefit from my 'van having a solar panel, and run on the leisure battery?... You haven’t said which model of Thetford SES frridge yoou have, but this link for the N3000 range https://www.thetford.cn/pdf/Thetford%20IM%20N3000%20Series%20Fridges%201114-V24.pdf indicates that the energy consumption of the larger (140+ ltres capacity) fridge/freezers may be expected to be around 4.0 kWh/24h. On that basis, you’d need a helluva large battery-bank (or a huge solar-panel array) to run such appliances solely from 12V. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weldted Posted September 25, 2021 Share Posted September 25, 2021 The Thetford SES fridge freezer takes up to 12 amps on 12 volt d.c. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weldted Posted September 25, 2021 Share Posted September 25, 2021 You can get a solar controller that will divert excess power to your ses fridge. As I understand it it works by engaging the relay that operates the fridge on twelve volt when driving, in bursts of up to half an hour. This depends on the state of your leisure and starters batteries. For it to have any real effect I would think you would need at least 200 amps of leisure batteries and a decent solar set up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
747 Posted September 25, 2021 Share Posted September 25, 2021 weldted - 2021-09-25 4:01 PM You can get a solar controller that will divert excess power to your ses fridge. As I understand it it works by engaging the relay that operates the fridge on twelve volt when driving, in bursts of up to half an hour. This depends on the state of your leisure and starters batteries. For it to have any real effect I would think you would need at least 200 amps of leisure batteries and a decent solar set up. The fridge is already on 12 volts while travelling. When stationary the solar charger will divert power from the leisure batteries to the AES fridge, as you say, for a half hour or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conrad J Posted September 26, 2021 Author Share Posted September 26, 2021 OK, thanks all, didn't know there are different sorts of fridges. Will stop stressing about the gas we use, and enjoy my ice cream and chilled beers. Just wondering now why the sales rep didn't tell me there was no point in paying for a solar panel being fitted, but I suppose he wouldn't !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 The pros and cons of solar panels for a camper are summarised here https://adventuresinacamper.com/solar-panels-campervan/ One of the 'cons' highlighted relates to powering high-demand electrical appliances (eg. your fridge) but that doesn't automatically negate all the 'pros'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevec176 Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 Unless you specifically said you wanted to run your fridge using the solar panel then I don't see any reason why he would have mentioned it, probably never occurred to him you would want to. Having said that a friend of mine has a Adria Matrix which has the big fridge/freezer and he keeps insisting that he can select and run his from his battery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddy Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 Conrad J - 2021-09-26 12:21 PM OK, thanks all, didn't know there are different sorts of fridges. Will stop stressing about the gas we use, and enjoy my ice cream and chilled beers. Just wondering now why the sales rep didn't tell me there was no point in paying for a solar panel being fitted, but I suppose he wouldn't !!! You will find a solar panel very useful in keeping your leisure battery topped up after using lights ,water pump etc also keeping the starter battery charged and replacing the normal power loss that occurs when parked up for any long periods. (if it is wired up to keep both leisure and starter batteries charged from the solar) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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