Merry Christmas!
I
live aboard in my recently acquired
Beneteau Oceanis 430 and wanted to ask the forum members on their opinion on what they think of this idea about installing a 220V 150-170 liter fridge aboard.
Why I'm tempted:
-Cheap (200-300 USD).
-I have free shorepower at the marina where I keep the
boat. (Yes, free).
-I
live aboard and don't plan to do long trips for a few years, but 1-2 sailing trips in Malaysia/Thailand area (tropics), so I don't see the benefits of a new
marine fridge necessarily obvious (am I wrong?)
-It would seem nice to have a large "house-size" fridge aboard.. (buy a
boat and try to make it a house..?
LOL ).
Cons:
-Not
marine quality, issues?
-Would require some carpentry in the
galley in order to be able to install.
-The space would be pretty confined (in a "closet"); would I have problems with the heat/overheating; would I need an additional external fan to circulate the air around the machinery)
The specs of a typical fridge this size are 220V, 0.57A, 85W (see Pic); if I was to run it from the 12V
batteries through an
inverter:
-would a 300W
inverter be the best size? (I have a 1500W inverter but this would not be ideal?)
-am I correct to say that the setup would draw about 7 Amps per Hour? (85W/12V=7.08A)??
Furthermore, If I was to run the fridge as above continuously, I would use somewhat less than 168Amps per any 24 hour period? (less because the
compressor is not running ALL the time, maybe about 50-75% of the time..?)
I have 8 X 85W
solar panels (Solavolt SV8500, rated 85W each).
The house
batteries are 4 X Trojan T-105Plus 6V Deep Cycle, 12V system (and a fifth larger for
engine start), should I have more batteries for a "better" system?
What do you experts think? Does this sound like a stupid idea or could I do it (and keep the batteries full without running the engine) while sailing? I also have a Air Marine 400W
wind generator, but for this discussion I'd disregard it and just concentrate on the
Solar panel capacity & the batteries.
The boat is still new to me and not sure if my calculations above are correct, do they sound about right? Or not..?
-Erik