12V/120V Refrigeration?

[lifeofreilly57]

This is probably a dumb question but I'll ask anyway.
Can you use a 120VAC and 12VDC compressor on the same refrigeration system?
My boat currently has 120VAC refrigeration system since the previous owner kept it at the dock most of the time, we keep it on a mooring and almost never see a dock, always moored or on the hook. To chill the cold plate requires running the generator, we'd like to get away from that since we're adding wind and solar capability in the near future.
Any marine refrigeration guys out there?

[St. Elsewhere]

The challenge will be having sufficient solar and wind energy to carry the load. Is the mooring in Massachusetts?

AC/DC refrigerators are available: http://www.norcold.com/HOME/PRODUCTS...5/Default.aspx

[Capt Hugh Wilde]

Isotherm is the ticket.

Indel Webasto:Â*Quality products in the marine industry

Check them out. Very good stuff.

After the boxes are cool it takes very little power to operate.
We used a fridge and freezer unit, and a freezer box.
The fridge is 12VDC and 120 VAC, air cooled. Freezer box is 12 VDC only and is watercooled. It cycles fresh water from the water tank to cool the compressor.

I am very happy with this equipment. Very low power consumption.

[lifeofreilly57]

Originally Posted by St. Elsewhere

The challenge will be having sufficient solar and wind energy to carry the load. Is the mooring in Massachusetts?

AC/DC refrigerators are available: Norcold Inc. Refrigerators

The mooring is in Narragansett Bay.
The boat is coming out of the water the end of next year and being shipped to my yard so it will be next to my workshop. I'll be building a custom arch for it to carry the solar panels and wind generator. Part of the planning will entail calculating the power consumption needs, it does have a 6KW generator for those days when both wind and sun are in short supply but I'd like to limit the amount of time the generator is used. We're gearing up to step off in a few years and although the boat carries 150 gallons of diesel we would like to limit consumption to as little as possible to give us more latitude in our decidions.
The freezer box is quite well insulated and once everything is cooled down we usually only need to chill the cold plate once a day in the summer, I know it's not the tropics but the cooler stays cold on those 90 something days around here.

[lifeofreilly57]

Thanks for the replies.
Any idea on what the average power consumption was on yours?

[bstreep]

Before you do anything, run the math. If it takes an hour a day of the generator, and it burns say 1/3 gallon per hour, that's $1 an hour (round numbers). How many days a year do you use the fridge? It can take a LONG time to recoup money spent replacing a perfectly good system.

Our boat was designed by the original owner to run the generator an hour a day...