Naw, I don't think the inverter is the problem. Because when I've got my charger turned on the inverter has no problem running the fridge. Or when I add in my 3 chassis batteries it works fine too. And it works fine for 6-8 hours on the two 6 volt batteries. I've already bought 2 more 6 volt batteries. Hopefully I'll get some time this week to work on the battery rack for those. Then we'll see where we're at.

Those that have the RV propane/elec frig and it works good, no problem to keep that. It seems there are certain models that work better than others.

Mine had a Norcold 1200 (Notcold is more appropriate.....what a POS) and it just did not work like it should. Even with fans and the internal fan blowing over the coils, it would struggle when ambient temps were above mid-80's. By converting to residential frig I have one that works as it should and increased capacity approx 50% at the same time.

I really need to get some pics of the finished install to put up here.

I agree with 38Chevy454. I'm not trying to get anybody to make the switch. I actually had very good service from my Norcold unit. The biggest concern I had was fire. My fridge was 6 years old when I got the rig. And 10 years old when the ARP controller became widely available. I've read a bit about them and don't believe they eliminate the possibility of fires. Especially in an older fridge that may already have damage to the fluids/piping. I had a Norcold in my Allegro. It started leaking and luckily I smelled ammonia and shut it off, no fire. My son and I were working on his camper and the fridge caught fire so we got it out with the extinguisher before it burned anything besides the fridge. I just decided that 13 years old was as far as I wanted to push the Norcold in my rig. I had wrestled with the question of switching to residential or not. And I did wrestle with it for quite some time. I really liked the propane fridge for all the stated reasons. But, I also like a few aspects of the residential ones. Going from 8 cubic foot to 11.5 in the same opening is huge. It's very noticeable inside. We've taken two trips so far with the new fridge. Over 2500 miles. It's been flawless. I have no problem investing in more amps. I always thought my 2 house batteries were a little on the small side anyhow. And doing this project got me to change them out for the golf cart batteries. And it also got me to figure out how to add 4 more without any loss of current storage space. So that's a win too. Most of the newer rigs have 6 house batteries, or some equivalent, don't they? I support all the people with gas fridges and agree that they are great. But, I think this is going to work out for me and my food needs too.

I just got home from the steel supply. Got 20' of 1.5" x 1.5" x 3/16" angle. Tomorrow I'll start cutting and welding and fabbing up a rack to mount the extra batteries.

Got a little more work done. Here's a shot of the frame behind the rear differential. Looks like a good place to hang a couple more house batteries.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1...531_103051.jpg

So, I got some 1.5" x 3/16" angle. Did some cutting and welding. Came up with this design:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-M...531_105201.jpg

The forward upper end of the rack I have clamped to the lower section of the truck frame. There weren't any holes in the frame in that area and I really didn't want to drill any to do this. There are holes in the truck frame right above where the rear portion of my battery rack is so I used them to hang the back of the rack using threaded rod.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0...531_120251.jpg

Here's another shot showing the right side:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...531_120305.jpg

Showing the clamping setup. This is my least favorite part of the design. I used 1/2" bolts with nylock nuts. Two on each side. The angle is rather stout at 3/16". I mulled this over for awhile and just couldn't figure out anything better for my needs. I'm guessing somebody here will have a much better idea. But it's too late. I think this should hold. I'll certainly be travelling with plenty of tools to tighten it up if it comes loose.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9...531_120313.jpg

Here's from down below:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...531_120323.jpg

Nobody around to help me lift the 68 pound batteries so the floor jack worked.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T...531_122134.jpg

I marked the location of the battery posts since I can't really get above them to look when I do the cable hookup. I didn't buy the 1/0 welding cable until I got the batteries into position so I could measure how much I need. Going to run the positive over into the battery compartment nearby and the negative is going to be bolted to the frame using the same hole that the right threaded rod is attached to. At the top of those threaded rods there is a piece of the 1.5" angle about 2" long. A hole in each side. The angle is bolted to the frame and then the rod comes through. I put nylock nuts on both ends. And I put regular nuts on the insides of both ends to lock it tight. I didn't want the rack to be able to slide on the rod in a bump. And I didn't want the rod to slide up in the top bracket on a large bump.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-A...531_122411.jpg

I haven't finalized my plan for securing the batteries to the rack yet. I'm thinking nylon straps around them and the rack. The kind that normally have a ratchet. But the ones I'm thinking I'll use don't have the ratchet. I think the cambuckle type stay tight better. And less complicated than ratchets.

https://www.northerntool.com/images/p...79_700x700.jpg

The hooks on theses straps are a problem if you ask me, love the strap idea but, figure a way to mount the strap ends to your steel without the hooks. Huge tie wraps would Work too. if you use the straps pictured use little tie wraps as a safety wire on the hooks and the latch.

Sam



[QUOTE=Bob86ZZ4;45775]I haven't finalized my plan for securing the batteries to the rack yet. I'm thinking nylon straps around them and the rack. The kind that normally have a ratchet. But the ones I'm thinking I'll use don't have the ratchet. I think the cambuckle type stay tight better. And less complicated than ratchets.


/QUOTE]

i agree those straps are a problem - the acid gas will deteriorate the strap / webbing (too) quickly.

Okay, I haven't bought any straps yet. I'm not set on it. Other idea is to cut a piece of the angle long enough to lay across the top rear edge of both batteries. And stick out past both left and right sides. Then use more threaded rod to hold it there. I could use a thinner diameter rod than the rod I used to hang the tray. And put it at an angle across the sides of the batteries attach near the bottom leading (front) edge of the batteries?

I would use small angle iron to put over the edge of the battery and use 1/4" all thread angled towards the center of the battery you want to hold down. Another thing I would do is use Never Seize on the threads. That stuff can be a real life saver when it comes to unscrewing nuts or bolts. Those straps could only be as tight as you could pull them.

Thanks guys. I followed your knowledgeable advice.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O...603_131313.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s...603_131323.jpg

I also got a picture showing how that threaded rod holding up the tray is attached to the side of my frame:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T...603_131236.jpg

I used nylock nuts. I tried to get a stop nut up there too but it hit the other bolt so that's as far as it goes. Oh well. It'll still stop the tray from bouncing up. I'm pretty sure this thing won't be doing any bouncing. Maybe I'll clamp a GoPro down there and go for a drive and see how it rides?

Better with the angle iron and threaded rod to hold the batteries in place. The straps would eventually fail. Not so good having the batteries get loose.

Just curious why you did not just put the front main cross-piece on top of the frame flange? Instead of under it like you have? Seems you could have put one side in and then with it angled, slide the other side until it is 90 degrees. Could still have the clamps, but the clamps would not be in tension holding the weight, just keeping it from moving. I do think yours will work, but more critical on the bolts not coming loose. I have done enough drilling through metal from underneath, not much fun having hot chips rain down on you. The extra thick frame rails on our trucks make that even worse, so I can sympathize with not wanting to drill the flange.

Nice! Great job Bob

38chevy, good thought. When I originally was planning it out I thought I would install the two batteries onto the frame and lift the whole thing up to the position and then bolt those plates across the top to hold it up there. Then when I started doing it I figured it would be too hard to get the whole thing up there. At that point I should have figured out to put the top rail across inside the frame like you said. But I'm not smart enough. I think it would be not too difficult to change it to the way you suggested. Just have to make a good support with a couple floor jacks and re-position it. If the carrier frame top rail is too long to fit crossways between the frame rails then I'll have to take it all down and trim off the ends a bit.

All of the drilling was done using my drill press before I welded it all together. I only had to drill those two for the I bolts to secure the threaded rod for the hold-downs.

First time I was able to do some testing on it. I've had the fridge running solely on the 4 6volt batteries for 30 hours now. It's not been very hot here. But, I was camping so I used some 12 volt energy during this time. I never hook up to shore water. I always use my holding tank and 12 volt water pump. I took a shower, and used the toilet numerous times. I also ran plenty of water. I opened and closed the fantastic fans a couple times (motorized openers/closers). A bit of lighting use. Many times opening the fridge. It's still working the fridge fine. I'm very happy with that. I think I might switch on the Iota charger tonight though because I've got it parked in front of my house now with food in it so I don't want it to quit working during the night.

Well, I needed milk. So I decided to go out and shut off the fridge and bring the food in. I had been camping overnight in it at a nearby campground. That's where I did this test. But came home this afternoon. I had it running on just those 4 batteries for 35 hours. I'm very happy with that.

That's a pretty decent amount of time. How much solar do you figure it would take to keep the batteries up?

I don't know hardly anything about solar. I would guess it shouldn't take a lot of watts to keep the batteries up. I'm really not wanting to drill holes in my roof so I don't think I'll ever put solar on. I did kind of think about maybe getting a portable solar panel that I could unfold and stand on the ground when parked. But then that's something else I'd have to cram into the storage bay.

Hm. For some reason I thought you had some solar on your coach. Guess that's what I get for thinking.............

Bob,

So what was the problem, not enough battery, inverter?
Have thought about using your inverter for other items, tv, charging your phones while you sleep?

Sam

I guess the question is what was the battery voltage level like after 30 hours?

Knowing you can keep things going for 24 hours (at a track) is good but knowing the battery condition is gonna be important.

It would be helpful to understand the (generator?) shore power run time needed to recover the batteries so you can start the drain/cycle all over again.

Probably worth considering the addition of a generator auto-start (probably should have one for the pets anyway).

The inverter has a display that switches between input volts and output watts. At least I think they're output watts. At the end of that 35 hours the input voltage was showing 12.3. That doesn't sound too bad to me but I'm no expert in this stuff. I think the inverter shuts down when the input voltage falls below 10.5 volts. So I suspect my batteries won't be damaged running down to 12 volts? It looks like most of the time when the fridge is running it's showing 30-60 watts. Yesterday it was showing 125 watts for a bit. Don't know why that would have been. I don't know how to tell if the batteries are fully charged up when running the generator and the Iota charger/converter? That sounds like it would be a good thing to know so I could know when to shut down the generator. Auto generator start would be nice too. We've just got Buck, The Wonder Poodle, and we rarely leave him in the rig. I do have an alarm system that I could hook up a low, or high, temperature sensor if I decide I need to. My alarm system uses cell sms messages through a sim card. I forgot that it's always powered so that might use a slight amount of my house battery current too.

Sam, I actually now have two inverters. The 2k one is wired up to only provide power to run my refrigerator. The 600 watt one is wired to power the two televisions, as well as the surround/dvd and satelite receiver. Those circuits also have the receptacle under the dinette on them. So I leave a phone charger plugged into that. I like this setup so far. Easy to shut off that 600 watt inverter when not needed.

The EC30-W autostart we have for our Onan QD will start the generator if the batteries go be low a certain level for a certain length of time (certain = user programable).

The Autostart will also start the generator (in the absence of shore power) if the inside (assumed) temperature is a certain temperature (ac or heat, programable set points) - this means you must leave the thermostat ON & set, since the EC30W doesnt activate anything other than the generator.

IIRC i paid about 245 for the EC30-W.
I also consider the auto start from Magnum Energy which supports ANY generator and performs the same type functions as the EC30.

Heres some charts that will be helpful for your battery charge / saturation level:

https://www.truckconversion.net/attac...d59ea4f432.png https://www.truckconversion.net/attac...6bdff33c7a.png

Interesting. I don't expect to ever let the batteries get down to the 10.5 volt level of auto inverter shutdown.

youre generally not supposed let the batteries go below 50% charge.

12.2 volts for my batteries then. Thanks!

Bob,

So did you put your first inverter next to the larger one?
Also did your coach have each 120 plug home run to the breaker panel?
I was thinking about how I could the same thing, tvs, sat, certain plugs for charging the phones.
My breaker panel is located at the foot of the bed, and I been thinking how I would set something up like that. I have a xantrex but I tryed to get it to work and no luck yet, going to trace out everthing and go from there.

Sam

Sam, check post #85. There should be a picture there of the two inverters mounted in a cabinet next to the bed. My circuit breaker panel is also located at the foot of the bed. I removed the romex for the fridge. Ran that to a junction box. Then I wired in the auto switch that switches over the power to the fridge from shore (or generator) power to the inverter power. I did the same for the circuits to the tv's. All these junction boxes and wiring are done under the bed. I guess I didn't take enough pictures to show all that. Sorry.

A bit of an up-date. I think somewhere way back I might have said I first tried to power the fridge with a 600 watt inverter? And it didn't work very well. Kept overloading the inverter and shutting it down. But the inverter was supposed to allow 1000 watts of surge. So I thought it should work. Anyhow, I installed a 2k watt inverter for the fridge and it's worked great. And I wired the 600 watt one to the two tv's and a dvd player. Well it gave me bunches of problems. Beeping and error messages and shutting down. I made several calls to tech support and they finally replaced it for me under warranty. Guess what, the new one works fine for the tv's and dvd player. I would like to try plugging the fridge into it and see if it works. But I'm worried that maybe trying to power the fridge at first with the 600 watt one might have somehow damaged it? It shouldn't have though.

Bob, it sounds a lot like a defective inverter. I got a new 400 watt that would beep for a low battery even while on a fully charged battery. The replcement was fine and I still use it.

Yep, so far so good with the replacement. Glad I bought a good name brand like Xantrex. With a long warranty too.