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Small Cabin Forum / Off-Grid Living / Refrigeration/generator at cabin
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Northtree670
Member
# Posted: 18 Feb 2019 17:05
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Greetings all
Been reading here a while, finally decided to say hello
You folks have given me a wealth of knowledge, thank you.

I Have an older remote cabin, used 3-6 weekends a year (trying to increase this). for refrigeration currently have a 4.5cu foot fridge, r600 refrigerant, 225kwh/yr model.

It runs fine on my 1250/1000w inverter jenny, ditto for my 2000/1700w, and even in Eco mode the generators handle the surge, even with the stereo on and 4-5 led lights.

The small refrigeration system means the fridge cycles on and off quite often, and at night the generator is mostly idling for nothing.

I am trying to make the cabin as easy to use as possible, as it is atv-to-lake//boat access only.
The inverter runs quiet, but I would like to be able to stop the generator cycling so frequently, and run the generator intermittently in the day, off at night, for fuel savings and quiet.

Obviously my situation does not warrant a solar system or propane fridge($$$).
I have read here that a 10cu ft fridge is quite economical. Wondering if using a fridge/freezer and ice packs that could be transferred to the fridge would be functional.
I could run lighting/stereo off a 12v car battery with a small inverter fairly cheap?

Input appreciated

toyota_mdt_tech
Member
# Posted: 18 Feb 2019 21:05
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Ice blocks would help, how about a bank of batteries and an inverter that can charge by day with the gennie? No solar panels. But could be added later.

sparky30_06
Member
# Posted: 19 Feb 2019 07:37
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Take dry ice with you and put it in the freezer. A fridge is a cooler basically.

SCSJeff
Member
# Posted: 19 Feb 2019 07:53
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I use a chest freezer with a Johnson Controls "conversion". I bring 2 or 3 frozen water jugs to put in the freezer and run the generator until the freezer stops running. Everything stays cold through the night no problem. I then periodically run the generator for other tasks and just let the freezer run while the genny is running. It's been working great.

When I'm by myself, and only have a couple of things to keep cold (like beer and milk , I don't even bother bringing frozen jugs.

I'm actually thinking that once I need to replace my (2) Golf Cart batteries on my solar system, I'll go to (4) batteries and try running it off the batteries and see what happens. (May need to get a larger inverter too, idk)

redwolfguild
Member
# Posted: 19 Feb 2019 15:25 - Edited by: redwolfguild
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I use one of these URL . When I started I made a 100amp battery box. It had a 100AMP AGM deep cycle in it with an IOTA 25AMP charger. I would use the generator to charge the battery and then run the fridge via a 12-volt plug.

Since then I have added a larger battery bank for the house along with solar panels. But I can say when I was using the 100 amp battery hooked up to one 210 watt solar panel, I never ran the generator and always had cold food. I live in bear country and can't leave anything when I am gone so this makes it easy to bring things back and forth. Runs on 24 volts and 120 as well depending on your system. I got mine on sale for $550 and it has been the best $550 spent (Wife loves this set up).

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