I replaced the inverter/charger on the motorhome5 years ago with a new pure sine unit from AIMS. Not cheap, but worked well. Craps the bed this spring, and I'm not entirely impressed with their service/repair process.

Any experience with charger/inverter brands and sizes? We don't have a residential fridge in the Motorhome now, but may put a small one in there when the RV one goes out.

I'd have to ask what is causing the inverters to go down. I would think they would be able to last the life of the motorhome, or at least half of it.

Also, I have noticed a trend of residential fridges in motorhomes, and I have to ask why?

quote:

Originally posted by Yellow Ticket:
I'd have to ask what is causing the inverters to go down. I would think they would be able to last the life of the motorhome, or at least half of it.

Also, I have noticed a trend of residential fridges in motorhomes, and I have to ask why?

Answer to the first question is that it was very old, and had an old style charger, which was affecting battery life. The new chargers really pamper the batteries in my experience.

To answer the second, well I don't know. I wouldn't show DC input even when probing the inputs showed the 12v was making it there. For a $750 inverter, it was worth and they suggested that I send it in for testing and repair. I removed the cover to see if there was any obvious damage and there was none visible. I wiped off dust etc from being in the side compartment. Spend the money to get it there quick, they sit on it for a couple days, and when I call, he says it's dirty and looks like maybe there were mice or rats on it. So he doesn't want it on his bench. Plus he adds, the damage is probably from mice and that isn't worth fixing. LOL. Well, ok. There were no droppings anywhere. I didn't see mouse evidence. And the openings for the fan would be pretty challenging for mice, although not impossible. So I spend the money to ship it out there, and he won't check it out because it's dirty.

The unit was fine until it wasn't. I agree. That that kind of cost there is some expectation that it would last for the life of the motorhome.

Motor Home/RV fridges. Zing. get your check book out. Logical to do conventional and save your money

Bucky, on the end of inverters, i only do the Farm/Fleet inverters. Use them all the time with the commercial battery chargers for the Semi's
Heat effect all inverters. All you need is (1) cap to go out and it SOL. Seen a bunch of High end True sine junk.Lasted less than a year. The ones i purchased from there are no longer sold there.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TD3550,

quote:

Originally posted by Yellow Ticket:
I have noticed a trend of residential fridges in motorhomes, and I have to ask why?

I agree, although in a motorhome with a generator, maybe. But the same trend is popular in new camping trailers like our 5th wheel, and you would have no refrigeration while you are on the road, and no cooling unless you are parked at a campground with electric hookups, or on a generator. I prefer the RV style, I can have it burning LP gas as we drive down the road, and we can camp "off the grid" and still have a working fridge.

quote:

Originally posted by TD3550:
Motor Home/RV fridges. Zing. get your check book out. Logical to do conventional and save your money

Bucky, on the end of inverters, i only do the Farm/Fleet inverters. Use them all the time with the commercial battery chargers for the Semi's
Heat effect all inverters. All you need is (1) cap to go out and it SOL. Seen a bunch of High end True sine junk.Lasted less than a year. The ones i purchased from there are no longer sold there.

Just so I understand are you using a separate charger? Any one in particular? I’m sure soured on this expensive paperweight

quote:

I agree, although in a motorhome with a generator, maybe. But the same trend is popular in new camping trailers like our 5th wheel, and you would have no refrigeration while you are on the road, and no cooling unless you are parked at a campground with electric hookups, or on a generator. I prefer the RV style, I can have it burning LP gas as we drive down the road, and we can camp "off the grid" and still have a working fridge.

Yes my thoughts exactly. It's always cooling, 120v or not, and it takes such little LP to cool a fridge. I'd keep my motorhome fridge a motorhome fridge.. I couldn't imagine putting a residential fridge in one to save 1k.

I would also be super disappointed if someone "didn't want it on their bench" mice or not.

As long as my rv fridge works, it stays. However, I think the couple things that favor these even for racers is
1. 90% of the time when you are on the road, you have the AC AC going. So the generator is running anyhow. So no use for the propane.
2. The residential fridges generally have better recovery rates after a door opening, are not as affected by high outdoor temps, and freeze ice cream hard, if you are into that.
3. Generally they have more usable room, even if they take up a little more room
4. There may be literally no reason to ever fill LP on the unit as long as you have electric heating in the roof units. Not all do I know.
5. They are much cheaper as a replacement than the rv multi mode fridges.

Of the friends I know that have residential fridges, they are telling me that they can run them for 3-4 days on a 3 battery bank. Most of the newer rv's I am seeing add a battery or a couple and go all electric with no propane needed.

My inverters are hard wired into the service trucks that all i do is when the semi's are dead.
I just plug in the roll around battery charger and charge the truck batteries. Down the road they go. I don't use commercial starting units any more like a Goodall.You get a frozen sealed battery and you will have an explosion or if the battery is shorted I have had 2 calls where as the batteries have exploded. It wasn't pretty. One especially where the paint damage was @ $10k. Even had to paint the roof of the KW.

I tell these guys you ever see the battery case swelled at the slightest, change the battery. Especially on the ends. It was cooked at one time.

quote:

Originally posted by TD3550:
My inverters are hard wired into the service trucks that all i do is when the semi's are dead.
I just plug in the roll around battery charger and charge the truck batteries. Down the road they go. I don't use commercial starting units any more like a Goodall.You get a frozen sealed battery and you will have an explosion or if the battery is shorted I have had 2 calls where as the batteries have exploded. It wasn't pretty. One especially where the paint damage was @ $10k. Even had to paint the roof of the KW.

I tell these guys you ever see the battery case swelled at the slightest, change the battery. Especially on the ends. It was cooked at one time.

Yikes!
Since we can be days at the track, and draining batteries, I will need to put some sort of charger in. However.......I can get all sorts of chargers that are probably just as good and way cheaper than these combo units. Should be able to hook right up to the lugs of the inverter. I've warmed up to this!

If you have a model of the inverters you use on the trucks or brand, I'll look at F&F
PM if yo like

Bucky, was the original a Heart Interface?

quote:

Originally posted by bry-war:
Bucky, was the original a Heart Interface?

It was. It needed something that I can't remember, and the old model wasn't supported.

I can tell you from my experience working on all kinds of different equipment that an inverter is far more complicated than a converter.

A converter is basically just a battery charger.
AC input is rectified and regulated to DC to charge batteries and also power DC items almost always lighting and other items in a MH

An inverter has to take low voltage DC from batteries and boost it to high voltage and create an AC voltage at 60hz or cycles.

Capacitors, IGBT’s and generally inverters have to boost voltage up quite high to get to 120 volts output.

One component fails and it’s a toasted circuit board or some other component ends up trashing the unit.

I could name numerous inverter equipped machines I work on that end up in the dumpster.

Parts are far to expensive to make it a viable repair cost wise.

I would re-think the residential fridge especially if you have a double door RV fridge. The cooling unit in those are the same size as the single so they tend to get hot. The fire danger is very very real.

The best thing I ever did in my coach was a residential fridge. They use much less power, actually freeze things with much better temp control. My fridge runs on my inverter going down the road and overnight usually from about 7-8pm until around 8am with no issues at all.

Bucky,
I had a heart interface combo that started to act up and you could push around on the housing and it would work. Had it at USnats and it finally quit. Took it apart and found voltage sending transformer laying in bottom. Ebayed a new one and had our clean room guys solder it in on the green board. They saved me a crap-ton of money. I didn't think it was hard on batteries. It has some settings for charging.

Lastly, my last travel trailer and friends Showhauler have residential inverter fridge. Low current, runs just enough to do the job without full hard start of compressor. I would be more worried about a true refrigerant cycle not getting out of wack going down the road. As long as the liquid doesn't end up somewhere it shouldn't it would be fine.

If you sent it to them and they don't want to "look at it" I would expect it back.. Surely someone locally can look at it.

My MH fridge freezes ice cream hard. I'm not saying I have bought a lot of $1 ice cream in Norwalk and ate it at home 600 miles and 2 days later.. but I'm not saying I haven't either.. lol