03-14-2015, 06:26 AM
Personally, I don't like freezer chests. They are hard to organize unless you build some custom sliding racks, but even then... It's still hard to organize the food. Another is your always bending down and most the time the food at the bottom is frozen. It's really hard to regulate the frozen/fridge line in a freezer chest.
Best bet? skip all that and buy a fridge from cold stone (he advertises on craigslist). Right here in Hawaiian Beaches. It's only a 12CF fridge. Not bad... I could do it. Altho, I really like my 18CF. Perfect for us. But Stone Cold has no defrost. So, you gotta prop open the freezer door and defrost it yourself, no big deal.... Plus his fridge runs off 12V ~ 48V DC. So no need for an inverter. I think he said his fridge consumes about 500 watts a day. That is very dooable on todays panels. Only really down side is, he wants 1000 dollars for them.
But, as of today there are some really nice 18CF fridges that are about 370 Kwh a year. So that's about a 1 Kw a day. That alone is very dooable by itself on solar. But, if you swap out the light bulb with an LED bulb, and you keep the fridge full of bottled water or beer. You'll can do a lot better than the advertised government rating. Plus, you could kill the auto defrost circuit and save even more, probably be just as efficient as a chest freezer. What would be really cool, is if you put the defrost circuit timer to come on when the sun is blazing and the batteries are charged up. That way you'd never have to defrost it and the fridge wouldn't be trying to defrost itself at 2AM off the battery bank. Gotta be a way to do it!
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To email me click on Link http://is.gd/QMfVEX
Best bet? skip all that and buy a fridge from cold stone (he advertises on craigslist). Right here in Hawaiian Beaches. It's only a 12CF fridge. Not bad... I could do it. Altho, I really like my 18CF. Perfect for us. But Stone Cold has no defrost. So, you gotta prop open the freezer door and defrost it yourself, no big deal.... Plus his fridge runs off 12V ~ 48V DC. So no need for an inverter. I think he said his fridge consumes about 500 watts a day. That is very dooable on todays panels. Only really down side is, he wants 1000 dollars for them.
But, as of today there are some really nice 18CF fridges that are about 370 Kwh a year. So that's about a 1 Kw a day. That alone is very dooable by itself on solar. But, if you swap out the light bulb with an LED bulb, and you keep the fridge full of bottled water or beer. You'll can do a lot better than the advertised government rating. Plus, you could kill the auto defrost circuit and save even more, probably be just as efficient as a chest freezer. What would be really cool, is if you put the defrost circuit timer to come on when the sun is blazing and the batteries are charged up. That way you'd never have to defrost it and the fridge wouldn't be trying to defrost itself at 2AM off the battery bank. Gotta be a way to do it!
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To email me click on Link http://is.gd/QMfVEX