Installing a fridge, 12v or 110v

The Build Questions & Recommendations
1

I’ve ordered a Novakool fridge for our van conversion. It should be able to run on 12v as well as 110v through the invertor.

My equipment:

  • Invertor (Xantrex Freedom XC PRO 2000)
  • 2x Battle Born 100 Ah 12V LiFePO4 Deep Cycle Battery (installed in parallel)

I’m unsure whether I should wire the fridge up to 12v, 110v or both.
The fridge will automatically switch power to 110v if available. So my feeling says it’s a bad idea to wire it up to the breaker box behind the invertor. (which (I think) would result in a 12v -> 110v -> 12v transformation)

I could however wire the fridge into the breaker panel of the incoming shore power. Is there any real benefit of doing this? This way the battery wouldn’t be used at all when on a powered campsite, but is there actually a benefit for doing this?

2

Greetings & Welcome!

12v is always more efficient unless you have shore power available. If your system is hooked up correctly, when it’s on shore power, it should also be charging your battery bank, so switching your fridge to shore power is unnecessary.

Try to use your inverter as little as possible, and turn it off when not in use because they are very inefficient, and will continue to draw power even when not in use but still turned on.

Many many things are available in 12v models these days, so whenever possible I try to opt for those to avoid needing an inverter at all. I haven’t used an inverter in years now, if I need shore power for anything, which is extremely rare, I just fire up my generator. Since I’m in the camp that considers generators a necessity rather than an option, even if it’s just a backup plan, since I have it, I might as well use it occasionally. My $99 generator was also far cheaper than my inverter. My generator runs for about 8 hours on a single gallon of gas, so it’s extremely cheap to run too.

Cheers!

"Beat Murphy's Law with a KISS! (Keep It Stupidly Simple)" ~ Van_Dweller


3

Thanks! Yes you’re right just using 12v for the fridge makes sense.
Most things I have run on 12v. Only the AC (only when using shore power) and electric cook-top really need 110V.