Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

The Dayton Ohio Habitat For Humanity has a bunch of new old stock (5 years) Norcold compressor fridges. Shipping is expensive, but it's still an amazing deal. These fridges retail for $1,200!
-Norcold is based out of Sydney Ohio, about 40 minutes north of the Habitat for Humanity in Dayton

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Norcold-EV0788 ... 3712065436

These are true solar fridges that consume 35-40 watts running.

I got some of my buddies together and we bought 4 total. Two of us have measured between 2.5-2.9 Amps of consumption. It pulled the empty interior down to 40* from 70* in about 45 minutes. I got the interior fridge area down to 32 after an hour and a half or so when I was testing it, Also it's SUPER quiet.

One small catch (truly) is that these are the European Voltage versions that have a 220v euro plug on them in addition to a set of 12v leads. I was able to remove the back electrical box and remove the 220v side panel and wire in my own $17 110v ->12vdc power supply. Super easy solution to power off of shore power! You can always power off the 12v leads if you don't care about shore power. I went through the effort because I am assuming that it will prioritize shore power over battery power when connected, but I have not tested this yet.

I cant wait to build this into my trailer project.





Got this 10Amp 12vdc power supply for $17 on amazon.


I am not affiliated with these guys in any way, but had to pass on this deal, and their profits help the community.

Again, this fridge has BOTH 12v leads AND a 220V euro plug on it. So if you don't want to bother with the AC shore power then you don't have to.

However we're a bunch of nerds and proceeded to tear into the power supply to see what we can do.
-I tried cutting off the euro plug and installing a regular 110v plug since some power supplies can handle it, this one can't. It produced no output at 110v.
-220v leads attached on one side of the board, and 12v leads out the other side, easy. Just connect the output of your aftermarket 110v -> 12vdc 10 amp power supply to those leads.
-Thats assuming that it's smart enough to prioritize shore power over the 12v leads and not backfeed the 12v leads (this is electrically easy, I just haven't tested it yet) I'll probably delete this comment later when I get time to test it.


Overview of the power supply, left side is the 220v side, right side is the components to actually run the fridge (we leave those alone)


These are the leads that need to be removed, I will be connecting my external power supply onto this.


Board removed, which was not necessary but I wanted to have a closer look. You can also barely see the black and red connector I added sticking out the bottom to connect my external power supply. It was late after this step so I called it a night.

Thanks for posting...and also to DIY electrical part too

I'm interested...maybe another buddy too.

Shipping to MN is $150 though

Here's an idea I'll share

I'd pay Habitat for a unit...a local camper would pick it up and hold it for me. I'll be through the area soon and I'd pick it up from them...with a thank you payment too.

Anyone live in the Dayton area willing to pick one up for me?

Tom

Did some testing last night. It prioritizes DC over everything else. I had both a battery connected to the DC lines and my external 110v ->12vdc supply connected to the old outputs and it prioritized the dc inputs.

One concern is that it sounded much stronger and slightly louder when connected directly to the battery instead of my 10a 110v ->12vdc supply. I wonder if the old supply output 24vdc instead. More testing will be needed but it's easy and cheap to hook this fridge up the 110v ac if you want to.

I did measure roughly 3a at 12vdc on both inputs so it's pulls the same amount of current through both inputs.

That is a great price even with the shipping. I'm tempted to buy one just in case I need one but we're on a down sizing kick right now. I'll probably kick my self in a year or so for not buying it.

Bruce

FYSA irv2.com has tons of threads about these fridges. I have read at least a dozen different threads about rv fires that started with the fridge. In 2006 they had a class action lawsuit that won. They also have a recall on them.


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redbicycle wrote:FYSA irv2.com has tons of threads about these fridges. I have read at least a dozen different threads about rv fires that started with the fridge. In 2006 they had a class action lawsuit that won. They also have a recall on them.
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I think you may be talking about the propane fridges.

Here is the recall. I imagine it is a different part number. I was just raising awareness.

https://norcold.com/recall-information/



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redbicycle

Not the same kind of fridge at all. The recall was for ammonia type absorption fridges not compressor type.

Nigel

redbicycle wrote:FYSA irv2.com has tons of threads about these fridges. I have read at least a dozen different threads about rv fires that started with the fridge. In 2006 they had a class action lawsuit that won. They also have a recall on them.

Not the same kind of fridge, not even close. The compressor fridges haven't had any fires or recalls (knock on wood)...

Bruce