Re: Refrigerator cooling unit change out
Reply #21 –
IF you were a prepper in shaky town would you replace a running absorption refer?
Or like to dry camp in quiet desert areas that is so quiet that your ears ring from the city high background noise you are used to.
Or dry camp with friends with tents where the noise is objectionable.
Or where others are downwind of your diesel smells?
Having to run the gen several hours a day.
Nice that some here assume cheaper is better. Short term yes. Maybe. Long term? No.
Running non equalizeable agm's and not running them to float almost every day and/or not charging them at the 20% manufacturer spec rate for keeping the batteries from losing capacity is much more expensive long term.
Foretravel sold a matching system always.
It's an rv. Not a park model.
Original design to dry camp for several days with no gen.
Tell me again how the solar and batteries and inverter were free?
Takes a lot of gen run time or a lot of solar the replace several hundred amp hours used in a day.
Oh you do not mind the noise or smells or fuel use or gen maintenance. No problem.
If I leave the chest refer off in mild weather I can live fairly normally for up to three days. No gen run time. No noise.
But most do not live in shaky town. As a 5 year old I went through the 53 Bakersfield earthquake. Threw me on the floor. Woke up half way to the floor. Can still relive it like it happened to this moment.
Tried to stand up. Knocked me down 8.3. Last great quake.
Two to three weeks minimum to get food and water to so cal.
If your lucky. So the coach is walking distance. Full everything when parked.
My training is to not lessen what Foretravel sold new.
A park model is not capable of four season dry camping or extended use without re provisioning.
As far as Victron I wanted more than Foretravel sold electrically. Stock was a 2500 watt non sine wave non battery temp controlled inverter charger.
Call me old fashioned or stupid but a hard to service 2200 watt made in India cheaper unit is not my or any other manufacturers offering.
No program to run Lifelines which should be run with non conforming charging rates for much longer battery life.
Or gels to not be harmed by incorrect charging rates.
I told countless customers that "the mark of any rv is how it dry camps without running the gen on internal water.
Most who convert their coaches cannot dry camp for several days with no gen.
We and the Fores were rv'ers. No power pole. Internal supplies.
No paint as bushes damaged it. And it made the coach hotter in the sun.
Like I said no Indian made non serviceable components please.
Yes it's cheaper. And has a color tv to run it. That's nice.
My local high volume rv service places owner installed a replacement absorbation unit on his domestic side by side.
He laughed about installing a residential refer in our shaky town somewhat isolated area in so cal. No.
We understand the limitations. Most have no need or want for what we want/need.
$2k worth of long life new batteries. $2k worth of inverter. $2k worth of solar. Plus the refer.
Nice if you can do your own work but the parts cost is above.
Not buying non American non serviceable non spec parts. Period.
If you have more batteries can you charge them at 1/5th C? Or equalize them? Or did you reinstall what was oem on every Unicoach? Mk gels? They can take a lower charge rate without damage and do not need equalizing.
Sorry. A lot of rv'ers assume cheaper is better. Oh it does not last as long? And gave less service?
If someone posts a build where everything matches the original engineering or better I would love to see it.
Not knowing all this is one thing. Knowing all this and still doing the setup less than optimum is a different decision.
Almost universally in my experience if someone says "it's less expensive" I have learned to ask "what is missing? What corners did you cut?"
Just a purist. Not a price buyer. Had to fix too many poorly done rv's long ago.
If I was appraising most coaches I see I would deduct for non correct systems.
Way easier to sell and show if you can show prospective buyers everything is done correctly and can be shown.
Done this hundreds of times and used hundreds of coaches at random to go rving.
But my cell phone was on 24/7/365 for my customers. Still is.
.
Cut no corners and the phone never rings. The other ways cost too much repeat business.
Could not afford to not engineer my coaches sold less than perfect.
The frugal folks are legendary in the rv biz.
Countless stories.
Like the led g4 lights. The cheap ones died quickly in use. "But they were less money?"
Topic: Refrigerator cooling unit change out