Solar Powered Fridge Freezer! - 30w off grid refrigeration -Freezer holds gallon jugs! (ice blocks!) 

Wanted you to know that because of your video and research my friend is watching your video right now and will be purchasing. HE just mentioned he needed to get a new Fridge/Freezer for his room. HE is also in Preparedness and wanted something he could run on solar, in his camper etc. You have done good! Thanks.

Opening the door & all that cold air pours out !!! Chest freezers are the HOT TICKET !!

when you first turn the fridge/freezer on, the compressor stays on the whole hour to cool down the air. the first hour it draws about 50wh (watt hours). after that, the compressor kicks on and off every 8 to 12 minutes or so (it is usually on a little more than it is off. the unit uses an average of 30wh (watt hours)

yep, i used a killawatt meter. it uses 50 watts (the first hour) to cool down. then it takes 30 watts after that (sometimes a little less). it's not very hard on battery bank. with 2 batteries it's only drawing 15 watts off each. (it matches the energy consumption info provided by manufacturer very closely. 270kwh per year. (740w a day) breaks down to 30.8 watts.

it's a Kenmore (sold by Sears) model is 95693 (brand new - just came out).  btw - last years model is 95683. it uses a lot more power than the new model (337kwh per year vs. only 270kwh)

yeah, i think the fridge is made very well. *even comes with one-year in home free repair service (if needed - but lets hope not). i looked at a lot of these fridges/freezers. it seemed to be one of the best.

This video helped me with my school project!!!

Thanks for the clarification. I think this is a very reasonable option for my off-grid home - I appreciate you reviewing it.

Some more energy saving tips. 1: get rid of the bulb. Do you really need the extra light? If you're munching at night, the room light should be more than enough. 2: Prepare two ice packs, one for the freezer compartment and one for the fridge compartment at the top of each compartment. These frozen blocks will retain enough cold and put less strain on the power supply and more importantly, less strain on the fridge's electrical systems. 3: Tilt the fridge backwards slightly. You remember this from first grade, hot air rises, cold air falls. Tilting the fridge back just three degrees (not temp wise, but angle) will create a pocket of cold air at the bottom of the compartment for those momentary trips to snackville. This is how chest freezers work, instead of dumping all your cold air onto the floor, the freezer holds it inside this insulated basin. Doesn't sound like a lot, but when the warmer air evacuates, there is a major difference.

If all you need is refrigeration, get a chest freezer and use it as a refrigerator by running it off a controller driven by a thermostat hung inside. You'll use just 100 watts per day! mtbest.net/chest_fridge.pdf

Hi,nice fridge. I think the lightbulb you have in the fridge is a 15W incandescent bulb with E14 socket. You can try changing it with led lightbulb...2w-3w. I know that the light turns on only when opening the door, but any watt should be taken into consideration when using solar power. Another option is to put the fridge into the basement where is colder than inside the house. This way it will start rarely => uses less W.

that is gold my friend for a hunting campsite off the grid

I have done that and my killawatt meter showed an increase in power consumption , just feel the sides of the fridge after it has been running. I connected a 5 watt solar panel to a small 24 volt computer fan and set at the back by the compressor to help move the warm air away , that showed a drop in power consumption.

it's a Kenmore (sold by Sears) model is 95693 (brand new - just came out). btw - last years model is 95683. it uses a lot more power than the new model (337kwh per year vs. only 270kwh)

sure is. i originally had planned on buying a small fridge and small chest freezer separately. the freezer on this model was large enough for my needs so i just got the one unit.

running air conditioning on solar takes a lot of panels and batteries. you would probably need at least 10 100w panels and 10 to 20 batteries. those ac units that say they use 500 watts actually can use close to 1000w (if the compressor stays on for very long)

hi. i'm using a modified sine wave inverter. seems to run fine. for best performance (and if you can afford it) use pure sine wave one. xantrex has a few good inexpensive models. many even have built-in lighted voltmeter

This is exactly what I need! Thank you for the video!

since it takes 740w a day (30.8 watts) to run, just make sure the solar panels can produce that per day. at the moment i'm using a 100w monocrystalline panel. the batteries are 12 volt deep cycle batteries. i think they can hold about 100ah

i used a 1000w inverter. you might be able to get away with using a slightly smaller one (600, 750 or 800 watter). (only takes 30 watts to run but power demand spikes for a fraction of a second to 'kick on' the compressor. that is why such a large inverter is needed). i tried a 400w one but it wasen't strong enough to turn on the compressor.

Hi there. I love your set-up. Could you list each component and a rough price estimate, so that i can try and replicate your setup? thank you :)

This is awesome...I am doing a sunrader remodel and want complete solar...this is awesome!!!

Refrigeration is one of mankind's great ideas, right "up there" with the wheel. "Cool", huh?

Just ordered my first mini fridge to test out on my solar!! Just gotta say thank you for the inspiration! Also, that Kenmore mini fridge is currently $200 and uses 270kWh per year which comes out to 30.5W per hour. After some researching I found a mini fridge/freezer from Igloo. The mini Igloo cost $150 and uses 206kWh per year which comes to 23.5W per hour. Hope this helps!

so it uses 30 watt-hours per hour? and 740 watt-hours (.74 kWhs) per day? That's pretty good, but large energy efficient fridges provide four times the storage volume using only about 25% more energy. You might want look at small chest freezers too, since they don't lose all their cool every time you open the door.

it's the 3.1 cubic footer. yep, you could run a fan and this fridge at the same time.

yep, sure will

ok i got it and it works thanks. it was my batteries are really slow at chargeing. they are going bad thank you very much. i have 140 amp hour batteries together. and about hold to about 6 am before dieing on a full charge. so i just disconnect the fridge over night. and connect it in the morning food stays cool and to get it back to temperture does not take very long

it's 3.1 cubic feet. i bought it from Sears. this new model had just arrived at the store. only $149.00 brand new

Yup. Just make sure that the condenser always has "free access" to the ambient environment. As long as that condition is satisfied, more insulation around the cooled volume is ALWAYS better.

30 watts? That's awesome!

That's remarkable. It looks like a first rate product. Sears makes good stuff, but I think they're in trouble nowadays.

Someone already replied to you, I know, but I was just going to say, even if that were the case, I remember the Northeast blackout of 2003. We had no power for two days, so our fridge didn't work; obviously. But even so, as long as we opened the fridge a bit, grabbed what we needed quickly and then closed the door, all of our stuff stayed cold enough during the blackout. Fridges are decently insulated, or else you would just waste hydro trying to cool them.

Thanks for the video. Just what I was looking for. I am using a PWM inverter for anything les than a laptop or other "sensitive" piece of equipment and will hook up the fridge when it arrives today or tomorrow. There was some mention of a minimum operating temperature of 55 degrees Farenheit for those in a cooler environment. Jim J.

great stuff... so many good tips in your videos - thanks for sharing

FEB 2017 Right now you can get 2 100 watt panels a charge controller $310 delivered that allows you to expand to 400 watts later. You still have to buy a battery and a inverter but no biggie most have inverters or access to them. The glory of this device is you don't have to keep it running all night you can run it during the day when the sun is out and keep the door closed during the day drop your blocks of ice into the fridge should do to keep fridge cold enough. Point is a 12 volt compressor fridge cost over $400 for something comparable today you can get something like this for $120 and have a great off grid set. Again you can get new batteries you can try to find industrial use batteries that were discarded for new and usually get these for a lot less than retail batteries cost.

the monocrystalline panel was $179.99 from amazon (free shipping). i have seen the same panel new on ebay for $150.00.

this is outstanding! Thanks!

You must save slit of money doing this!! I will do the same when I am older and have a house. I will also do that cardboard wax tin an heater too!

Not so, unless one were to insulate the condenser area. A refrigerator doesn't "make" cold; it merely moves heat (energy) from the interior to the exterior, and the energy is released into the ambient environment through the condenser unit. More insulation around the refrigerated area is ALWAYS beneficial, provided that the condenser is allowed to have free access to ambient conditions. Further, spraying water or a similar fluid onto the condenser coils results in even higher efficiencies.

thnks-more questions later. keep it up DS2! Hope you are still advising on this. I am doing homework since I invested in a 12 volt freezer that runs off 2 batteries but they need to be powered by something. solar was the choice but which one and now to set it up is the next mission... On to another cup of our Kona coffee and figure the next step out... aloha from Big Island

That is sweet. I wonder if may off gridders use something like that. I don't know how they get by without refrigeration. That just makes things a little to difficult for me. This could work though especially if I could have a deep freezer. Janice

The odd thing some larger units can be about the same as far as energy usage. Here I have a unit small Refrigerator Freezer similar to that in this this video, a one from Walmart and a big General Electric 18.1 cubic foot one from Home Depot and the yellow yearly energy tag on both are 324 KWhr per year. ie 324000 /(365 *24)= 37 watts. Both are from 2011. With a kill a watt P3 meter the big unit averages out longterm less than 37 watts

Nice find. How are you determining the wattage consumption? Do you have a KillAwatt? Id really like to know what a KillA Watt says and how hard it is on a Battery Bank. My concern is it one thing to run this during the day, but when night time comes around your on pure battery. Then your Bat Bank is way down in the morning and you have to worry about bringing your Bank back up at the same time you still need to keep that Fridge / Freezer running. And there lies your problem.Good luck with it.

interesting, I never thought that solar can do this .. I'm amaze..

What?30 watts an hour ! Thats 7200 watts a day to run and the panel looks like a 400 watts can the panels and only two batteries support that amount of watts?

3.1 cuft

you can cut that in half if u buy a chest freezer and put a external thermostat on it and run the freezer as a fridge..i been doing that over 20 years

No, a refrigerator already has insulation and adding more insulation would keep the cool in for an even longer period and would cause the thermostat to not kick on as often....IMO.

Hello. Great find. What is the amp draw off your batteries while it is running? Thanks.

desertsun02 you're a genius

Now if they could make an air conditioner that ran on 30watts an hour- I'd buy that.

So glad l found your videos, so informative. Thanks!

i got a 12V engel car fridge/freezer. its either one or the other depending on how far you turn the knob. mine runs at 18.5 watts when its actually running. got it on a 120watt panel and 100Ah batteries which runs the compressor for like 25 hours or so before flattening the battery. but its only like 32 litres inside. good enough for a single man. watch?v=fs8u4cQDTN8 also bought a propane freezer for the summer. which is like 68 litres inside.

Great its something new to me.

Wow! Awesomeness!!

yep, i mean 30 Wh (watt hours)

Wait!? Does it use the same amount of power as that light bulb? Joking a side. ..I just sub..love the channel

I want one of these!

YOU ARE AWESOME!

I plan on using this type of setup in a van conversion. I'm thinking about getting a 5,000 BTU ac as well that uses 500watts. How would I go about providing enough panels and batteries? I can mount panels to the roof easily enough.

Awesome bro

They sell 280 watt solar panels today sure would like to see one of them under $200 panels hooked up to power this set to see how long it would work? Wonder how long the inverter would hold out? Too bad they don't just make this 12 volt or 24 volt. They do sell 12 volt fridges but they are spensive !

My 24 year old son has Type I Diabetes, which means he is dependent on insulin injections and will die without them. I would like to stock up on as much insulin as possible in case of a severe catastrophe and would want a solar refrigerator to store it because there probably won't be electricity. It's a horrible death without it so this is serious stuff to me. We don't have solar panels on our home. Can this use external solar to keep it cold? Thanks for any input any of you can offer!

Freaking awesome!!! I would love some help on how to do the same but to run a small fridge in my freightliner truck. I am always on the road and getting tired of buying ice to keep my drinks cool. Thanks for your video. Have agreat one!

I love your setup, and want to build something like it. I want to make sure that I can solar charge replacement batteries as fast, or faster, than the setup uses them. Ideally, I would charge in the daytime what the batteries use in 24hrs. How would I calculate something like that, so I can be sure? Thanks for all the awesome information!

You can use any inverter with a laptop that has a battery as the battery acts as a voltage conditioner. With desktop systems you would be best to use a pure sin wave inverter, but it depends on the quality of the inverter. I have used my interter that is cheap as can be, but does well with most equipment. Just my 2 cents.

Nice set up. I agree with DoctorPrep, a few days of rainy and overcast skies and your battery bank will be compromised. What's the size of your inverter?

Let us know how this goes long term. Mine had some sort of bad reaction to the inverter and stopped working after around six months.

Do you operate a generator for extended periods of cloudy weather? Hate to see the food spoil and not have a backup..

It would make it run longer as it would keep the heat in that the fridge is trying to disapate

The Model# is Kenmore 99763 3.1 cu. ft. Compact Refrigerator - Stainless Steel

I just bought a similar fridge, I too would like to run it off a modified sine wave inverter, but I hear of issues in the long run with this type of setup and a pure sine wave is supposedly better. Given this video is from 2013, how has there been any issues with this fridge and the modified sine wave inverter over the past 2 years?

Never mind a 4.5, right? Would you be able to run a oscillating fan and the fridge at the same time?

No it wouldn't I'm afraid. 30 watts of solar panel wont cut it. You need at least 100watts of solar panels and would advise 200-300ah of batteries too. even with 100 watts of solar panel you would need at least 8 hours of direct sunlight to make enough power to run it for 24 hours, i would say that 150-200watts of panels would be ideal and 300ah of battery.

wow that's great

Build a table to put your fridge on top of. It's really bad for your back. You can put it up at a really nice high height

Since many years have passed , any newer model recommendations? Any lessons learned from your experience? Hoping to find something for solar 24vdc if possible and affordable.

Is your inverter pure sine or modified? Can u run a fridge on a modified sine inverter? Tnx

I found it. Thanks Again:)

Hey desert sun if you're still out there how many batteries does it take to run it all night long and not drain them dry so you can wake up and get the sun to recharge them I would appreciate some info thanks bud

If I got a Goal Zero Escape 30 Solar Panel and a Goal Zero Yeti 150 Solar Generator, would I be able to run the fridge off that? The solar panel is a 30 watt panel and it can feed right into the solar generator. I'd plug the fridge into the generator and use that. Also if I took the light out, would I save on the amount of power I need to use?

What size inverter are you using? Thanks for the great video! This looks to be a great option for my solar setup but I am curious how big the power surge is.

Great stuff, do you have any idea of which is the lowest temperature it gets?

your video is great I, however, have a question, I currently have a yeti 1250 with a 100 watt Coleman solar panel with an Anderson connector and 120 watts 4- 30 watt panels that came with the yeti (is the battery and controller) I would love to run a small fridge off the solar will this be enough to run a small fridge and what would the maximum energy guide number be that I should look at to reproduce something like you are currently using *tried to find that fridge no luck . thank you

you have a lot invested in the solar. can you take the solar off and hook it to another source to use while this is running?

thank you alot.

I have recently been to Menards and they have a criterion refrigerator with the freezer on top I believe it's not frost-free its manual defrost and I think it's about 7 or 8 cubic feet,,,, that model doesn't use as much power as this little one here in the video,,,,, that's hard to believe however I think I'm going to use one of their chest freezers and do a chest freezer to refrigerator conversion with a Johnson Controls external thermostat,,,,grape solar looks kinda good,,, however I'm hearing mixed reviews on that one I read the reviews from Home Depot and on Amazon it's a 5.1 cubic foot refrigerator that grape sells,,,,and of course ARB,,, and Engel,,,, then Whynter,,,,all these appear to be at the top of their game it looks like but high cost for their size,,,for that matter the grape unit isn't cheap,,,and alll these( excluding the criterion models)would be dc,,,12/24 volts,,,,no inverter to run,,,anyone with actual use and experience with any of these units please chime in,,, this desert Sun guy has got a lot of other very very interesting videos I sniffed around on RU-vid a little bit and found him this guy has true ingenuity and a lot of really good ideas they're worth checking out if you have the time I think refrigeration is a very important issue,,, we lost electric some years back we had what they called straight line wind and we were without power when it was 98 degrees out thank God we had generators but they were big generators and they cost me about $85 a 24 hour period for my house and my mothers house up the street,,, I've been learning my lesson,,,, I have smaller generators and bigger generators now and solar power I can see the absolute necessity of refrigeration however you would want the absolute highest efficiency I think personally for the size versus the power usage the chest freezer could really be the way to go and then maybe I might get an Engel or an ARB unit that I could use as a freezer and or refrigerator because that's how they work,,, one or the other and all you have to do is adjust the thermostat you can make them a freezer or a refrigerator.

I saw this when you first posted the vid. My question is...when you say " use a large invertor" what is the wattage of the your invertor used in the video, and is it Pure Sine Wave or Modified?

What is the wattage of your panel(s)? I’m looking to run a 27wh similar size with smaller freezer in my rv along with a 19 “ tv, small toaster and 800wh convection oven. Starting with amount watts of panels needed for the fridge will help

At night, how much will it drain the batteries?

Hy, this is great. I have small cattage and mini solar power system which I made from 68 w solar panel, 130 Ah batteries and 500 w inverter. Please, what do you think, can I run this kind of refrigerator on my system? Thanks.

I mean 720 watts can be done by 2 panels and 2 batteries all day..

Great video. I apologize if this has already been asked. I'm new to the whole solar thing. If i have this exact setup, how long will the fridge stay cool? Will this setup keep the contents cold 24/7 or would I have to transfer the frozen water down to the fridge halfway through the day? thanks.

what about during the night?

No mention of inverter size

Thanks for the video. I am looking to run a small fridge on solar for a remote property and saw your video. Question though. I went and looked at this model at Sears and it shows it as being 1.3amps, or 156 watts. How did you determine that yours is using 30 watts? That is a lot less then the sticker shows.

Really Cool! Thanks. It could be used to freeze those water jugs for your air cooler build ;) [portable cold!]

Thank You. I am wondering if I can pull this off with just the one 90AH battery in my truck and a single 100 Watt panel? Also, how long does it take the unit to free ice?

I would imagine that if you wrapped the fridge in styrofoam or some other insulating material that it might use even less watt hours.