Holding plate fridge run on inverter

[mahal]

Anyone here run their 110V AC holding plate fridge on inverter power? I don’t have a problem running my generator but it would be nice to be able to run the fridge during times when we’re not allowed to run our genny in Catalina.

 

[ofer]

Anyone here run their 110V AC holding plate fridge on inverter power? I don’t have a problem running my generator but it would be nice to be able to run the fridge during times when we’re not allowed to run our genny in Catalina.

I run a full size 110 chest freezer 24/7 on inverter power

 

[syjos]

We run our built in AC holding plate chest freezer on a pure side wave inverter with no issues.

When we had a modified sine wave inverter, we did not run the freezer on it due to the compressor running hot. Dave at Seafreeze, manufacturer of my holding plate, said AC compressors tend to run hotter on modified waves.

 

[mahal]

Thanks. Glad to know that it can be done. I understand that some folks that run their air conditioners on inverter power have to add a “soft start” relay to eliminate the spike in amp draw and I was wondering if that was also the case for holding plate compressors. My set up is a single compressor cooling a separate fridge and freezer. I think it draws 15 amps AC.

 

[syjos]

Thanks. Glad to know that it can be done. I understand that some folks that run their air conditioners on inverter power have to add a “soft start” relay to eliminate the spike in amp draw and I was wondering if that was also the case for holding plate compressors. My set up is a single compressor cooling a separate fridge and freezer. I think it draws 15 amps AC.

The AC compressor on my freezer draws over 20 amps at start up but the surge capability of my Victron inverter handles that.

After start up, the compressor draws around 2 to 4 amps.

 

[FF]

The hassle is to get use out of the cold plate it has to be frozen.

This is at least 10 deg under the melt temperature.

The cold plate system designed to save frozen brine to keep the box cold.

Freezing takes time , so although you can use an inverter to keep the box cold , going for a ride , or running the noisemaker might work better at keeping the batteries up..

 

[syjos]

The hassle is to get use out of the cold plate it has to be frozen.

This is at least 10 deg under the melt temperature.

The cold plate system designed to save frozen brine to keep the box cold.

Freezing takes time , so although you can use an inverter to keep the box cold , going for a ride , or running the noisemaker might work better at keeping the batteries up..

I get the plate down to temperature by running it overnight on shore power after the box is filled with prefrozen food.

 

[mahal]

Thanks guys. I’ll have to measure the actual amp draw before deciding if an inverter is a worthwhile investment. My compressor’s label says “10.4 minimum circuit ampacity” which, to me, means that it will not use less than 10.4 amps at any given time. Am I assuming correctly? Hope I’m wrong and my amp draw is more like Syjos.

When moored in Catalina Island where running of generators isn’t allowed between 10pm to 7am, we delay the start of our shore activities until after we’ve run our generator for 1.5 hours (time needed to cool the fridge and freezer) since we are usually away from the boat for at least 3 hours and don’t want to leave the genny running that long needlessly especially unattended. If we had a large enough inverter set up, I figure, we could just run the fridge on inverter power and be able to go to shore early. Also, there’s been times when we’ve forgotten to run the generator and fridge in the evening and realized it when it’s already close to 10pm (generator shut off time) and wished we had an inverter.

 

[syjos]

In the past, we ran the holding plate freezers compressor in the morning and evening to freeze the HP while the generator was running, when at anchor. There is a thermostat bypass switch to override it.

When on shorepower, the HP compressor circuit was always energized, temperaturs controlled by the thermostat.

We did not run the compressor from the modified sine wave inverter due to the compressor running hotter.

Once we installed the pure sine wave inverter about 10 years ago, the HP compressor circuit is always energized and the thermostat cycles the compressor, maintaining temperature. I'm not sure if this is the optimal way to operate a HP freezer but requires less action from me. Set and forget.

There are two remote thermometer probes inside the freezer box to monitor temperature from the pilohouse.