Sad Event at Quartzsite (with a silver lining)
- Thread starter Kevin Means
- Start date
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
blw2
Well-known member
yes, that of course is the primary concern. Lou, I'm certainly glad that yours was a short burn and caused no catastrophes!
I've been running with the ARP controller since the rig was pretty much new (thanks to posts from Gary and others here) to hopefully reduce the potential of amonia leak, and is the reason behind my adding fire suppression to the chimney area. As I mentioned before I'm concerned lately, about external corrosion on the boiler system.
I guess I just never thought of the burner being a potential problem area, beyond being the ignition point for the ammonia leak. LP regulators and burners have been around so long and in so many different applications, I just figured they'd have that area figured out by now and build them reasonably safe.
Lou Schneider
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I replaced that Dometic RV refrigerator with an apartment sized Magic Chef 120 volt unit. They're now using Heptane, a cousin of Propane as the refrigerant. It's flammable but there's only a couple of ounces in the system. And all of the piping is enclosed within the metal shell of the refrigerator unlike an RV fridge which has most of the piping exposed out the back of the enclosure. I doubt it would have a UL rating if there was any reasonable chance of a leak caused flame spreading outside the refrigerator.
garyb1st
Well-known member
Lou, how long will your lithium batteries keep it running?
blw2
Well-known member
That's interesting...didn't know they were now using a flammable refrigerant.
Well, another upside it seems would be that there is no flame involved in the process, so if there ever is a leak it'll more likely vent and dilute before getting ignited. Downside though...and I don't know how you installed it.... but I'd assume the unit is fully inside the living space so if it ever does leak it'll be inside and not overboard....
(a question for another thread I suppose, but I've not yet wrapped my head around the power consumption of these types of fridges, and how well that would work when boondocking off grid for several days with a limited battery bank and small-ish solar... I currently don't even have an inverter and only have a single 100Ah battery, and don't have room for more. 200W of solar)
Lou Schneider
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The easiest way to estimate the power usage is to look at the Energy Star annual ratings and divide them by 365 to get the daily usage. The Magic Chef 10.1 cu ft. refrigerator carries an Energy Star rating of 297 KwH per year or slightly less than 1 KwH per day (83 a/h at 12 volts), which is what I'm seeing. The Furrion 12 volt refrigerator is about the same.
When I had an apartment size refrigerator in my Arctic Fox 26x trailer 20 years ago I could boondock 3-4 days on 4 golf cart batteries.
Lou Schneider
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There's stored energy in any battery, if it's physically damaged or defective that energy can be released as thermal heat. So yes, a damaged lithium battery could catch on fire just sitting around if the fault becomes critical at that instant. But so can a lead acid battery if conditions are right. The difference is one of scale, there are few lead acid battery banks containing the amount of stored energy found in an electric vehicle battery. Or a tank of gas for that matter.
Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFeP04) batteries used in the 12 volt direct replacement RV batteries use a different chemistry and are much safer than the straight lithium ion batteries used in electric automobiles.
