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To add DC you need the eyebrow board and everything that connects to it. There is no kit. It is not a simple add-on.
Whether propane poses a danger while underway has been debated across the Internet for decades. I would simply suggest that if there was a significant risk it would also be a risk to the manufacturers who made it possible to run down the road with the propane on.
My underlying thought is propane poses no more risk while traveling than while camped, unless the argument is that you might catch it sooner while camped and I guess that is true provided you are at your camper when the fire starts.
I agree with Mike. If operating on battery power is an important goal, change out the entire fridge and go with a DC compressor model plus the solar to support the batteries while it is cooling.
My two cents
Steve and Andra
2012 F350 6.2 gasser SRW LB
Fab Fours front and rear in case we run into a rhino
2019 Northstar Laredo SCI have a 3-way fridge, and it sucks >20 amps on DC power, which is more than the truck sends back to the camper batteries. So I’ve wondered about running a power cord from the in-cab inverter, running the fridge on 120VAC. It draws approx 300 watts AC, which is slightly more than when running on 12V, but in this case it would be leaving the camper batteries intact. Having said that, I sometimes run it on propane while driving, and sometimes pre-load it with frozen water bottles in “ice-box” mode. Because of the excessive DC draw, that’s now my last option.
Running a 3 way frig on the 12 volt setting does not work very well. I run mine on 110 volt electric from the the inverter I have in my camper. I have installed a heavy charge line from my truck to the camper batteries to supply the 30 amps dc required. The system works very well.
2007 Dodge 3500 Dually 4x4
Cummins 5.9, 6sp, PAC
brake, Big Wig, Timbrens
2000 Lance 1130
2004 Jeep RubiconJust glancing at the catalog, the difference between most 2 and 3-way refrigerators is so slight they note the same shipping weight in the specs. There are a few more components, but they weigh very little.
The demand for 3-way refrigerators is very small and perhaps more than is worth messing with by the manufacturer. In my opinion, the power draw of the DC element is so high, having that option brings very little to the party for most folks. The near 20 amp draw is hard to make back up while moving about without additional modes or options. I would at least want two batteries riding shotgun if I intended to deploy that option.
DC was never intended to be anything more than a “maintainer” mode to be used after the fridge was already cooled down using propane or AC with the door left closed. With ample solar on the roof to handle other features, a DC compressor model fridge may be the setup of choice.
Steve and Andra
2012 F350 6.2 gasser SRW LB
Fab Fours front and rear in case we run into a rhino
2019 Northstar Laredo SCI tried running my Dometic 2-way fridge on propane while traveling and here is the problem I ran into. I was going the speed limit (50 mph) in Glenwood Canyon and it was very windy as well. The wind apparently buffeted my propane flame which (I did not know it at the time) got a little frisky and caused the thermal fusible link near, but outside of the burner & chimney, to melt. This safety feature shuts down the fridge on propane totally. When I got to Grand Junction, I could not figure out why my fridge worked on AC but not on propane. Fortunately, I found a great mobile RV tech and he figured it out in a few minutes. The fusible link is close to, but like I said, outside of the burner, not in the chimney and it looks like a wire with a loose heat shrink on it. Inside that sleeve is a metal link that melts and breaks the circuit if the propane flame or exhaust should ever leave the confines of the burner or chimney. It looked just fine – no sign of burning – the melting point of the fuse must be quite low. I had no other indication of flames or heat outside of the burner. Lesson learned.
The RV tech gave me about 3 or 4 of them as spares. He was a licensed Dometic warranty repair man and had to retrofit the fusible links onto some older models, so he had extras. So now I carry the spares with me. And I know if I am at a windy camp site and my fridge on propane stops working, I will check that fusible link for continuity first thing.
We have never traveled with the fridge running on propane since. We use the ice box method. At the start of a trip, whatever space is in the freezer after frozen food is put in there, we fill it with blue ice and frozen water bottles. We also fill the fridge with cold water bottles, beer, wine, whatever will fit. When we will be on the road for the day we move a blue ice or two and a couple frozen water bottles out of the freezer into the fridge part. Everything stays cold. At night, back on propane, the blue ice goes back into the freezer and is refrozen by morning. No problem.Jeff,
Your comment really interests me. I was a Certified Master Tech factory trained by Dometic for 20 years and have never run into a single instance like the one you describe, although I worked on hundreds of Dometic refrigerators.
The fusible link and thermal switches on and near the stack came about with the refrigerator fires, lawsuits, and thousands of recalls.
I don’t doubt for a minute the details of your report, but never thought to carry fusible links as I never had to replace one. If this is as much an anomaly as my own experience would suggest, I am scratching my head trying to figure out what is different here. I am also wondering if anyone else here has had the same experience.
Steve and Andra
2012 F350 6.2 gasser SRW LB
Fab Fours front and rear in case we run into a rhino
2019 Northstar Laredo SCYou would have to have been there to appreciate how strong the winds were in the canyon. We were really being buffeted by wind coming off the canyon walls. It could have even been a strong wind off the canyon wall that put the fridge in the lee and momentary negative pressure that pulled the flame or heat out of the burner. Or a wind coming down the vent that pushed it out.
I wrote about it more to give a heads up that the thermal fuse is something to check if you find your fridge not working after driving with your propane fridge on or camping in a really windy spot. It is so easy to check. Also, it is a good thing to know that if your model fridge does have a thermal fuse, it can perform the function intended – shutting down your propane if the flame or heat gets out of where it should be.
As for carrying spares, the RV tech and I, with a few winks, talked about how to get by without it till you get to civilization and find a replacement. ‘Nuff said about that. But after my experience, I know I would never, ever drive with the propane fridge on if I did not have a working thermal fuse in place.
From my perspective, definitely an outlier situation – Does the possibility exist? No doubt…But this is more a question of likelihood – FWIW, driven well over 100k + miles with refer on LPG, but never have had a single issue…Just saying
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