My RV went up - and I'd only just installed a new fridge back. Mine was caused by Lithium batteries and a brand new Victron system.
a very sad day !
Guess what pictures 4 and 5 are?
a very sad day !
Guess what pictures 4 and 5 are?
yes, that of course is the primary concern. Lou, I'm certainly glad that yours was a short burn and caused no catastrophes!It's not just around the burner. When I removed the RV refrigerator from my Sunnybrook trailer there was a burn mark on the wall considerably above the burner where the flammable refrigerant escaped and apparently produced a flame for a short period.
That's interesting...didn't know they were now using a flammable refrigerant.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.
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.(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)
Can they catch on fire even when they are not being charged and just sitting around?Lithium batteries
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.Can they catch on fire even when they are not being charged and just sitting around?