1000 watt generator enough for a typical refrigerator?

I'm getting a cheap 1000 watt gasoline generator. Is that sufficient to power a 16 cubic foot refrigerator/freezer in an emergency? I know those compressors draw a lot of power when they kick in.

Reply to
dgk
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If it draws 8 amps on startup that's 880 watts @ 110 volts. Why not find one that is 2000 watts, can't be that much more expensive.

Also, is that 1000 watts running or surge?

Reply to
A. Baum

Get a gizmo called "Kill-A-Watt" and discover how much power your fridge draws when it kicks in.

Further, most generators are rated "xxxx/yyyySurge" where "surge" is the power available for a short period.

Reply to
HeyBub

Using a device called watts-up (similar to kill-a-watt), I measured my refrigerator to draw 23 A when the compressor kicks in. However I don't know how fast this device samples the current. So there may be a spike higher than 23A.

Adding some inductor and capacitor may help damp this spike.

Reply to
james

Thanks to all. Yes, it seems like it won't handle it very well, and I sure don't want to hurt the fridge. I called Fridgedair and they said

1800 watt minimum.

It was one of my more stupid impluse buys. I checked with Home Depot, Lowes, the local hardware store, Sears, PC Richard, and Best Buy before giving up on actually finding a relatively inexpensive (

Reply to
dgk

1800W 16 cu ft , I say BS. You didnt test it , a Clamp On Amp Meter or Kill-A-Watt is 35$ or less and will show you whats really up. None of my old friges wont start with a 1000w gen, normal running about 350-400w and with defroster on about 6-700. Newer units of the last 15 years run on 120-300w and im talking about 19.5cu up to big double door units that I have, so I dont believe tech support for your little 16cu ft unit. Why not test it for yourself, you need a good clamp on amp meter any way to properly know how to safely power any gen. But you have a bigger problem, you are buying the cheapest stuff you can and will have issues keeping 3600rpm =3D 60hz-120v, and those cheapest units are not honestly rated. but this is another discussion.
Reply to
ransley

I would agree with that being schooled in repair of cooling / refrigeration my educated guess would be 8 amps startup and about 3 -5 running.

Reply to
A. Baum

Good thought. And if I keep both I can help out a neighbor.

Reply to
dgk

I won't run my computer on a generator, well at least not the common ones. The Frig, the freezer, even the furnace blower, but not sensitive electronics, I can wait a day or 2 to check my Email.

Reply to
Eric in North TX

That's true. But two or three days without TV? Hmm. Actually, I rarely turn on the TV during the week unless a sport event that I care about is on.

Anyway, the generator arrived, and is very cute, and the instructions say not to use it with TV, computers, etc. I was going to just return it (since I already bought at 3500 watt China special) but it would cost around $30 just to FedEx it back. So I'll keep it.

Recently I bought an electric (13.5 amp Snow Joe) snow blower. My property is pretty small so a 50 foot cord from the outside receptacle would be sufficient and was what I had planned. But, the generator is light enough that I can actually do the sidewalk down the block for some of my neighbors. It's almost, but not quite, the same as having the gas snow blower. Not as strong of course.

Reply to
dgk

I would agree with you two gentlemen as well. So does "generator joe".

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Scan down to the refrigerator section. It shows a typical fridge pulling 13 amps for .1 secs at startup, then declining rapidly to close to it's 3 amp running current by .5 secs. In other words, while it does take a hefty current of 4X, it only lasts a half second. In fact, that fridge graph shows that the current is within the 1000W generator rating in a quarter of a second.

While we don't know for sure, it sounds like that generator is rated at 1000W operating. If so, one would think that it should be able to supply 50% more current for a quarter of a second.

The other issue is if it's an automatic defrost model, you have the defrost heater current when it comes on. According to Wikipedia, that's about 400W.

As usual, Google is your friend.

The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is in that same link above, they have a chart of starting WATTS vs running for a variety of motors, including refrigerators. On that chart, it shows the starting watts of all the motors to be only marginally higher than the running watts. Yet, their chart in amps for the fridge and various other motors, shows the amps being way higher, which I think we all agree is the correct picture. The only two things I can think of to account for this apparent disparity is:

1 - They probably measured the starting Watts over some more substantial time period, ie 1 sec. 2 - Part of it is that because of reactance the voltage and current are not in phase.
Reply to
trader4

If you don't open the door to much the food will stay cold for hours. In the winter throw your food in the snow. Summer---- cook out time !!!!

Jr,

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Reply to
Jerry - OHIO

...and feed the bears.

That's why we got rid of our freezer. A couple of hundred pounds of beef makes a great party, though a rather expensive one.

Reply to
krw

That could be a problem nowadays, because there are some "sensitive electronics" in the furnace control board.

Reply to
Michael B

I think you are overreacting to the sensitive electronics issue.

The furnace is going to use the 24v from the control transformer and that will largely filter out the noise from a generator. It is rectified to DC and filtered before the chips see it anyway. The PC is even more robust. The switching power supply immediately converts the input to 160vdc or so, then chops that up into 20khz or so to be broken out as the various voltages the PC uses. These are fairly "wide mouth" supplies that will run on a very wide range of voltages and frequencies.

All the noise you will see is coming from the power supply itself.

Reply to
gfretwell

i HAVE A 1000 WATT GEN. IT RUNS MY FRIDGE. SOMETIMES AT START UP IT CLIPS, BUT MOST OF THE TIMES ITS FINE. ITS AN OLD FRIDGE 2 DOOR. DRAWS 150 WATTS ONCE RUNNING AND 40 MORE WHEN THE DOOR IS OPEN.

Reply to
sharon

replying to ransley, Ramon wrote: Hi could a sportsman 2000 watts max run a 475 w refrigerator? Thanksfor your time.

Reply to
Ramon

I would say most likely yes. One issue that has been brought up here is that modern frost-free ones, have a heater for defrost that probably draws more current than the compressor. But I'd think that likely falls within your 2000 watts. If that 475w is normal running, it must be an old one. New ones pull under 100W. I watched a couple on a Kill-a-Watt meter, they pulled maybe 300W when starting for a second, then started declining to under 100W after a few minutes.

Reply to
trader_4

That’s not frost free, that’s cyclic defrost, stupid.

Reply to
Rod Speed

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