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NelsonRaymond: Oh Yeah! You need 12Volts to fire the double solenoid pack to open the valve for propane to flow to igniter. The igniter is fired by 12volts. The circuit board with time-out circuit (if the thermocouple doesn't say: O.K. we've got heat here, the gas solenoid closes after a specified time delay) is also powered by 12 volts. While these things don't typically draw a lot of juice by themselves the ambient conditions can accelerate draw-down of your bats. Very hot outside temps can cause the fridge to cycle frequently and, if fitted, that convection assist fan in the back to run more often as well.
The recent Dometic recall listed the order of most dangerous to least dangerous methods of operation for their fridges that had been fitted with weaker coils: Least dangerous was operating on 120 volts because it created less heat and pressure within fridge cavity and condenser coils while the most dangerous was gas operation because of rapid temperature rise and pressure increase in the coils would tend to cause a weak one to fail and the propane flame could also ignite the leaking chemical.
While your fridge is probably fine, it would be my preference to run fridge on 120 for absences and just isolate the rest of the trailer by tripping all of the breakers but the ones for the fridge and the convertor. Fitting your convertor with a Charge Wizard charging controller that simply plugs into the back of the convertor eliminates or at very least drasticly reduces the "boil-off" of elecrolyte that could occurr with batteries being continually overcharged while you're away.
Very sorry for the long post. Tech stuff takes more Yak.
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Sandra, Bruce
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