Many of those fridges, even though they only draw 70 watts, they need a
momentary "slam" of 600 or so watts to start the compressor. for the record,
the "digital" inverters from Canadian Tire can handle this, in particular
the 800 watt model. Last summer, I ran a cheap household/bar  Danby 4.5 cu
ft fridge off of an Optima Yellow-Top with this particular inverter (in an
RV).

YMMV
Tom

On 6/19/07, Matt Roberds <mattroberds@cox.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> I wonder how well one of those 2 ft^2 $100 "dorm refrigerators" would
> get along with your average $30 12V->120V inverter.  The Energy Star
> rating for a couple of these refrigerators implies that they draw
> something like 70 watts when running; that'd be about 6 A before
> inverter losses.  Also, I know cheap inverters don't like to start
> induction motors very well.  The 6 A doesn't compare very well to the
> Engel, but it may still end up being less than the Koolatron due to the
> duty cycle.  The price is intermediate between the Koolatron and Engel.
>