Fridge with single battery

[SimpleSi Member Find all posts View Profile Close SimpleSi]

Hi all,
Firstly I did google "fridge on single battery siteradopoint.com" no luck.

I'm thinking of going camping this weekend, and it's too late to get a dual battery system set up.
Just wondering, how long it would be "safe" to run a 40l Engel without killing the main battery. Would it be ok to run the car for an hour each day?
Only camping for 2 nights at a fairly popular campground, so a jump start is possible!
I was expecting to be $70mil richer by now, so maybe a dual system next Wednesday after the $100Mil
cheers,

[Heath74 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Heath74]

Mate there are so many variables to this question,
How warm will it be?
How often will you open the fridge?
Will you be putting warm beer in half way through the night?
What condition is you battery in?

You could try to do some calculations, for example an Engel will draw about 4 amps when running, you could assume on say 20 deg ambient to run maybe 20 mins per hour. But really is it worth the risk?

To be fair I'd be inclined to go old school and just take the esky until you can fit the DB system.

Regards Heath.

[smakb Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close smakb]

If you we're in Melb I would offer you a spare battery. Ask around, you might get lucky.

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Running a fridge with just the crank battery is no worries if you have a eutectic fridge, ran mine for 5 years including a couple of month log trips no worries, unfortunately the Engel is a different story.

Here are a couple of threads that might help you.

http://www.pradopoint.com/showthread...fridge+battery
http://www.pradopoint.com/showthread...fridge+battery

I searched for these by putting the words fridge and battery into the internal search engine looking at thread titles only, just in case that helps you in future searches.

Cheers Andrew

[SimpleSi Member Find all posts View Profile Close SimpleSi]

To be fair I'd be inclined to go old school and just take the esky until you can fit the DB system

ahh, you're probably right, I just wanted to go for the easy option.....
Thanks AJ for the google tips, I guess I was a bit too specific!

[drivesafe Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close drivesafe]

Hi SimpleSi, if you haven’t go one, get a cheap multi meter and take it with.

Keep an eye on you cranking battery voltage and just make sure it never gets below 12.0v while the fridge is running.

This will give you a safe margin in your battery so you can always have enough to start your motor.

[maxjj Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close maxjj]

cheaper to take an esky and a bag of ice.

Alternatively put a a couple of 2 ltre frozen water bottles in the fridge.
I used to take the fridge with us for weekends away in the Liberty with single battery, just laid a couple of frozen water bottles in bottom and ran the fridge on a lower setting when driving and back it off when stopping. The ice gives it a bit of thermal mass. OR make up an iceblock the size of the fridge and put that in it.