Monday, Dec 15, 2014 at 19:39
Racey
replied:
Running an Engel (or other) as a freezer does zap the power and draining a battery down below below 12 volt will reduce the battery life. The best you will get from your panel will be around 15 amps and say you have the panels in a clear spot for 6-7 hrs of sun it will provide say 90ah of power during the day.
[1]The freezer will consume say 4 amps for about 18hrs and the frig 4 amps for say 10 hrs, the power consumption is around 112 A/H for both units. However, the power input is only 90 a/h; 20 odd amp hours short.
I run a 40 ltr Engel as a freezer set at -15deg. running from a 130 A/H AGM battery. When camping we charge with a 160 watt solar panel. On a good day as the sun goes down the battery is fully charged and by morning the voltage can be 12.2 volts, approx 50% charge. I would be reluctant to try and run any other device from this battery. Whilst the Engel running as a frig would not use as much power. As a freezer it just seems to run for ever.
[2] On a recent trip 40 deg days, it couldn't keep up, so I topped up the battery with the generator each night.
Cheers
Jon
HI
John
Pretty spot on with those power cacls
Yes, In very hot weather most compreesor fridges used as a deep freezer will run near 24hrs a day at 3.5to 4A
.And as fridge from 30Ahrs up to 60 PLUSAhrs per 24hrs depending on factors such as: ambient temp , THermostat setting , warm loading, etc
The temp that the fridge is subjected to can often exceed the open air ambient, if it is not in a
well shaded ,
well ventilated area.
PeterQ
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