Battery Pack

Thumper is from memory 48 Ah. fridge will draw roughly 3 Amps @ hour @ 17% - 33 %.

Probably get 24 hours. Charging from the rear plug is slow. You can buy a fast charge kit, well worth the money.

To give you an example, I run an Outback, and a 100 Ah Deep Cycle as second & third batteries.
The Outback charges thru the Cigar Lighter, and gets only a couple of amps an hour, whereby the Deep Cycle through the Anderson Plug, gets a whopping 35 Amps an hour!

I am sure the Thumper will be good, as long as you can get a good fast charge in it next day.

I am not an electrician, I just like to play, and this is what works for me. I run 2 extra batteries because I use a CPAP each night, as well as my Waeco 35, and a couple of fluro's.

Cheers

Wolfie

Larry,

The Waeco Thumper is only a 48 amp job, which at $500 is not real good value. The quality of the battery enclosed in it is undetermined. Keep in mind you shouldn't dischage a battery below 50% if you want to prolong its life. Effectively the Thumper has an effective 24 amps. Won't run a fridge and your accessories for 24 hours. Your fridge will average more than 1 amp/hour, thus overworking the Thumper.

Below is a copy of my contribution to post 15195. I reckon it's the way to go.

"I've got a great setup. It was installed by Chris at Battery World, Wantirna, Vic. He put a smart solenoid under the bonnet, ran 140 amp cable along the chassis and popped it back into the car attached to an Anderson plug. He then put a 100 amp Lifeline "AGM" battery into a battery box. The battery box has cable running out of it to another Anderson plug so the battery can be removed when not needed or to be used as a mobile power supply. Inside the box he fitted a circuit breaker and two female waeco plugs to the box. He also added a three way cig socket plug with a male Waeco plug on the end to give me three power outlets if needed. The other female plug on the box is used to power my fridge, an Engel which I got him to fit a Waeco plug to as they clip in and stay in. Total cost $700.

AGM batteries have the advantage that they are completely sealed and will accept an extremely high recharge rate, basically whatever you can throw at them. A normal deep cycle will only take about 5 amps, so takes a lot of driving to get them back to full. AGM's of this size are reported to fully charge from near flat in 2-3 hours. "

I have since tested the AGM batt and found it takes around 1 amp per minute from the alternator. That is to say, suck 40 amps out of it and it will be fully charged with 40 minutes of driving.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Jim.

The other big advantage is the portability. Went away two weeks ago to some unpowered cabins up the bush and was able to take the battery into the cabin to power the fridge, lights and laptop to fiddle with my photography.

I can't speak highly enough of the setup."

Larry,
If you are after the the ease of a ready made battery pack, blue apple make them in 24 - 105 amp capacity. They have done away with the 48 amp thumper and made it into a 60 amp model. ( same weight, size, looks) rrp $699. I was aware that blue apple is the company that makes the waeco battery packs. (well according to the salesman). Can also charged at 20 amps with the heavy duty car charging kit. ( 10 amp standard).

Have just done an extended trip with a mate running his Waeco from a thumper and the results were very ordinary. Yes he fully flattened it till the fridge would not run on a number of occasions. And yes it was each time fully charged using a smart charger running from my generator. For FAR LESS money he could have used a conventional deep cycle battery and gone far longer between charges.

The value is simply not there, convenience.....maybe......value- no way!