In Car Fridge Power

Good to see you back Rosco.

Cheers,

Jim

Take it easy cob

Nil bastardo carborundum

Seeya

They are expensive...but good...and rebuildable I found out recently. They are not just a 'battery in a box", they have state of charge indicators, auto reset breakers, jumper cables etc (at least my Thumper does)...and are a lot more robust in build than a battery box - I know, as I have both. They are expensive for amp hours you get, but are an extremely well built good bit of kit.

If a man makes a comment and there are no women around to hear ......... does that still mean he's wrong?

Rolande

Probably ........... just ask 'em.
.......... :-D

can't figure why you would use an inverter to change a 12v system to 240v and then a battery charger to change it back again to 13.8v. It can charge at 13.8v while the engine is running without the worry of changing the current back and forth and all you would need are some wire and method of switching the current on an off. Toggle switch at worst, relay switched from accessory at next best, proper second battery system next. Of course you could even use the power socket you suggest.

John, you are right of course I could probably use the cig socket in the car. The reasons I do this are 1. the charger is already in situ for chargeing off mains (when available) 2. Sometimes I carry the box in the trailer and charge it there where voltage drop is an issue. Using an inverter to 240V charger seems to avoid any voltage drop issues.

Regds

Outbacktourer,

Can you tell me more about the projecta on board battery charger? Can it be powered from 240V AC and 14.4V DC? How many amps does it charge with?

Thanks
David T

David,

The Projecta on-board charger is a small 240V charger that you can get from KMart etc. It is compact and designed to be attached to the battery and left in situ, you just plug it in when required. It is an "automatic" charger in that it will charge and then switch to "float" when the battery is charged. It only charges at 1.6 Amps so you can run it off a small inverter if needed.

Regds

Am leaning towards Rosco's suggestion of a battery box with handle ,and a heavy duty battery , to function basically the same as the Waeco products, but at a lower purchase price.

Now the question is what type of battery and what strength to use.
By the way I live at the Gold Coast.

Any suggestions once again will be welcome.
Thanks
Pedro

Pedro.
Exide Extreme, that way if your vehicle battery dies you still have one to jump start with
Rolande

Pedro,

If you plan to keep it it the car a sealed batt is much safer; wont gas, won't spread acid all around the car in an accident. AGM batteries are the best for this.

My set up is an AGM in a box with heavy cable running under the car to an isolator. Battery is connected to the cables via an Anderson plug which also makes it a portable power source. Gives you the best of both worlds. It will however cost you around $750 installed.

Cheers,

Jim.

Hi pedro,
on Jim's advice I bought an AGM battery to run my fridge (110l waeco).
I got the 100Ah Remco for around the $300 mark, Jim has the Life Line. By the time I purchased and installed the wiring, anderson plugs, battery box, fittings and isolator I reckon I spent about $500 even. As with Jim's, my box is portable via the anderson plug connection.

The guy at the battery shop hinted at about 600 drain/recharge cycles until it starts to suffer too badly, this equated to about 3 years of weekend only use. I have no experience with acid deep cycle batteries so I can't offer a comparison.

Collyn Rivers seems to be the guru in these matters, if you ask about on the forum, someone will be able to give you details of his sites/literature.

It also seems to be common belief that you should only run a deep cycle battery down to 50% to avoid damage, consequently your 36Ah power pack just became an 18Ah pack.

Good luck with your research
Blue

pedro,

link to Collyn Rivers-> http://www.caravanandmotorhomebooks.com

I believe 36 a/h will be too small to realistically power a Waeco fridge for more than a weekend, unless you want to keep your eye on it instead of having a holiday, you could use an old 12v VW battery, but why would you when there are so many decent methods available.

I believe you will need about 80 a/h minium, as most on the forum will admit to having somewhere near that, the Exide Extreme is a Cranking battery and has a 700 CCA rating without any Amp/Hour rating shown on their website, because the term A/H is generally used only to describe the power ratings of Deep Cycle batteries, however it has a Reserve Capacity of 180 mins, but the power drain is not stated, so is irrelevant unless compared with other Exide batteries, unless the power drain is known, they are inexpencive and often used.

CODE BATTERY........VOLTS..CCA....RC
86EX Exide Extreme 12........700.....180
N70EX Exide Extreme 12........620.....150
N50EX Exide Extreme 12........550.....120

FWIW our Winnebago (another story) came delivered with 2 Exide Extreme 86EX fitted as house batteries. Now we all know they are not going to fit Lifelines as standard equipment for cost reasons but someone over there at Emu Plains must reckon they are OK for cycle use. The batteries are 3 years old now and going strong, they are well serviced however by a 3 stage charger and low voltage cut-out protection.