Fridge on just the one battery?

You can make a pretty reasonable dual battery setup for not much more than the cost of the battery. My first homemade setup cost about $20 excluding battery and battery tray.

If you travel every day, just set it to maximum while driving and then turn it off when the engine is switched off. You will need to be careful of what goes where in the fridge but other than that it should work O.K.

Other option is to get a cheap N70 battery and wire up a battery box, charge as you go then switch off when vehicle off. This should run the Waeco for a couple of days - but by doing this the battery won't last too long.

There are cost effective ways of dual battery'ing the vehicle. Mine cost $225 without the battery but still using quality bits.

Hope this helps

Rolande

We set up our previous little caravan with 1 deep cycle battery, to run an Engel caravan (upright) fridge, and a couple of solar lights. We got a solar panel and made a stand for it. We put the panel out when we stopped in the afternoon, and left it facing east ready for the morning, and even though the sun was soon off it, it still charged up the battery much quicker than when driving. We couldn't readily mount the solar panel on the roof as it was a small windup van. We turned the fridge off at night if the night was cool - as much for a quiet night as for the battery levels. On our experience, i don't think running the car for a while each day would be enough. Depending on your camping outfit, you may be able to mount a solar panel on the roof of your vehicle. It was well worth the money for efficiency and peace of mind.

Hi Damien,

It is best NOT to use the main battery for the fridge.

5 days is 450 amp hours, about 5 full deep cycle batteries worth of power.

You would need about 15 hours driving time to just charge the fridge battery.

If you have a good second battery set up and drive for 3 hours a day you should be fine.

How do you intend to charge the 2nd battery ?

I manufacture 12v power packs that can take up to a 340mm wide battery with built in controller / isolator, surge protection and full set of cables.

Best to run your fridge of this unit and not your car battery.

Opp-lock also do one now similar to mine in a big grey box. Check last months 4wd mag.

Regards Derek

Damien - I have an rather larg-ish 105A/H cranking battery in the Jeep and successfully run an EvaKool RF47DT fridge for three days - and being a diesel (requiring a heck of a lot of oomph to start) it cranks over no problems. I wouldn't go more than that - and even then I keep checking the battery with a multimeter. I do drive around for at least an hour a day.

I run a dual battery system in my other fourbies.

I suppose that if you have a battery large enough it's not a huge problem. If you drive around each day (not merely idle) then you're just fine.

5 days without a drive - certain problems! Time for a duAl (duel is a gun fight) battery system....and an hour's drive every couple of days.

Damien, you could short-circuit (Pun intended) all this unnecessary work and just buy a Battery Pack, or power Pak, whatever you want to call it. Charge it via cig. lighter and run fridge from this. It is nothing more than a battery in a box anyway with convenient plugs and sockets included. But you will need to drive everyday to recharge it, at least 3 to 4 hours driving time.

I have done this several times. Charge my 100 amp/hr battery before I leave home. Run the fridge from the car while driving and run from the spare battery while stopped. I can get 3 days from the spare battery on my 60l waeco on number 3 setting in 25-26 degree temp. I have run the fridge overnight from the car battery and if you are worried just set the auto cut out to Medium to ensure you don't drawdown the fridge too much. Best bet would be to run the fridge at home from your spare battery and see how long you can get.

Good luck

Terry

there are too many variables but,
before i had dual batts-(assuming low draw fridge and good battery to start with)
1) 3 weeks canning - no problem - moving nearly everyday,fridge on max during day and cold enough to switch off at night
2) 3/4 days was about the limit in summer with hot days and nights plus not moving much
you have to work out anything in between.

in the short term you could take a fully charged spare batt with a fused female cig socket to run the fridge at night, that way you would sleep better.
or, make a really long lead for the fridge and plug it into somebody else's car at night when they are not looking.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I think I'm going to go for a good quality "Battery Pack" option for ease, convenience and portability.

Thanks again :-)

Yes it is possible.

Since having our fridge (Engel 39) for 6 years we have never used it off anything other than an N70 starter battery.

Use a $20 Projecta low voltage cut-out in circuit for safety. A battery in a box (same terminal configuration as truck) or a jump starter pack would be a good backup if travelling solo or remote. Also powers lights if vehicle goes for milk/bread/grog.

There is no doubt that having a dual battery system is popular but IMHO not a wise spend of dollars for you or 90% of those who have it.

Hi Damien, Many of the replies so far are fairly expensive, and you are budget conscious. That's fair enough. I think most people on this forum have started with the basics and built up from there. It's amazing what you can do with a little bit of ingenuity. As others have already stated one battery hasn't a hope of doing what you are hoping to achieve. Perhaps the most cost effective way to get things to work is to throw a bag of ice in and only use the fridge sparingly, and when the engine is running. Other option is a $99 generator from Bunnings, even though we all hate them. Cheap battery systems don't work, and you are better off waiting until you are better positioned to get a good one. By the way, your local autoelec can probably come up with a good system far cheaper than the brand names. It may not have the bells and whistles, but it will work just as well.
Cheers Ferris

Arr. Have you got a generator?? Because then your problem is solved.

We did this on one trip, we did have duel batteries in a patrol but the AUX battery was stuffed and we neglected to check it before we left.

So what we did was at night we would run the fridge on a High setting for 4Hrs or so on the Generator along with a few lights, then in the morning when we got up gave it a run for a 1or2 Hrs off the Battery, Or left it going until the Low voltage Cut out came on if we forgot it was running and we left for the day in one of the another 4WD.

Then the next day we would take the Patrol out for a run to get the charge back into the AUX Batt, This would work for you too but probably best not to forget the fridge is running, you could also top the battery up with the genny and a batt charger if going for a run every day or leaving the car idling for 30 or so minutes isn’t you thing

This worked for us but the longest we were in one spot was 3day's.

If you don’t have a generator then think about this a good duel set up will cost you $750 a good generator isn’t much more and it will serve you well for the next 15+ years, that’s how old mine is it’s a hand me down and it’s quiet, small and uses bugger all fuel.

This is a non technical reply

I have a dual battery set up with a Century Overlander 700cca cranking battery as the auxilliary. The batteries are run in parallel through a simple $20 solenoid and a switch on the dash. When driving the switch is set to ON and both batteriers get charged. When stopped for the night the switch is set to OFF so that any other power is runnin g off the auxiliiary battery. On starting in the morning the switch is left OFF until the truck has warmed up.

If I stop at 4pm then I let the fridge run till 8pm and then switch it off.
I have a 32lt Engel fridge in a jacket which draws 2.7amps/hour

Cost? Do it yourself.

Battery $140
Battery holder ARB $90
Solenoid $20
Some wires and cables $10 = $260

Make the battery holder yourself and save $90 Cost = $170

Damien, your original question is; "Is it possible, to effectively run a Waeco CF-35 on just the one battery providing it is managed well?
By running the vehicle every day or so if staying in the same spot for say five (5) days. Would it work if I had another battery handy and used that when required and simply charged it as I go"

Yes, the key is "managed well" you should be able to run the fridge from the crank battery and by driving "every day" as you have stated, the crank battery would then be recharged.
The 'spare battery' should be used only as an emergency back-up, for when and if the original failed to start the car, then you would have to recharge the original by some serious driving to get charge back into it.
The spare should be periodically recharged if going away for long periods, but that's not what your post is about - or is it??