Will this work ???

Steve,
Yes, you can run a fridge on 12v batteries, while they are being charged.

Just as an alternative - for the greenies amongst us ..
That fridge runs at 45 watts 3.75 amps ? on 12 volts ?
A solar cell bigger than 45 watts would also do the trick ,
in a quiet , exhaust free way ... saving you noise , fuel and
fumes ... ( wishes he was going to the top end )

Hope my maths / electrics is OK..........

Assuming you can run the fridge off 240V, an alternative that I think would be better is to use the gennie to charge the battery and at the same time run the fridge. This way the gennie/charger input to the battery is solely charging the battery and not shared with the fridge.

The charger is rated at 14 Amps, although the model number indicates maybe 20 amps. Allowing for 20A, 20A x 12V = 240W. Factoring in charger efficiency and conversion of W to VA, The 1 kVA gennie should be more than capable of running both.

Solar panel is possible (other reply) but no guarantee that you will get enough sunlight for long enough each day to charge the battery.

Just had a look at another thread which has a link to
http://www.kimberleykampers.com/ energy option - That
shows a nice table on watts / amps used for fridge etc
might help on the decision ...

Hi Steve, from what I have read on this forum, the 12v side of a genny does not do much to charge a battery. The gurus here usually say to use a 240 volt type of charger off the genny then you could also run the fridge off 240 at the same time. This is what I have read here, plus it is how I do things myself when the sun doesn't shine. Hope it helps, Mike.

14 amp charger in , 50lt Waeco 3.75amp out , bulk amount of power , keep an eye out on the batt water levels however as you could just possibly over charge the batts if you keep the genny going all day , ,best case would be to run the genny for only 2-3hrs per day to charge the batts thru the batt charger and have the Waeco running off the 240v while the batts are charging to give you plenty of power o/nite.

If you want to run the fridge while the battery is charging you should use a supply regulated to 13.8 or 14 volts. Reason being is that when the battery gets close to full the voltage supply will not keep rising. The cheapy chargers can run a fair bit higher like 16/18 volts and I wouldnt want to experiment with that on my fridge without getting advice from the manufacturer.

My aux charges through a 100 amp rated solonoid from the vehicle charging system and I put a 14 volt regulated 16 amp supply between the gennie 240 volts and the battery when we are not travelling each day. Just an hour or two per day depending on ambient temperature and how hard the fridge is working. I suppose I could run straight from the gennie 12 volt supply. I think its regulated but can easily check. I am rigged to use the 240v because we stay in caravan parks a lot and use their supply. I have to talk to the missus about that because we can save a bit on unpowered site ay.

I have given solar a bit of thought but I cant justify the outlay.

Owen

With my work car I do it all the time and havent had any problems so far. But I'm not an expert in this. I have a Waeco in an Econovan with a bigger than standard cranker also connected to a large Deka dual purpose battery via 6mm wire. The fridge is on all the time unless I'm transfering it to the Prado for trips. While at work I sometimes connect the Jaycar 4 stage 16amp Smartcharger to recharge with the fridge running. I connect the charger to one battery and next time I charge I connect to the other battery. Seems to work fine so far.
Cheers Boris

Steve, I have the same charger as you and I hook it up to the battery and switch it on. I run a 50L waeco as a fridge and a 35L as a freezer and have never had any trouble keeping charge up.
Regards Farcall.

Steve,
I run my 110 waeco 24/7 on 2 90 ah sealed lead acid calcium batteries, and plug it in every night when i get home.
I have a 3 stage charger hard wired into the vehicles 12v system, so start each day with near fully charged setup, and when camping without power i do it in the daytime if needed.
You can even kick the fridge up a couple of dots while charger is working and then turn it down when you switch it off.
The gennie will be best for what you are doing.

Cheers mate, have a good one
Pesty

Thanks for your replies, I have set up the camp and I will run the gen set for a tank of fuel each day, and hopefully this will give me enough charge in the batteries to keep the fridge running for the rest of the time.

Cheers Steve.