CF 32 UP Waeco.......Help needed

For 40 odd hours of power you need a much bigger capacity battery.

Any of these batteries can only be run down to 50% capacity or so, 30% should be regarded as the absolute minimum for prolonged life.

Your 18ah battery will give around 9-10 amp hours of use before requiring recharging. That is 1 amp for 9 hours or so and your fridge will probably cycle drawing more at times.

Basically for what you require, you need a battery of around 100ah capacity to do the job.

Bill.

Yeah...I get about 20 hours just out of the internal batt....And that is drawn down to 10.4V....................But. The electronics only allow the second batt (28ah) to draw down to 12.2V....

I think what I need to do is exhaust the internal batt...then turn the internal batt off (there's a mechanical switch)....And then run it on the car second batt...This way it's not all in parallel and charging the internal batt from the car sec batt...I'll give it a try...Should have tested it sooner...I head off soon.......

Have a similar problem with my Engel.
Voltage cut out set for 11.5v, but it seemed to cut out sooner.

Worked out that the voltage cut out is operating at the right voltage, when the fridge is running.
When the fridge stops running and I check the voltage at the end of the cable from the battery it is a little higher. This is due to voltage drop in the cable.
I put in a bigger cable, and the fridge runs longer by about 1 to 2 hours, depending on temperatures.

18a/h battery. I would only count on 1 to 2 hours running time, maybe 3 during the day or overnight in cool (<20 day) temperatures.

Richie
It seems that Waeco have pulled a real swifty by including what is effectively a toy battery in the box with their fridge. As has been said an 18a/h battery should really only be used for a few hours before re-charging, certainly not drained. It might be ok for a picnic lunch or something similar, but is certainly not designed to take the place of a well set up dual battery system. Most people consider 100a/h to be the minimum to run a fridge with charge and discharge constantly occurring. My 120a/h AGM weighs in at nearly 35kg - that's why fridge manufacturers don't inbuild appropriate batteries. It's interesting that the Waeco website is silent on the length of time this fridge should/will/can run off its own battery.

teege

Thanks for all the replies...All good advice...I don't want to put this fridge down too much because WHEN I GET BACK I'M SELLING ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's frustrating to buy a fridge from one of the best known brands in auto fridges that is just...how do I say? NOT THAT GOOD.

Now I find in a bench test that the leds on the side don't go out when you turn the unit off...You can turn the battery off..but who would know that...If I forget, or if I lend the fridge to someone and they forget it'll drain the internal batt to zero which will kill it if left stored like that....AAgggggHHHHHH

I think an option is to open it and simply wire my AGM in parallel with the internal battery..It drains to about 10.4V I do think i will then get 40 hours out of it......Of course I'll take all the precautions to not overload the internal charger......