Engel Freezer Capabilities

Ivan why do you want to keep every thing frozen ? All we do and we have done many trips the longest without supplys is 16 days ,we have our meat cryovaced and take about 12 or so meals them the rest of our meals are tuna etc .Our fridge is a 39 engel.
I think if you try and keep every thing frozen the poor old fridge is going to run the baterry down verey quick.
To keep the batery going you are going to have to do a lot of driving or let the motor run to keep the charge.
If your lucky you may get a day out of the battery if trying to keep all things frozen.

All the best
Eric

4wd tag alongs to the cape and beyond

www.capeyorkconnections.com.au Cape York Connections

Ivan

An Engel is not a good ice maker, or to be more correct when you put a tub of water in so that you can make ice the rest of the freezer contents start to defrost.

Once you have frozen your food down, which will be done prior to departure or at least during the trip to fraser you can turn the Engel down from freeze to say 2 or so and it will still maintain frozen contents.

This will take some of the load off the battery but you will still have to drive for some time each day to keep the battery topped up.

I'm afraid you will still have to buy ice for the eskys though, travelling to get the ice will help the battery state!.

I have 2 Engels and on longer trips always have 1 as a freezer.

Have a good time

Jim

Ivan

We did what you are proposing for a Cape York trip a few years ago and it worked very well. We had stuff stay frozen in the Engel for over 4 weeks despite the fridge being on less than full power (Aux battery wasn't charging- always check the obvious like fuses!). We had frozen all our pre-cooked meals for 8 people in descending chronological order so tonight's meal was always on the top, and we just transferred the top meal to our friend's fridge to thaw during the day. Sure all that planning might be a bit anal, but there was nothing better than just having to reheat a meal after a long day on the track.

Because there was such a large chunk of frozen mass it still kept frozen even though the fridge wasn't working to the max. The more densely it is packed the better it should keep, so it just comes down to insulation rather than refrigerating power. Every time you stir it up, you are letting in warm air which needs to be cooled.

As for freezing stuff when on 12Volts, it seems to work really well for lettuce and tomatoes, which turn to mush when they thaw out, but I've always found that it struggles a bit for big volumes. No problems when on 240v though.

Cheers

MikeyS