Hi. We have 2 BP 80 watt solar panels & 2x120ah gel batteries. We are trying to run our 40litre fridge on freeze but by 9.30pm the batteries are right down to 12.4
How old is this fridge. If it is a old fridge then you probably wont get it to work, not enough solar to recharge those batteries fully, you have 160 watts of solar and have to charge 240Ah of battery, would need all day to recharge the batteries without any other load, and even then I doubt that they will be fully charged. I have a 38litre Engel fridge/freezer and it runs all day and night on a 105Ah battery but not as a freezer, on the freezer I have to recharge the battery everyday. I use 160w of portable solar to charge or the ute via a VSR.
Definitely need at least double the solar you have to charge the batteries at a reasonable rate. The 40L Engel would easily run for three days on the battery capacity you have, once fully charged and in moderate temps using it as a fridge with normal usage. I used to get around 2 days out of a 100AH battery with my 35L Engel running as a fridge when fully stocked, but it wasn't opened very often.
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Yes I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
Yes, your fridge is dragging all your power out of your batteries. I have the same problem with my Waeco. Batteries go down to 12.2 everynight. Sometimes lower. I have 280 in solar panels and 210 in batteries. Still have this problem. In my case and with lots of help, we have worked out it's the fridge, eventually I will chuck it when I work out what to replace it with.
No problem with the batteries or solar as most days they get up to 14 easily.
Actually, on first reading I missed the point about running the fridge as a freezer, but you should still get around two days running off your batteries, when charged, using it that way, providing you aren't trying to freeze unfrozen food. What else is running off the batteries as well as the fridge?
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Yes I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
Might have to run on just fridge to see how it goes. We had 4 panels but split them as my husband has a cpap machine & we had to be very careful with the power. We put 2 more batt in & now have 2 batt & 2 panels just to run cpap machine - the other 2 panels & 2 batt run the fridge & other power.
Might have to run on just fridge to see how it goes. We had 4 panels but split them as my husband has a cpap machine & we had to be very careful with the power. We put 2 more batt in & now have 2 batt & 2 panels just to run cpap machine - the other 2 panels & 2 batt run the fridge & other power.
So, In total you have 4 x 120AH (480AH) of batteries and a total of 320W of solar panels in total?
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Yes I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
I ran an extra wire to my fridge, the amperage draw dropped from 4A to 3.2 A. Also, how well ventilated is the fridge? If the warm air can't get out, your fridge will work very hard indeed! Had no problems with a 120W solar panel & two 105AH AGM batteries.
I ran an extra wire to my fridge, the amperage draw dropped from 4A to 3.2 A. Also, how well ventilated is the fridge? If the warm air can't get out, your fridge will work very hard indeed! Had no problems with a 120W solar panel & two 105AH AGM batteries.
The fridge current draw is dictated by the compressor running (plus a small amount for the electronics). Running a separate wire will not change the amount of current the fridge draws, but if you use a heavier guage wire the voltage drop will be smaller.
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Yes I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
If the weight of four 120AH batteries is not causing you a problem, you're better off hooking them all together and increasing you solar panel capacity to 800 to 1000W to have a decent chance of charging them. Personally I think you'd be OK with 2 X 120AH batteries and about400W to 500W of solar. If you use a humidifier with the CPAP machine, maybe use 3 batteries with at least 500W, but 700W would be ideal.
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Yes I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
What do you mean - you ran an extra wire to your fridge. We have ours plugged into a cigarette lighter plug.
Hi,
The fridge might work OK with a poor connection and wires but has less "grunt" so has to run longer and so uses more power. The lost power just goes into heating the wires or the plug and socket.
My suggestion would be to replace the existing wire with a heavier(x2) one and if possible wire it directly to the battery circuit with proper connectors. As short a run as possible too. Those cigarette lighter plugs and sockets are poor connectors at best, useless at worst.
We run the caravan fridge on gas. This is a 40l engel that we have put in for frizen food as the van fridge has small freezer compartment.
Get yourself a Vacuum Pack machine (relatively cheap) Vacuum pack meat and lots of other food and run the fridge at fridge temps and it will help your batteries to maintain charge. Another plus is no mess in the fridge.
For ice cream etc use your small 3 way freezer.
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