Engel Car Fridge Setup

In this article I am simply telling some stories nigh experiences we have had with our fridge and bombardment setup. I will tell you some of the gear we have used in the by and some of the lessons we accept learnt along the way. Hopefully amidst my ramblings, you will find the $.25 of useful information you came here for. I can likewise reply whatever questions if you would like to post them in the comments section at the bottom.

The battery

ABR Sidewinder FlyerWe used to have an ABR Sidewinder. Chapters unknown. It'south a box that independent 8 x motorcycle batteries in information technology connected in parrellel. Information technology had several connections on information technology including standard positive + negative terminals, two unlike 12 volt outlets, plus 2 Anderson Plug Connections. I as an output, and one as an input that we connected to the bombardment for charging.

Our electric current setup consists of the same box (the ABR Sidewinder) but the 8 x motorcycle batteries we have replaced with a single 120AH battery.

There are several bits of information I can give yous about batteries.

Firstly, is storage. We learnt this one the hard way. When we took our bombardment box to a battery store to be tested, we popped it open and all of the 8 batteries inside had swelled upwardly and were ruined. We asked the guy what might have caused that to happen and he said if you leave information technology sitting in your shed for a twelvemonth, so endeavor charging information technology up fully it can happen. Bingo. This is exactly what we did. We didn't use the battery for a solid 10 months while we were in Male monarch Ash Bay, Northern Territory working. We and then charged the battery up ready for our next trip and found it only lasted an hour earlier the warning went off.

Next I tin tell you what type of bombardment you need. You lot need a "deep bicycle" battery. This type of battery is different to a normal auto starter battery. A deep bicycle battery is designed to employ a niggling bit of ability for a long catamenia of time. A starter battery is designed to employ a lot of power for a short period of time (starting a car). If you lot were to swap the batteries over, y'all would probably find that they would all the same piece of work. Still they would not last very long at all.

Also there are different types of deep cycle batteries. You want an AGM deep bicycle battery. An AGM battery comes in a sealed box, which means you could even tip it on its side and it wouldn't leak. It also doesn't emit poisonous gasses. If y'all are using the bombardment inside the cabin if the car (which nosotros practise) it is actually a legal requirement to use an AGM battery.

The fridge

Engel 40l FridgeOur refrigerator is a mid 1990'south model forty litre Engel. It still runs beautifully and all the seals are perfect. The simply down side is the juice information technology chews through. It uses 2 to three times the power of a modernistic Engel Fridge. But if we stay on height of charging, we are usually all skilful.

With that being said, at some point nosotros need to seize with teeth the bullet and buy a new fridge. To buy the current model of the 40 litre Engel is most $i,200. That'due south going to hurt, simply it will give u.s.a. a lot more freedom purely because it's power consumption is so much lower than our old one.

Advice

Y'all should try and avoid taking the battery's power to below 50% of its chapters. You tin do permanent impairment to the battery by doing and then. The juice or power usage is measured in AMPS(A). And your battery'southward capacity is measured in AMP HOURS(AH). Our fridge uses well-nigh 5amps per hr. And our bombardment is 120AH. And then I would prefer to only use 60AH of the bombardment (50%). This gives me 12 hours of solid running time before I need to accuse it.

You should take your battery hooked upward in a style that it charges while you are driving. If you lot are camped somewhere for a few days, and then you will need to charge the battery each day, and I don't mean by turning the auto on. Our method of charging is our little Ryobi Generator that we connect to a 20AH charger. Charging of the bombardment while driving volition merely be effective after a big drive.

The battery likewise needs to be hooked upwardly in a way that it will never drain the power from the starter battery of your motorcar. For case, your batteries are connected to each other because you lot want them both to charge while the motorcar is running. Simply after a couple of days camping, your bombardment that is connected straight to your fridge will be empty. At that signal, you don't desire the fridge to bleed the cars starter battery dry as well. That volition give y'all all kinds of hassles trying to get the motorcar started.

With our ABR Sidewinder box, information technology has a built in solenoid in it that will never allow this to happen. A very primitive method would be to simply take a switch in the line that connects the batteries. When you stop the machine, you will demand to remember to turn the switch off. You probably wouldn't forget more than once or twice!

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