Car fridge power settings

215 Views 5 Replies 3 Participants Last post by AZJeeper, 2 d ago

Fj4080

Discussion Starter · 5 d ago

Making a road trip to Great Basin National Park soon and I just bought a car fridge. I have no concerns about the road trip itself but am wondering about what settings the battery protection should be set at while hiking in the park (and yes I'll be switching the fuse over to always on). As I have no idea how long we will be out hiking and sightseeing I was leaning towards setting the battery management to the high setting. We are staying in a hotel so it will be plugged in at the hotel. Info on the Jeep battery, stock battery 11 months old and placed on a trickle charger most days as we only have 3021 miles on it. For those that have run car fridges, what do you set yours at?

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sanghill

· #2 · 5 d ago

Don't know about the frig. Try to park in the shade.
This is one of the reasons I put an X2 Power AGM battery in my 2014 TH. It is the best, durable battery available.
I have a NOCO GB50 jump starter (12V 1500A). I think it could be connected to a good car battery to provide a trickle charge while the car is not running.
Haven't tried this yet and not real sure if it would work.
Seems to me the NOCO battery cables could connect to the car battery.
You might be able to directly connect the NOCO to the frig, then the frig wouldn't drain the car battery.
If you didn't use the NOCO, then even if the car battery went dead you could still start the car with the NOCO.
I defer to somebody that is smarter than me. There should be some good way to make this work.
When I was a kid my parents would freeze as much of the food as possible and put it in the ice chest. Mom's home made vegetable soup was the best.

How about dry ice?

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AZJeeper

· #3 · 5 d ago

I use an ICECO Portable Power Station to keep my cooler going. I have it plugged into the "keyed" power so it only charges when the car is running. It provides power to the fridge continuously, and I've had it go 24 hours - in Arizona, in the heat - with still a little charge left. It takes a while to recharge on car power if deeply discharged, but it can also be charged fairly quickly through a 110V to 12VDC adapter (included). So for me, it works well. The fridge has power 100% of the time, the battery pack only charges when the car is running, and my car battery takes zero hit.

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Fj4080

Discussion Starter · #4 · 4 d ago

AZJeeper said:
I use an ICECO Portable Power Station to keep my cooler going. I have it plugged into the "keyed" power so it only charges when the car is running. It provides power to the fridge continuously, and I've had it go 24 hours - in Arizona, in the heat - with still a little charge left. It takes a while to recharge on car power if deeply discharged, but it can also be charged fairly quickly through a 110V to 12VDC adapter (included). So for me, it works well. The fridge has power 100% of the time, the battery pack only charges when the car is running, and my car battery takes zero hit.

What amp/wattage did you go with?

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Fj4080

Discussion Starter · #5 · 4 d ago

sanghill said:
Don't know about the frig. Try to park in the shade.
This is one of the reasons I put an X2 Power AGM battery in my 2014 TH. It is the best, durable battery available.
I have a NOCO GB50 jump starter (12V 1500A). I think it could be connected to a good car battery to provide a trickle charge while the car is not running.
Haven't tried this yet and not real sure if it would work.
Seems to me the NOCO battery cables could connect to the car battery.
You might be able to directly connect the NOCO to the frig, then the frig wouldn't drain the car battery.
If you didn't use the NOCO, then even if the car battery went dead you could still start the car with the NOCO.
I defer to somebody that is smarter than me. There should be some good way to make this work.
When I was a kid my parents would freeze as much of the food as possible and put it in the ice chest. Mom's home made vegetable soup was the best.

How about dry ice?

I planned on putting some frozen water bottles in it.

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AZJeeper

· #6 · 2 d ago

Fj4080 said:
What amp/wattage did you go with?

My ICECO Portable Power Station is 230wh. I see the new ones are 250wh.

The average draw on my cooler is 0.67 Ah/h. The peak voltage from the Power Station is 13.3VDC so the fridge operates at peak efficiency when needed. That puts it at 8.9 wh/h draw, or 25.8 hours of run time (again, average draw). However, the Power Station also has variable voltage so when there is a light load (like when the fridge goes into power save mode) the voltage goes down, the battery gets more efficient, and it charges faster. So really the total run time is much longer. Never got to the total discharge point.

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