We have been caravanning for a couple of years but have always used powered sites. We are going from Perth to Karijina National park and on the fist night will be staying in an Eco tent. We will need to store the Van for that night at an off site location and the next night will be free camping. We have a 130 watt solar panel and a Gel 80 A H battery. For security reasons we don't want to use gas for the fridge for the first night. Should our battery power be enough to run the Fridge Freezer for about 24 hours.
Absorption fridges should not be powered from batteries. They are only supposed to be run from the alternator of the tug if you wish to run them off 12 V. A fridge 12 V element is one of the best ways of over discharging batteries and buggering them.
Here is Dometic's instruction for fridge installations. You will see that they recommend an ignition controlled relay to protect the battery.
Yes I made the mistake of not disconnecting the power lead from the ute to van one day. We stayed at friends place for about 5 hours walked out to start ute, remote would not even operate the central locking, the battery was that flat, lucky I have a battery in rear that runs the Engel fridge, was able to press button on the unit and use the battery to start the ute. So saying that your battery would be very flat trying to run your fridge
When we stop say ...in a country town to do some sight seeing or just shopping and anything that will see us away from our rig for a few hours, I take the " risk" of changing the fridge over to gas. Works well for us especially on hot summer days.
I don't know, maybe there is a risk in leaving van and the gas on... but having said that we use the gas component when we bush camp, and that is most of the time.
Jay&Dee
We have been caravanning for a couple of years but have always used powered sites. We are going from Perth to Karijina National park and on the fist night will be staying in an Eco tent. We will need to store the Van for that night at an off site location and the next night will be free camping. We have a 130 watt solar panel and a Gel 80 A H battery. For security reasons we don't want to use gas for the fridge for the first night. Should our battery power be enough to run the Fridge Freezer for about 24 hours.
Hi
Definately do not run any 3way on 12v from the van battery & only from the crank battery while the engine is running
Your model fridge [model number please?] may have an inbuilt isolator but if it does not you should have an isolator fitted to prevent discharging the crank battery
A voltage sensitive relay gives the best protection, next is the ignition controlled relay as shown in Peter D's post
The safety recommendations are not have the gas turned on while travelling
Always turn the gas "off" @ the bottle !
The fridge flame is NOT the only possible source of problems
AS shown by a recent van explosion & fire in the NT
And yes,I know many do not bother,.that is their decision, but not a wise one
There are many things that can go wrong leading to fire
PeterQ
-- Edited by oldtrack123 on Monday 8th of June 2015 12:41:47 PM
I don't know about the rest but I'm quite happy to run my fridge off battery power....
- Plus the Light's.
- Plus the Aldi Coffee machine.
- Plus the electric Pressure Cooker.
- Plus the Air-Con..
It all comes to the individual set-up of your van...
- The Biggest thing that always seems to come up is The Lack of enough Solar to charge the batteries back to full charge..
Let alone enough Battery in the first place...
So my simple answer is Forget about it..
-- With out the spec's of the fridge.... 80Ah will be full consumed in 24hr's...
--> if you take the battery to that state of charge can I have the lead out of it....
--> 130w's of solar is NO way near what it would take to recharge the battery..
So there are My extremely Blunt word's....
Juergen
__________________
IF I say something Dumb.. Just Smack me..
I'm full of Knowledge.. I don't profess to know EVERYTHING, but I'm constantly Learning new thing's..
Well the van we bought has a fridge that is only 12v no gas no 240 is fitted with 2x6v 225 ah batteries seems to work ok
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When the power of Love becomes greater than the love of power the World will see peace ! 24ft Trailblazer 5th wheeler n 05 Patrol ute and Black Series Dominator camper trailer ( for the rough stuff)
Well the van we bought has a fridge that is only 12v no gas no 240 is fitted with 2x6v 225 ah batteries seems to work ok
The fridge in question, is a 3 way which when run on 12v will draw about 10 amps of more. The 80Ah battery they have would be dead in about 8 hours. You on the other hand have a much larger battery and fridge that uses much less power.
-- Edited by madaboutled on Tuesday 16th of June 2015 11:16:21 PM
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Steve, Di & Ziggy We named our Motorhome "Roadworx" because on the road works "On The Road Again" Ford Transit with 302 Windsor V8 conversion, C4 Auto, 9 Inch Ford Diff All Lighting L.E.D., 260 Amp/h AGM, 530 Watt Solar + Kipor Backup Gen.
The primary power hogs we have for solar/battery are fridge (12 V), water heater (120 V, this is USA) and a/c (120 V at 1.7 kW). Fridge and water heater can work on propane or solar/battery and it depends on insolation. If it is overcast/raining/snowing, then we change to propane). If we are forced to "camp" in heavy tree cover, then we turn off inverter when not required. Have used a/c for 3.5 hours on solar/battery but prefer to be "goldilockers" and go "where it is not to hot and not to cold, just right!"
We travel in western mountain US in summer and have the option of going north or high in elevation (up to 10,600' = 3048 m). We were at younger son's place in Colorado and it was 103 F (40 C) and we went up to 3000 m where it was 5 C at night and a maximum of 23 C at night).
It is June and a lot of insolation in mountains of northern New Mexico and we run fridge 24 hours a day on solar/battery (we wake up with 3 kW-hour deficit) and hot water during the day on solar/bat. Harvest around 8 kW-hrs daily when running all electric.
Reed and Elaine
2006 Chevie 3500 4x4 (dualie) 6.7 l diesel w/45 gallon auxiliary tank
Open Range 337RLS Roamer (10 m)
1.4 kW solar (two strings of 3 x 235 W panels, then paralleled to controller at 90 V)
TriStar MPPT-45 controller
8.7 kW (48 V nominal) LFP
Magnum 4.0 kW PSWI
508 W Mean Well 48 to 12 V converter'
All LED
Just read on a forum for a very large motorhome that someone put in 32 kW-hr of Balqon LFP batteries. He was a bit miffed that he received no instructions with his 1000 pounds of LFP (450 kilos). Probably charges from a 10 kW generator or from line power.
Reed and Elaine
2006 Chevie 3500 4x4 (dualie) 6.7 l diesel w/45 gallon auxiliary tank
Open Range 337RLS Roamer (10 m)
1.4 kW solar (two strings of 3 x 235 W panels, then paralleled to controller at 90 V)
TriStar MPPT-45 controller
8.7 kW (48 V nominal) LFP
Magnum 4.0 kW PSWI
508 W Mean Well 48 to 12 V converter'
All LED
