Just bought a car fridge, looking for solar advise.

[Troy711]

As the title suggests, I've just bought a fridge for my Pajero and my Hiace and as it'll be used in both cars, a dual battery setup for both is impractical so I'm considering a solar panel to keep the battery charged. As I have no idea how solar works, I'm probably going to be asking a stupid question here. If I buy a panel with regulator, can I just get an Anderson plug installed to plug the panel straight to the car battery and then have another plug installed directly from the battery to plug the fridge to? Does this even make sense? I'll draw a crude MS Paint pic if needed.

[mr_bosman]

What fridge did you get ?

[Dicko1]

As the title suggests, I've just bought a fridge for my Pajero and my Hiace and as it'll be used in both cars, a dual battery setup for both is impractical so I'm considering a solar panel to keep the battery charged. As I have no idea how solar works, I'm probably going to be asking a stupid question here. If I buy a panel with regulator, can I just get an Anderson plug installed to plug the panel straight to the car battery and then have another plug installed directly from the battery to plug the fridge to? Does this even make sense? I'll draw a crude MS Paint pic if needed.

You certainly can. Best tave the regulator near the battery. Lets assume you have a 40litre engel. Power consumption will be around 20-25 amp/hors per 24 hour period. (in about 28 degree heat and a bit of ventilation) I would get a 100 amp/hour minimumsolar panel. This will put out about 4-6 amps per hour on a nice sunny day. 5 hours in constant sun will see you keeping your battery well in the higher voltage range (12.4+) which is good. If it stays in the sun longer then your bayyery will be getting a good charge . Solar is simple really.

[Troy711]

What fridge did you get ?

Almost brand new Evakool IB50 from my uncle. He's used it 4 times before getting something bigger

[Troy711]

You certainly can. Best tave the regulator near the battery. Lets assume you have a 40litre engel. Power consumption will be around 20-25 amp/hors per 24 hour period. (in about 28 degree heat and a bit of ventilation) I would get a 100 amp/hour minimumsolar panel. This will put out about 4-6 amps per hour on a nice sunny day. 5 hours in constant sun will see you keeping your battery well in the higher voltage range (12.4+) which is good. If it stays in the sun longer then your bayyery will be getting a good charge . Solar is simple really.

I was looking at something like this:




Will it be enough? I'm glad my basic description was enough for you to know what I'm talking about haha.

[Dicko1]

I was looking at something like this:




Will it be enough? I'm glad my basic description was enough for you to know what I'm talking about haha.

It will be big enough. Dont count on the advertised 10amps/hr though. Figure on about 8 amps and it will be a more realistic figure. I am unsure of how many amps the evakool will pull. I know my 40 litre engel uses about 25 amps/24 hrs...however my evekool 47 litre pulls about 40 amps in 24 hrs. Watt meters are a great invention for checking how much your equipment uses and how much power your solar is putting out. The 1 thing I dont like about the folding panels is that they always seem to stick the regulator on the rear of the panel. The regulator should be as close to the battery as possible. I would also double check the voltage of the usb socket before using.

[BanjoPato]

I'm no expert but work on the theory that you always use more power then you think & can't ever have to much.
I run two fridges(1x40l & 1x50l)with a total of 300w of panels,on sunny days I never use what I make,but with 2x100amp batteries can survive for a few days with no sun.

[andy_q]

Just bought a car fridge, looking for solar advise.

160watt should be about right for you. Depending on how long you will be staying put and what your plan b will be if there are a few days of poor weather.
I'm just about to buy this size panel to run my 40l fridge with two 110Ah batteries. Not sure of the best brand but the adventure kings panel at 4wd supacentre is $200 delivered today. This is a front runner for me.
I think you should invest in an agm and battery box that can be secured in the back of either vehicle. If you run your starter battery low every night it might decide to give up at an inconvenient time.
I made plywood boxes with handles and Anderson plugs as I did not want to pay for the fancy ones that are available and did not like the cheap plastic ones as they did not have handles.
Cheers
Andy


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[Peterng]

As the title suggests, I've just bought a fridge for my Pajero and my Hiace and as it'll be used in both cars, a dual battery setup for both is impractical so I'm considering a solar panel to keep the battery charged. As I have no idea how solar works, I'm probably going to be asking a stupid question here. If I buy a panel with regulator, can I just get an Anderson plug installed to plug the panel straight to the car battery and then have another plug installed directly from the battery to plug the fridge to? Does this even make sense? I'll draw a crude MS Paint pic if needed.

I take it from your description you will be using the Cranking battery in your vehicles to power the fridge and the solar panel to top up the Crank Battery and stop it from going flat.

Cranking batteries are just that...they start vehicles and due to their design they are not too good for "Powering" auxcillaries for any real length or duration of time.
They (Cranking Batteries) can be used for a couple of "one off" camping trips, but I would not want to push it.

You can buy a battery that is a type of a combination Crank/deep cycle to replace the existing crank battery in your vehicles, but this would be quite expensive.

A portable "Dual Battery" system comprising of a Battery box and a quality 110 - 120Ahr Deep cycle battery could be a better alternative.

[wazza87]

Solar set up

Best bet mate, I agree with peterNG. Get a booster battery from autocheapbarnco and use the panel to charge that. Better Off keeping your start battery healthy. 4wd supacentre got a 160W panel for ~ $200

https://www.4wdsupacentre.com.au/products/solar-power/adventure-kings-160w-solar-panel.html

Pwm regulator is not as good as mppt but not for this thread. A wattmeter as suggested above would be handy to keep an eye on charge state. U can put it on the fridge for 24hrs and check the power consumption in real world conditions, as they cycle on/off. Then you can put it on the solar cell to see how much charge your getting during daylight hrs.

Remember, dont discharge your battery below 50%. Good luck, and keep the thread updated with your findings.

Waz

[Bru9]

You certainly can. Best tave the regulator near the battery. Lets assume you have a 40litre engel. Power consumption will be around 20-25 amp/hors per 24 hour period. (in about 28 degree heat and a bit of ventilation) I would get a 100 amp/hour minimumsolar panel. This will put out about 4-6 amps per hour on a nice sunny day. 5 hours in constant sun will see you keeping your battery well in the higher voltage range (12.4+) which is good. If it stays in the sun longer then your bayyery will be getting a good charge . Solar is simple really.

To be fair you are ignoring clouds, shade, mountains, the annoyance of chasing the sun in limited hours.

Sure solar is easy in the outback, but in bush it's a completely different story. I saw a guy fire up his genny to run his fridge & just shook my head. Not my kind of camping.

[Troy711]

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll keep it in mind. I'm only going to need to hook the fridge up to the car when there's no 240v power on the job which isn't very often. Plus I only do a handful of camping trips a year, so it's not going to be a huge workout on my Pajero. I was only thinking solar for the odd occasion when I'm without power and at night time I'll take the fridge out and store it in the garage on mains power.

Another thing, can I leave my fridge running on 240v too much? Would it be fine to leave on for extended periods of a few weeks?

[Peterng]

On 240v...no problem, my Bushman is the 2nd portable beer fridge in the house and it has been operating on 240v on and off now for 8 years.
Other makes should have no problems at all..

[Kirkster72]

Redarc have a solar calculator on their website