bar fridge/freezer

[Shogun 2000]

how much work would be involved in putting, say a 120 litre 240 volt bar fridge/freezer in the back of my paj?? thoughts

[Herman4x4]

Gday. What sort of power consumption would it take running it through an inverter?
Cheers,
Andrew.

[Shogun 2000]

hi Andrew, I have no idea, that's why I put the question out there, I suppose I would have to ask the people that sell the inverters which one would power a bar fridge?

[Goodsy]

You can get 12V compressor bar fridge. Engel make them as do others.
3 ways I think would be out as they run on gas and that wouldn't be to flash in the back of the PJ.,

Can I ask whey you want a bar fridge and not a chest fridge?

[hobbo]

A bar fridge will Chew a lot more Power ?

[1993 NJ LWB]

lots more

[MSF]

and they don't like working on extreme angles... expect compressor failure if you are doing some serious 4WDing with it running

[sharkcaver]

The issue with 240V appliances is trying to find its current draw. At 240V you don't need a lot of current to produce a lot of power. The opposite is required for 12V dc . AC specs usually show KWh consumed, cause for most household appliances, the current isn't important. At 10A you have 2.4Kw of power on tap. KWh doesn't tell you current draw. A spec sheet I found on the net showed 520Wh per day for a mistral 140L. Again, from that I can draw no conclusions to its current draw to even suggest a size of inverter required. But for interest, if you multiply the 240V current draw by a factor of 25, that will give a close approximation to the draw required via inverter on 12V. Yep, 25 times the AC current. Now you might see why running household appliances on 12V via an inverter is not for the feint hearted.

One has to ask why it would even be considered. Both Engel and Waeco produce 90L 12V uprights. A grand for a 12V car fridge will be more reliable and efficient anyway. A bit more again for a dedicated 12V upright

[hobbo]

I think a 12/24V Chest Freezer with Ice Packs inside is the Most Economical Fridge, the compressor will hardly ever have to run. You could even leave it turned off for a Long Time, just don't open the Lid very often ( kid Lock required lol. )

[Downunder35m]

Some time ago I experimented with cheap vacuum pump alternatives, including fridge compressors.
For someone with a bit of skill it is no problem to make a few changes to a 240V so it can run on a converter in the car.
The big drawback that causes a lot of work to be done is the simple fact that household fridges are ot designed to work in any other condition than perfectly upright and with no moovement.
This is only a minor problem for the automatic defrosting as a simple hose and catch can will fix that.
What you can not fix is the design of the compressor.
They are oil filled for lubrication, the system works with a specially designed rotor shaft designed to pump the oil up through the bearings until it comes out on the top of the shaft/top bearing.
The tolerances are quite high so vibrations or even hard off road driving will cause the oil film to rupture, the rotor to start swinging and after a short time to fail due to overheating caused by lack of lubrication - or it will simply seize.

Car fridges are so dman expensive as they use special compressors and often these compressors are designed with two power systems: 12 and 240V.
If on top of that they also have a gas connection you know you will pay top dollar for it.
I have seen people that converted a small cheast freezer to use a small air con compressor (something from a Barine if I recall right) powered by a geared 12v motor.
For power reasons a high speed Mabuchi racing motor was used and I think the gearbox was 1:100 if not more.
The system was combined with a two stage thermostat system:
The main thermo was used to start and stop the motor during freezer operation, the second was a PWM regulator changing the speed of the motor during normal cooling.
A simple switch activated the PWM system, so if you are on long runs you can even set it to freeze and the motor will consume less power once the fridge is nicely cool.
All up the convertion was done for under 200 bucks, the main cost factors being the air con compressor and the refill of the gas in the cooling system.
Nice thing was the massive seize (used for fishing trips mainly) and the fact that the power consuption was below 5A when the thing was in freezer mode.
According to the guy that constructed it it will go down down to -5° if the temp in the car is not over 30°.

So if you really want to go through extremes a normal fridge/freezer can be converted....