Engel wired straight to a car battery???

[The Adam Blaster]

I'm thinking about buying an Engel 45 for a long road trip I'll be doing this summer, but rather than getting a dual battery setup, can I just place a spare battery in the back cargo area and run wiring direct from the fridge?
(I'd probably put it in a true battery box, just to be a bit safer, and look cleaner.)

The reasons why I want to do it this way:

1. This vehicle is only going to be my travelling rig for 2-3 years max, and I won't be doing anything serious in the ExPo world for that time frame. So, I don't want to waste my time setting up an elaborate dual batt. system only to take it apart in a relatively short time. (Plus, electrical is one of the things I HATE playing around with, and I'm not at all good at.)

2. I will be leaving the fridge plugged in and running at night when I park for the evening, so I don't want to run the main battery right down.

3. When I get to my various destinations after a few days, I can empty the fridge, and disconnect it from the battery. And to charge the battery back up, I have a real "trickle" style automotive battery charger that I'll be picking up along the way in the trip.

The one big question I have is, how long will the average car battery power the fridge running 24 hours straight, without the battery being charged?

For my purposes, the battery has to last with plenty of power to keep the fridge running at refridgerator temps (slightly above freezing) for at least 5 days.

Is this possible?

 

[Willman]

Sounds to me you should be fine. I would invest into a nice deep cycle battery forsure....an nice Odyssey battery would do the trick.

The great thing about these fridges is that you have the option to run AC from your home and DC from inside the rig. AC cord is the same as a computer montior if i'm right....If i read this right....Running a DC cord right off the battery....I would just put a fuse in line to keep everything safe

Sounds like a winner to me!

Have you gotten your fridge yet?

 

[The Adam Blaster]

I haven't got the fridge yet, I'm just figuring this situation out and whether I'm prepared to spend the money or not this year. And this trip in July/August will likely be the only time I use the fridge in '09 -- part of the debate to buy it this year or not.
But when I do buy, I hear there might be someone on the board I can buy it off of, not 100% on that though... lol

I do like the idea of running the fridge off the cig lighter during the day, not something I thought of, thanks agavelvr!

Sounds to me you should be fine. I would invest into a nice deep cycle battery forsure....an nice Odyssey battery would do the trick.

The great thing about these fridges is that you have the option to run AC from your home and DC from inside the rig. AC cord is the same as a computer montior if i'm right....If i read this right....Running a DC cord right off the battery....I would just put a fuse in line to keep everything safe

Sounds like a winner to me!

Have you gotten your fridge yet?

 

[RoundOut]

I have a dual battery setup, so if my main drains too much, I just hit a switch and it starts right up from the auxiliary. That said, my first experience with fridges was at the Expedition Trophy 2008. It drained my battery over night, one night when we didn't do any driving during the day before. (It was the day of the clinics.) The next morning, I had a primary battery that was still running the fridge, but not strong enough to start the truck. From the time I parked to the next time I needed to start, was about 36 hours, +/-.

When I shared this with Chris Marzone (BajaTaco, and the author of that article aforementioned in Overland Journal), Chris said that he turns his fridge off at night. If you don't open it, it will stay plenty cool overnight in most environments (unless you are trying to keep ice cream frozen).

If you have a 2 Liter bottle of water frozen in the box, all the better. Since the Engle will freeze, consider freezing ice in your Engle and keeping a small ice chest with your cold stuff. You can rotate the thawed water bottles into the Engle and the iced ones back to the ice chest.

.

 

[Moody]

I have the National Luna setup now, but for a trip we did, I just ran my marine deep cycle via alligator clips through the 12v socket. I ran it for those 3 days at setting 2. It worked fine. Sounds like what you have in mind will work fine as long as it is a deep cycle battery.

Hope that helps,

Roger

 

[ThomD]

Now I have a really crazy idea/question. Take a deep cycle "house" battery, put it in the back of the car, and run the fridge off that (fused of course) - as described above. Then run wires from the Cig adapter in the back of the car to the house battery when the car is running. Is there enough current coming from a Cig adapter to recharge the battery in less than an eon? Assuming that the installation is tidy and protected, is this a low effort way to recharge the house battery, accepting that it cannot be used to start the car?

 

[roscoFJ73]

Now I have a really crazy idea/question. Take a deep cycle "house" battery, put it in the back of the car, and run the fridge off that (fused of course) - as described above. Then run wires from the Cig adapter in the back of the car to the house battery when the car is running. Is there enough current coming from a Cig adapter to recharge the battery in less than an eon? Assuming that the installation is tidy and protected, is this a low effort way to recharge the house battery, accepting that it cannot be used to start the car?

Its possible to recharge from the cig lighter but the amps are limited.
You can do 2 things,either upgrade the socket or run a wire to the battery.

I run the 80 litre waeco off the aux battery which is only in paralel when the engine is running.
I also have a 100 amp deep cycle for when Im camped that I can recharge from the main and aux battery while I am on the move with some small jumper leads.

Having a fridge connected directly to a battery can extend the battery life enough for another days running of the fridge:ylsmoke:
For this ,I chopped up the 12v fridge cord and soldered some eyelets on so it can be bolted to the terminals

 

[UK4X4]

don't buy the battery- run the engel as a freezer- plug in when running
and disconnect when stopped.

When in freezer mode with the fridge bag too, turn off at night in the morning everything is still frozen

That's my experience..obviously if its high summer then you may need to run it for a hour or so during the day if stopped for a while...

But we found that as long we ran the freezer a few hour's a day things would stay cold

Obviously if your a beer drinker- and using as a fridge you'll be needing to power it up for longer periods.

The 12 volt socket re-charge will work fine....depending on how many hours per day you'll be using it.

If your worried just run a fused decent sized positive to the rear of the truck and install another aux socket

 

[The Adam Blaster]

don't buy the battery- run the engel as a freezer- plug in when running
and disconnect when stopped.

That's a good tip! I may use that plan on future trips.
This year however, my son is only going to be a year old, so we'll still have baby food and formula in the fridge, which can't be frozen.

 

[mhiscox]

don't buy the battery- run the engel as a freezer- plug in when running
and disconnect when stopped.

Also consider using one of the devices (Priority Start is one I have) that cuts off the battery power before the starting battery gets too low to start the vehicle. If it generally worked to cool the fridge during the day from the engine and then let it "coast" during the night, having the power cutoff would ensure that if something unusual happened, you could still start the truck.

 

[toy_tek]

Another option:

On a tip from SOAZ, I installed a Battery Brain to limit my single main batt voltage loss down to 10.5 volts. With my Engel 35 this translates to about 35 hours on setting 2, which worked in 100 degree days and 70 degree nights. This is not the freezer setting, just keeping beverages and lunchmeat cool. So after 35 hours the Battery brain cuts the battery from the rest of the vehicle, only requiring a quick reset and then you can start the vehicle to recharge the battery to full. Figure about $100 for the battery brain and installation is not difficult and reversable. I used the "gold" w/wired remote.

http://www.batterybrain.com/batterybrain.pl

 

[mhiscox]

Another option:

On a tip from SOAZ, I installed a Battery Brain to limit my single main batt voltage loss down to 10.5 volts. With my Engel 35 this translates to about 35 hours on setting 2, which worked in 100 degree days and 70 degree nights. This is not the freezer setting, just keeping beverages and lunchmeat cool. So after 35 hours the Battery brain cuts the battery from the rest of the vehicle, only requiring a quick reset and then you can start the vehicle to recharge the battery to full. Figure about $100 for the battery brain and installation is not difficult and reversable. I used the "gold" w/wired remote.

http://www.batterybrain.com/batterybrain.pl

Though Jon supplies great information, just a word of caution . . . letting your starting battery drop to 10.5 volts--which the Battery Brain Gold Utility permits--would be really hard on the battery and would significantly shorten its lifespan. Their other units, which cut out at 11.8 volts, would be more appropriate for the use in question.

The very similar Priority Start units:

http://www.prioritystart.com

have a 11.7 volt cutoff.