Engel 45 on one Optima orange

[FlyingWen]

Am I right that this vehicle doesn't have a winch to worry about?

The dual batteries run a T-Max competition winch along with the other goodies. The batteries are just small and fit in the stock location

 

[psychohawk]

To chime in here, I have an Engel 45, had it about two years of virtually continual use (I never take it out of truck and rarely turn it off). It's usually packed about 40% for daily use, more when camping. With the fridge I have the insulator jacket, and temp. dial is set at about 1.5, right around 40 degrees F; truck is a dual battery system, just Sears batteries, nothing special.

With all that said and parked in my driveway, I get between 3 - 5 days out of the batteries without starting the truck. When camping, I usually start the truck every 24 hours for 15 minutes, just to be safe. This is probably a little paranoid but usually, when camping, there's a host of other battery drain happening.

Carl

 

[MHead]

I've been looking at Engel 22 Qt refrig/freezer. I'm especially interested in electrical current consumption on 12 V. Basically to answer the same question - how long on a battery.

I see specifications that quote 0.7 to 3 amps average current. The key here is AVERAGE. Does this mean that if the freezer takes 6 amps but only needs run 50% of the time the average current is 3 amps?

Has anyone actually measured current consumption of an Engel when running?

Thanks!

 

[Martyn]

I've been looking at Engel 22 Qt refrig/freezer. I'm especially interested in electrical current consumption on 12 V. Basically to answer the same question - how long on a battery.

I see specifications that quote 0.7 to 3 amps average current. The key here is AVERAGE. Does this mean that if the freezer takes 6 amps but only needs run 50% of the time the average current is 3 amps?

Has anyone actually measured current consumption of an Engel when running?

Thanks!

I think you will find all the answers you need by doing a searching of this forum. The compressor fridge / battery topic comes up at least once a month in one form or an other.

You can also subscribe to the Overland Journal, make sure you ask for a back issue of the Summer 2007 for the fridge comparison.

 

[Dave Bennett]

We switched from an Optima battery a year ago. We had the same problem of our MT45 draining our battery even while on the lowest setting.

We switched to dual Odyssey Batteries. The Odyssey 1200 is as small as a motorcycle battery, so we were able to fit both batteries in the stock location.

We haven't had a single problem since and we run several different things at one time.

Good idea. I bet that would work well on my rig.