Single-zone vs. Dual-zone

[kmroxo]

I recently bought an ARB 50,thinking I would use it as a freezer or a cooler,if I had a do over, I would get a bigger dual zone.I think a dual zone would offer the most flexibility,you could freeze blue ice,or use frozen food/water bottles, that you want to thaw to cool another(non-powered) cooler and still have a cooler section in the powered cooler.You will always fill it up.... go big.

Why not just use it as a freezer and use the non-powered cooler as the fridge? It seems like you could rotate block ice between the two as needed.

 

[chet6.7]

Why not just use it as a freezer and use the non-powered cooler as the fridge? It seems like you could rotate block ice between the two as needed.

I will do that as I mentioned above,"you could freeze blue ice,or use frozen food/water bottles, that you want to thaw to cool another(non-powered) cooler and still have a cooler section in the powered cooler."
The 50 fills up quickly,so a bigger size would be good,a dual zone offers the most flexibility IMO.I would like a small fridge behind the front seat as well,so many things I want on my limited budget.

 

[kmroxo]

Gotcha. I have a smaller Yeti Tundra 45 and a couple of the Hopper soft sides. I figured using a freezer and Yeti combo rotating block ice would be a really flexible set up.

 

[Dr Gil]

You can use an RTIC, Grizzly, Yeti or similar (High Quality) ice chest and keep dry ice in there for way less than a 2 zone fridge/freezer.

 

[kerry]

We have a Unique 60L dusk zone dual control and like it. We often run both sections as frigs but I like the option of having either or both as freezers. It’s very efficient. I measured it at .5 amps per hour at about 90 degrees ambient and both sides set just below freezing

 

[wileybyrd]

An update. I got a sweet deal on a SnoMaster CL56D. So it's a smaller footprint DZ but it is taller than the Dometic. Still, for the price I paid, totally worth the trade-off. Really happy with it so far. I camped one night with it and it's been on 100% of the time, wired directly to my Blue Sea fuse block in the rear passenger quarter panel. I think eventually I'll add a Anderson plug once I get the setup figured out. Prior to that, I'll likely upgrade to the Slee group 31 bracket and a deep-cycle AGM G31 battery with a Li-Ion jump pack for backup. For now, I'm just going to live with the current setup so far to see how it goes. I have the stock size AGM battery in my 100 series and the li-ion backup. Have the fridge set to a 10.7 cut-off and it hasn't turned off yet and I haven't had any starting issues.

 

[dreadlocks]

cutoff should be more like 11.8v, 10.7v will do irreversible damage to your battery if it dont outright ruin it all together

 

[chet6.7]

WB,you may want to read this thread if you haven't already done so.
https://expeditionportal.com/forum/...te-highly-recommended-battery-monitor.198483/

 

[wileybyrd]

Thanks guys. I'll adjust the min. voltage.

 

[vtsoundman]

cutoff should be more like 11.8v, 10.7v will do irreversible damage to your battery if it dont outright ruin it all together

Thanks guys. I'll adjust the min. voltage.

While technically correct, 10.7 will damage your battery there are other things to consider - false trips.

I run a Blue Sea BMV 712 - and like ALL coloumb counter gauges it has its shortcomings...but I still like the ability to remotely monitor and it is good enough...that being said, I the programmable relay output to drive a main contanctor, severing all loads IF the total current draw is <10A (use a small analog circuit to do the compare from a hall sensor).

I am never far away from my vehicles long enough (without having deployed solar) to worry about killing my battery. My starter battery is a 100aH group 31 Deep cycle from Sam's club (it is a myth that deep cycles are not good start batteries - if they are large enough, it is a non-issue). I ran a single battery for a while before installing a 2nd 100aH - but I also increased my overall loads as well...anyhow, I digress.

On startup, your fridge will pull a slug of current - I am not familiar with your particular model, but it could be 8-10A or more. Depending on the robustness of your wiring & battery (including ground/return path), a startup voltage sag may inadvertently cause your fridge to go into UV protection. This condition may be excerbated if there are other loads on the bus that are coincident with the fridge. (Ex: Ham radio pulls 8-12A during transmission - this may temporarily depress the aux bus voltage enough to cause a false trip should your fridge kick on...)

Anyhow, do a little testing at the house before settling on a voltage change...it would be a bummer for you to lose a fridge full of food.

An LVD at the battery would be much better than running one at the POL anyhow...I'm not sure of the complexity of your system or needs however.

 

[workerdrone]

^This is going to be true for a lot of our setups. Even if your wiring is big enough to run the fridge, at the fridge end of the wiring run you may see momentary voltages far, far below what the actual (resting) voltage of your battery would be at that time. And if the fridge doesn't look for an improved voltage reading and do an auto-restart some time after hitting low voltage cutoff (not sure if any of them do), then you'll come back to a dead fridge on a perfectly good battery.

 

[Florida Native]

what do yeh want the freezer for? For our use we mostly wanted to keep some ice for liquor drinks and mebe some ice cream for kiddos.. but then we discovered we can pack a Vacuum Insulated Growler and it'll keep full of ice for over a week in our fridge.. after 4-5 days you cant even get a drop of water out of it.

Thanks for that tip! I just ran a test using a 24oz vacuum insulated water bottle and it's still perfect after four days with the fridge set to 38F. No sticking cubes and no water in the bottle.

-Mike


Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[dreadlocks]

Sweet, glad it worked.. since I made that post in 2018 I got a 120W ice maker that chunks out ice in ~10m.. it's pretty easy to run the entire thing off solar so it takes no extra battery.. Not that the thermos full of ice didn't work, it just didn't hold enough to last the long haul with the rate we consume whiskey.. Now we make ice when the solar is abundant and stock up the thermos to make it through the night.

I also went out for almost 3 weeks before COVID hit and somewhere around 2 weeks in I pulled a pre-frozen slab of bacon out of the bottom that was still rock solid and had not dethawed at all with the fridge set right at freezing... Overall I've only heard of one good justification for a Dual Fridge/Freezer in all these years of fridge operation, and that was for fishermen stocking the deep freeze at home. If I needed to turn fish solid for the return trip I think a dual-mode setup would be brilliant. However, I doubt most people need that.. Otherwise, you can easily keep frozen food solid, and store ice for weeks at fridge temps if you put a lil effort into it.

 

[old_CWO]

we discovered we can pack a Vacuum Insulated Growler and it'll keep full of ice for over a week in our fridge.

Bravo, very clever. Will be shamelessly stealing that idea.