Automotive Refrigerator/Freezer Question

I'm considering picking one up for the hurricane season but I'm concerned about damaging my car battery from constant use. Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing?

 

I have an ICECO dual zone 65L fridge / freezer in the off-road travel trailer. If you buy a dometic, ICECO, or other mid to high end fridge you will have options to run it off of AC as well as DC. My XOC has two, deep cycle group 27F lead acid batteries and I can go 2-3 days in the summer with both zones at refrigerator temperatures (~30 - 40 Deg F) before both batteries are below 11 volts and the fridge shuts down. That is with no solar or generator at all. Be advised, when the fridge is at room temp bringing it down to temp will take a tremendous amount of energy which is why I have my trailer connected to shore for the initial cool down. You can also put ice packs in your house freezer or buy bags of ice and put them in your mobile fridge when you fire it up to help cool it down and take some stress off of your compressor and the batteries feeding it.

I would advise against wiring any sort of fridge to your Taco's start battery. The last thing you want in an emergency evacuation situation is a dead start battery. Get a dual battery setup or invest in a Bluetti/GoalZero/Jackery lithium setup with solar charging and use that for the fridge. Plenty of YouTube videos on the different products out there and what full-time nomads use to power their fridge. I hope this helps.

 

Okay, sounds like my gut was right. I was reading the wattage requirements for the smaller fridges and it *looked* like it wouldn't run down my batter since I drive about 45 minutes twice a day.

However, I was still thinking the real world draw would be far too much to be healthy/safe for the battery.

What about using one of those lithium generators as a go between? Charging it off 12 volt and then running the fridge off that?

 

That may work. Absolutely take advantage of your alternator's output whilst the Taco is running to run your fridge and to charge the battery supporting your fridge but then don't forget to switch the fridge over to your external/2nd battery once you have reached your destination.

For the 9 months I full-timed out of my trailer I thought I was good with a 120W panel to top off my batteries + charge off of my Taco while en route to my next destination. Then I had a week or so of overcast days and the combination of needing to run my communications gear for work and also keep the food cold had me idling my Tacoma every couple of hours which led me to get a small gas generator. Solar is excellent but I'll tell you, you can have $5K worth of lithium batteries fed by 3 sets of 300W+ solar panels but if the sun is behind clouds you are out of luck.

I went with a Generac GP2500i because it was very similar in noise output and specs to the Honda EU2200i at half the price and the Ace Hardware in this tiny town was a Generac shop. I think for your use case a Jackery/GoalZero/Bluetti/Whatever will work just fine if you use it then charge it as you are on the road. Please test test test your setup so you understand how it will perform before an emergency hits. Unless you have a baby that needs fresh milk and mom is pumping and storing her milk in the fridge for baby's needs you may want to consider taking the money you would be spending on a fridge and battery and get some Mountain House hiking meals, a couple of jet boils, some fresh water purification filters, and some containers to hold the fresh water.

 

Just my $0.02....if you camp out of your truck then by all means, look at a fridge that you can run out of it and the appropriate powering source. If you have no other use for it other than hurricane preparedness, I would be looking at a portable generator that will run your fridge and any other must-have devices, like medical equipment. I'm on the east coast, also in FL. Earlier this year we bit the bullet and went for a whole house Generac standby generator. It came on for the first time last month when we lost utility power for about 90 min. Other than the 20-30 or so seconds for it to sense the loss of power and switch over to the generator it was totally seamless. You don't need to spend that kind of money, you can get a portable generator to power your fridge at home, and even have your electrician install a manual transfer switch you can hook it into so you don't have to run extension cords everywhere.

I'd look at the truck fridge as I need it for camping and have the side benefit of it helping during power outages, not the other way around. But that's just me

 

I bought a GP2200i on close out, as the 2500s were coming out. They are very quiet, efficient, and reliable. for what they are selling for, I can't see most folks not adding this to their garage stash.

 

I've actually got a Generac GP3500iO that I grabbed after the Hurricane last year. Got some freeze dried, some canned, fresh water purification and we're on well water so I'm fairly certain I could use the generator to pull some water if we need to.

I do need to get a fresh water container of some sort.

 

I'm also thinking of using it to store groceries for lunches at work.

Saw a cheeky post on reddit about a guy who grills in his work's parking lot every lunch because he got sick of paying out the nose for food at lunchtime.

How cool/ridiculous would it be to just pull some ground beef patty out of your car fridge and grill it up? haha

 

Here's a CHEAP option that has worked awesome for me and my friends/family. When I'm running my ARB Fridge in the back seat, I place the Gooloo behind the drivers seat plugged into my Cigarette port in front of the shifter. The cord just reaches. Then plug the Fridge into the Gooloo 12v port. That way it charges while I drive, like you mention above. It is only 600w, but that can last quite awhile on a 12v fridge. I use this as backup for my camper. Used it exclusively for about 6 months before buying my larger Bluetti. I actually have a P500 (original version) and this newer P600. With the 180$ coupon on Amazon, it's only $219, which is a killer deal.

https://a.co/d/aooLW6H

 

A lot if it depends on the ambient temp and what you have the fridge set to. Some days I’ll use 20% of my capacity and others it can be around 40%

lately I’ve been using a goal zero 500x. It’ll run my dometic cfx35 for 2-3 days before it’s out of power. 2-4 hours of driving is usually enough to top off the daily usage from my fridge using the goal zero 12v plug

when you are back home you can plug it into ac. You can also get a 100-200w solar panel and pretty much run indefinitely if you have sun.

 

I had 3 of the 500x's, and 1 1000x, none of them could run my ARB 50qt or my Dometic 75L. They'd always trip the breaker for some reason?? Goal Zero couldn't figure it out either, they just kept sending me new ones (i mean, 2 of my 500x's also just stopped taking a charge after a month on the first one, and about 3 months after receiving the replacement.

 

Here is the way I decided to lower my Iceco Pro 45L fridge I’m very happy with redarc bcdc 1225 charger with a group 31 starter agm Odyssey Extreme and small agm secondary.. no issues with dead battery and going on year 3 with setup. The redarc will take agm lithium and solar power and it regulates the voltage needed for proper charge batteries while driving down the road and keeps them them topped off. I’ve also got a

$100 Noco Genius10 , 10A Smart Car Battery Charger, 6V and 12V Automotive Charger, Battery Maintainer, Trickle Charger, Float Charger and Desulfator for Motorcycle, ATV, Lithium and Deep Cycle Batteries

Noco Genius10 bolted onto the side underneath the hood that’s wired directly to the starter battery anytime I want to use shore power for charging it. It’s worked very flawlessly for me and I have many electrical components running off my battery setup from LEDs to power inverter to fridge and arb compressor

 

I run an ICECO JP40 which I run off either the 12 volt in the vehicle, or when I am camping and not driving, power it with a Bluetti AC50S. The ICECO sips power, and also has three settings for it when you are running it off your battery while not driving, to have the refrigerator shut off depending on your battery level. It will stay cool for some time when not running (my ICECO came with an insulation blanket). I keep it at the setting where I can still start the truck, as the battery isn't run down to where it won't turn over the motor. Never had a problem to date with that strategy. I get about 49 hours running straight off the Bluetti, and then I have to charge that unit back up again to charge while driving again. I then plug the refrigerator back into the 12 volt off the truck's battery, and again, leave the refrigerator plugged into the truck's battery. I will in the future install another 12 volt port in the back area when I decide if I will be going the Goose Gear route where I will then have both the Bluetti, and my fridge in the back instead of the two seats.

I use a Harbor Freight portable folding 100 Watt Solar panel to charge the Bluetti when camping, or take it inside a hotel room or any other place where I will be for some time to charge back up off of 110.

 

The non X versions couldn’t run them because they didn’t have a regulated 12v port so the low voltage cutoff would keep them from running. They changed that in the X so they could actually run fridges. I had a 1400 and returned it. Later on they came out with a regulated adapter you could use with older models.

If I remember right there was some issues with the early models of the X and they got recalled. I haven’t had any issues with the 500x or 1500x with my cfx35w or arb 63. I bought mine after they fixed whatever the issue was with the early models

 

All mine were after the recall, cause that was the first thing they checked on my original one. I wasn't in the Recalled units, but it failed in a different way anyhow. I probably just had REALLY bad luck, cause obviously there are a ton out there. I always say they have awesome customer service, can't fault them on that. But 5 outta 6 not fulfilling the needs sucked (i actually sold the 6th new in box so no idea if it woulda worked or not).

 

Sorry to tag onto this thread, but I'm somewhat in the same situation; thinking of getting a fridge for camping and trying my best to come up with a solution to power it.

Part of me is thinking to get a 27f Northstar AGM battery and couple it with a 90watt hood solar panel. This would allow me to keep the battery charged while camping and topped off the rest of the time because I don't think I'll get a tune to just change the alternators voltage output. It also would give me some more power for my accessories (10k winch and 2 light bars).

My concern with this is 3 part:
1. While I don't do crazy off-reading, I do have skids and sliders for a reason. I have heard of issues with the weight of a 27f batterys and the strength of the sheet metal causing cracking.
2. While I understand a fridge such as an ICECO or a Dometic will shut off if it detects low voltage, will it leave me enough to start the truck if for whatever reason the solar option isn't working.
3. On just the battery (92ah), no solar charing, how long could I expect a 60 liter fridge to run on eco mode? I've tried to understand kwh-to-watts-to-volts-to-ah and have come to accept the electricity is modern day magic I'll never understand.

The other option is what you suggested, get a 1000watt power station and some mobile solar panels and call it a day. My only hesitation is that this route isn't as clean and adds to the already long list of things to do at camp. But the same question comes up, how long could I expect the fridge to run on a 1000watts station without a top-off?

 

I prefer the power station route. 1000W Jackery is what I use. Fridge plugged into that. 100W flex solar panel on my rtt lid and a 100W rigid panel mounted to my Prinsu. Cables routed where I can't see and its a self contained system. My truck is not affected by the fridge/panels at all. Plus if I decide that I don't want to be right next to my truck, the fridge and Jackery can be taken out of my truck and placed wherever. The wife and I took advantage of that the last time she went out with me. Fridge and Jackery were next to us and the fire.

 

I have not looked into it, but you may be able to set a shut-off voltage where your fridge will shut down at a particular voltage. My ICECO will draw my house (trailer) batteries down until it doesn't have enough voltage to operate (~10.8) which is nowhere near enough voltage to start my Taco -- if I was tied into my start battery -- I'm not, the only thing my Taco does is charge my trailer.

There are options for a circuit that will de-couple your Taco's start battery. I installed a Blue Sea Systems m-LVD between the battery and my accessory fuse panel so if I accidentally leave my bumper lights, ditch lights, or rear spot lights on the circuit will disconnect power from the circuit if the voltage drops below 12.2V. I can only run 65A through that m-LVD circuit so I am limited as to the accessories I can power (no winch or fan relays -- to much draw so they are on their own circuits).

• Check out Blue Sea Systems SI-ACR.... you are wanting to de-couple your start battery during discharge but then top off your house battery during charge and, I believe, this is exactly what this automatic charging relay is built to do.

 

My friend suggested something to me. Renowned models like Dometic CFX-75DZW and Engel MT80 offer energy-saving features, low power consumption, and battery protection modes. he bought the CFX and using it for 8 months now. I don't know much about the Engel model, I just got the name by research. These reliable options ensure optimal cooling without significant strain on your car battery. By choosing a purpose-built commercial freezer, you can confidently prepare for hurricane season without compromising your car battery's health.

 

My friend switch over to an EcoFlow Glacier from a Dometic. He said it has more usable space for the same capacity, usable inside and out of the truck and an ice maker. Got it because of that one YouTuber's (Tinker?) review on it.