ENGEL Fridge - solar panel question

BigJim

Observer
How does your setup work?

Without a solar charge controller. Just curious if the panel is really charging your battery this way. Have you measured the Amp output of the panel into your battery? Is the current really moving from the panel into the battery?

I am curious too.
I want a solar panel not to hook my ARB fridge to, I plug it into a 12v socket that is live all the time to the battery.

I just want a panel to keep the battery topped off when camped for a week.
I have ran my ARB solid for five days max on my battery, and the rig started right up on the fifth day no problem with no prior starting of the engine.
 

voyageur

Adventurer
Big Jim - as a test I set my ENGEL in my Boston Whaler (on the trailer), plugged it in to the cigarette lighter and hooked the Powerflex panels to the deep-cycle battery, using the provided Powerflex alligator clips. It has been on since Tuesday, with the panel receiving sun about 6 hours a day (due to nearby trees) and so far, my battery shows a full charge using a hydrometer and the ENGEL is keeping the beer and bottled water VERY cold set on 1.5. Not scientific but true...

Thank you for the inquiry,

David
 

BigJim

Observer
The Kill o Watt

Value displayed is AC Amps, Watts etc.

You need a DC Amp meter to measure DC Amps.

At 100% efficientcy your .5 AC amps is (120 VAC x .5 = 60 Watts AC!! or 5 Amps DC)

The simplest and cheapest solution to all the solar discussion is to run 2 batteries. One for starting one for accerories and run the vehicle alternator for ten minutes a day if you are worried. And yes there are good ways and better ways to charge the #2 battery from the vehicle alternator.

The amp draw you are referring to (2.5A) is the max draw from the specs. I hooked mine up to AC through a Kill-A-Watt meter. After startup and cooldown, the fridge drew about 0.5A when running. That lowers your amp hours per day to about 20% of the previous calculations. Even allowing for higher draw at startup, that's still not much. Keeping the temp around 32 Deg F, compressor cycles about 50%.
 

tdesanto

Expedition Leader
Corey said:
I have ran my ARB solid for five days max on my battery, and the rig started right up on the fifth day no problem with no prior starting of the engine.
Hilldweller said:
What temp outside and what temp was the unit set to?
Corey said:
Temps outside were in May here last year, so perhaps never over 65, hard to say. It was Memorial Day weekend and I stayed home, it was to nasty to camp. Parked the rig after work on Friday afternoon, and my rig did not move until Tuesday morning to go to work. It fired right up on an almost two year old battery.

This is certainly efficient, but not necessarily the same scenario that a lot of fridge owners will find themselves in. The daytime temps inside the vehicle may end up being hotter than they were in the scenario you describe. A transit bag will help keep the temps inside the vehicle from affecting the fridge as much as without an insulating bag.

Also, 5 days may be stretching it a bit in your Memorial Day weekend example. If you got home from work on Friday around 6pm and left for work on Tuesday morning at 8am, then that would appear to be 86 hours, or 3.58 days.
 

Corey

OverCamping Specialist



This is certainly efficient, but not necessarily the same scenario that a lot of fridge owners will find themselves in. The daytime temps inside the vehicle may end up being hotter than they were in the scenario you describe. A transit bag will help keep the temps inside the vehicle from affecting the fridge as much as without an insulating bag.

Also, 5 days may be stretching it a bit in your Memorial Day weekend example. If you got home from work on Friday around 6pm and left for work on Tuesday morning at 8am, then that would appear to be 86 hours, or 3.58 days.
Home at 2 PM on Friday, left for work at 3:00 am Tuesday ;)
But yeah, four days total is more realistic.

But that is very efficient you have to admit without using the T bag.

This summer though I will be hooking up a solar panel to the battery to keep it topped off for a week long trip parked in one location the whole time.
 

FurthurOnTheFly

Glamping Society
Just curious what, if anything, ended up happening here with the solar solution? I'm taking a month long trip in July and I'm starting to look at solar panels to help top off my battery if I decide to stop in one place for more than a couple of days. I will not have a dual battery setup by then so I'm trying to find a reasonable solar solution. I love the AT set up but thats far beyond what I can afford to pay and still take the trip!
 

LandCruiserPhil

Expedition Leader
Just curious what, if anything, ended up happening here with the solar solution? I'm taking a month long trip in July and I'm starting to look at solar panels to help top off my battery if I decide to stop in one place for more than a couple of days. I will not have a dual battery setup by then so I'm trying to find a reasonable solar solution. I love the AT set up but thats far beyond what I can afford to pay and still take the trip!

I just went through this....I started by doing all the calculation and then decided with all the variables I was wasting my time and the real world testing would be the deciding factor.

Here the link to my post on Mud LINK Mostly BS but here is my last post.

The set-up worked well over the weekend. I decided to just leave things alone when I returned home and see what happens at the end of the day. So with the 100 parked south in the sun The frig was set to a comfortable beverage temp of 34* without an insulating blanket.

At 5 PM inside temp of the rear of the 100 was a warm 115.8*. Battery voltage was 12.15 volts. So it looks like I'm running a little behind on making power. I checked the spec on the amp load for the frig and I was wrong on what I previously said. The specs showed a max load of 4.3amp. The frig could probably run for a week without starting the 100.

The Nipo starter(reduction starter) requires less then 100amps with no load so my guess would be about 150amp loaded further speculation on my part would say that the 100 could start with a battery voltage around 10.5. So the system does work well but IMO but it is not perfect.
You want perfect spend more money...OK good enough for me



My frig is a Norcold MRFT-60 with higher power requirements the an Engle 45. Based on my experience a 60watt panel your 45quart frig drawing 2.5max should be able to run continuously on a single battery without starting the vehicle.

Attached (because I dont know how to post pictures anymore) is a picture of the panel on my Cruiser
 

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FurthurOnTheFly

Glamping Society
Thank you for the post Phil and you have a great set-up there. I'm not opposed to mounting a more rigid panel to my roof rack much like you did, they seem to be a little more on the 'affordable' side than the folding panels. Where did you pick up your panel at?
 

UK4X4

Expedition Leader
Having just recieved my latest two copies of Overland journal.......they have an excellent article on solar power....

Seemingly some happy posty liked the look of my magazine and they never arrived.
 

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