Portable Fridge Power

DaveInDenver

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Yes, I'm an admitted Victron fanboy.
I've been real happy with my Orion 18A DC-DC so far. Victron does seem to be a top end brand in the segment. About the only question in my mind is it runs fairly hot at full tilt. Never hit shut down but the heat sink gets upper 40s, lower 50s °C, uncomfortable to touch.

I like my Morningstar solar controller a whole lot but the monitoring isn't nearly slick what Victron is doing. I first encountered them working, you see them pretty often in telecom and oil & gas (like the Tristar MPPT, but it's a $1,000 solar controller). They're bulletproof and powerful if you persist, though. You get complete visibility of the internal variables and can customize the algorithm however you want (like turning off float completely). But they don't make nearly the range of devices as Victron, pretty much just solar controllers and inverters, and assume you're putting your device on a network so probably developed a custom interface solution.
 
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DaveInDenver

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Upgraded up a few things in the chain so that there's nothing smaller than 8 AWG or SB50 from the truck battery to DC-DC all the way to the lithium batteries in the box.

Got the total voltage drop down to about 0.65V compared to what the truck charging reads at the input to the DC-DC with 18A of charging on the output (so full 220W it appears, about 5% total drop end-to-end). This is a significant improvement. Was getting around 1V to 1.25V drop since there were a few lengths of 10 AWG still in the circuit and I was using PP45. This was causing the DC-DC to current limit and the most I'd see is roughly 180W of charging.

Also added an SB50/30A output to the battery box to accommodate a 300W inverter I'm thinking about mounting. Just not sure where yet. Probably time to start thinking about Mk3 of this thing, which is to put the whole mess in something the looks less like ass. Or Mk2, rev. D, which is to paint it at least...

Stumbled into some 4 AWG marine wire that's duplex jacketed. The prospect of replacing the front-to-back run with it isn't high on when I think of a few of my favorite things.

IMG_5049_mid.png

IMG_5055_mid.png
 
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LARGEONE

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Timely post, Dave. I am doing the same with a 50AH lithium, except I just purchased this Powerworx DC to DC converter I'm going to try. The reviews also talk about it getting fairly hot when running at the 8amp setting. This allows me to use smaller wires than some of the larger converters. I have a 40amp converter that is just too large. I only want to be able to run my fridge and save my starting battery now that I'm no longer running a dual battery system. I have a 100W solar panel and a 10amp MPPT charge controller to help top off the 50AH LIFEPO4 when sitting. The only issue I see with this PowerWorx converter is it is not as "smart" as the Orion in that it only has the two charging methods...bulk amps and steady V. Not ideal, but it is not going to be pushing when I'm not driving so less of a concern for me.

 

DaveInDenver

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Yeah Paul, actually came across that charger recently.

I don't have one personally to tell for sure but it looks to me like the operation is two-step, bulk at current you select up to 14.5V, so essentially that's the absorption voltage, with red LED. When it reaches 14.5V it seems to turn off, the LED goes green.

If that's the case then it's strictly fine but quite a bit more aggressive than I'd like.

It does depend on exact chemistry but assuming you're using LiFePO4 (LFP) then 3.65V/cell = 14.6V is the absolute maximum you should charge to and that assumes a perfectly balanced battery. Fully charged LFP is 3.4V/cell = 13.6V or higher, so this is really testing the upper limit. There's not a lot of practical advantage to pushing this hard and even with a good condition battery with a balancing BMS the cells are going to vary at least a few mV. So the BMS is eventually just going to turn off all charging once one of the cells hits 3.65V.

One thing I would caution is to never use this charger with a battery that does not have a BMS in it. In general you should never use a lithium battery at all without a BMS but in this case at a voltage with very little margin the risk is considerable.
 
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LARGEONE

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Thanks Dave! Appreciate the comments on this new converter. My 50AH is smart with low temp cutoff and BMS (as well as BlueTooth). My plan is to only use it sparingly as needed in the back country and rely more on my solar and home smart charger. I really just want to make sure that whenever I am sitting, that I am not using my starting battery at all.

Edit: I wish I could adjust the output V on this converter to something in the lower 14 or high 13s range
 

DaveInDenver

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Edit: I wish I could adjust the output V on this converter to something in the lower 14 or high 13s range
Agreed, 13.9V is the sweet spot I've settled on now that my cells are stabilizing.

BTW, don't use voltage with lithium as an absolute reference, they don't have quite the same function for state of charge to voltage as lead-acid. The relationship that does exist is very tight, a voltage might not change for long periods and suddenly jump.

It's best to have a current meter and read amp-hours or watt-hours going in and out while watching ideally individual cell voltages as a secondary data point. Voltage is easier to use for control and certainly as triggers for safety.
 

LARGEONE

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I typically use voltage, but just as a close proxy for state of charge. I don't really have another easy way for the current or AH draw. When I get below 13V I charge :) I know this isn't perfect, but for how many charge cycles this will see, I think I will be OK.
LiFePo4 charge.JPG
 

DaveInDenver

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I didn't mean to imply otherwise @LARGEONE. I only meant as a general rule not to trust voltage on lithium the same way as you can with lead-acid.

The chart you show is right on but a graph to visualize how narrow the voltage difference between 100%, 80%, 20% and 0% is between the two types. You want to stay between 20% and 80% on lithium for long life and safety but the high/low change is on the order of 0.25V across this working region while on a lead deep cycle you'd have 2V of room to voltage change to work with over that range.

BMS_Chapter_1_Fig7-_960_x_688.png

The point I failed to make is when you have this narrow margin of error your meter quality comes into play as to how much you're sure you're staying between the ditches.

For example a 3-3/4 digit DMM might specify a 0.1mV to 100mV resolution depending on range and 0.5% + 4 counts accuracy.

This means if it has a 40V range it can show 04.00V to 39.99V, thus the resolution is 10mV per step. When displaying 13.10V the 0.5% accuracy will means the measurement could be as much as 0.0655V in error plus the 0.01V resolution plus 4 counts of the least significant digit.

So that means when the voltage is 13.10V the DMM could show as low as 12.99V up to 13.22V and be within it's specifications. It's probably better than this (likely close to 13.03V to 13.18V) but you don't know. In any case this amount of uncertainty is only enough to give you an estimate within about +/- 25% as to state of charge across the plateau.

Using 13V as the re-charge point is safe in the sense you'll never risk dropping off the cliff below 20% but you might not end up using a lot of capacity if it's really closer to the 45% state of charge when you think it's at your 20% floor.

On the charging side this theoretical DMM is good enough to make sure you don't go too high (this being above 14.6V) as long as you stop at around 14.45V.

On lead-acid using a DMM to judge state of charge based on DMM voltage you're able to estimate within a couple of percent because the SOC-vs-voltage response is so much larger and linear.

There's not much you can do about meter accuracy, even calibrated it is what it is based on what you're willing to spend. So if you want to really know it's considerably cheaper to get an accurate enough (because 1% is fine due to the larger changes in magnitude and time averaging) current meter than it is a better voltage meter in this situation. To further complicate the question a cheap DMM is often still quite a bit better than your typical panel mounted volt meter, which may only be full unit accuracy (+/- 2% is not unusual), so showing 13.1V could very plausibly be as much as 0.25V in error and that's enough you could be at 20% and think you're at 80% or vice versa. To some extent you can calibrate by comparing to a known good measurement but the offset may not be consistent, such as the error may drift with temperature.

It's totally a question of what you need, though. Warm beer in a fridge on a weekend trip is not a problem vs living full time off grid losing a fridge of food that could be a real problem vs running medical equipment where it's critical.
 
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LARGEONE

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Thanks for the additional info. It is amazing how flat the voltage stays on LiFePo4 through the 80 down to 20ish. Love these batteries!
 

rover67

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Great conversation here. I’m still stuck in the 2010’s with the 80 dual lead/acid batt setup but the camper has a ~300ah LiFePo battery in it and I’m looking to upgrade to DC-DC charging rather than the straight to starting battery wire. I’ll say that for the camper moving away from lead acid was pretty amazing.
 

DaveInDenver

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upgrade to DC-DC charging rather than the straight to starting battery wire
It's a highly worthwhile thing to do. For all types it decouples so the house doesn't end up trickle charging or worse if you were solar charging in camp preventing it feeding back into the truck and drawing it down. With lithium there's the added peace of mind that charging voltage sits in the right spot and you're aren't relying on the BMS as your only voltage protection or that you try to charge a cold battery. That last thing is something I have to deal with since I have not yet put any heating into my battery so I can't let it try to charge below about 35°F and my charger is smart enough not to try even tho the BMS will also block it from happening.
 

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Bumping this thread for a slightly different look at 110V vs 12V

I use EGO for my outdoor power use. Since I do my driveway and my neighbors and they are both long, I have two 12ah and two 10ah batteries for my snow blower, all at 56V.

I also have dual batteris (odyessey AGM) in my 200, but not in the Taco

For my EGO Batteries I have a PAD5000 Inverter 400W sine wave inverter. Unfortunately it doesn't have the right 12V out puts for a fridge, It has USBs and a 110V AC output.
1789184359199.png

Lets assume I use the 110V AC output to power a fridge

56V 10.0Ah Battery: 560 Wh
56V 12.0Ah Battery (BA6720T): 672 Wh

I understand I will lose some efficiency with 110V vs 12V dc

How long would my 400W PAD5000 Inverter power the fridge with 1 12ah battery?
1789184359199.png

ICECO sells a 240wh battery they claim will keep your fridge running 11 hours, The Jackery 600D supposadly will run a fridge for well over 24 hours. Both of these are at 12V
1789184430288.png

How long will the 56V 12ah Battery last supplying the 12V fridge power at 110V. This is the question I am starting with.

Since I have the EGO Hardware, I will test it when I get the ICECO VL35PROS I am about to order https://icecofreezer.com/products/vl35pros-iceco-freezer

Now if my EGO Inverter had a 12V accessory out put this would be a simple calculation as it holds more capacity then the battery pack ICECO sells and would it be incorrect for me to assume roughly equivelant to a Jackery 600?

What I found from a Google search is a 12V portable compressor fridge typically draws between 40 to 100 watts (about 0.4 to 0.9 amps at 110V AC). Based on testing I saw lets assume 40 watts when compressor is on so 0.4 Ah's. Is that a fair assumption with this fridge?

the 56 V 12aH battery would provide about 6Ah 110volts. So if the compressor was running constantly that would be about 15 hours. I think its about 30% duty cycle depending on the conditions. If to make this conservative using a 50% duty cycle, we ran the Fridge on 110V with 1 12aH 56 V battery through the 400Watt 5000D EGO inverter, it should power the fridge 30 hours. Now I have multiple batteries I can swap in to make that longer if need be

I am sure I messed something up with my math, but this tells me not to waste money on ICECO's magnetic 240wh Battery for the fridge as I already have something much more capable in Romer's Garage

@DaveInDenver you like a good math problem :) Did I estimate this correctly?
 

Corbet

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Does your Tacoma have a factory inverter? I run my 250 fridge on a small Ecoflow battery. It will power the fridge for 24 hours. I charge it while driving with the 250’s inverter. Doing similar could extend your times.
 

DaveInDenver

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@Romer - this sounds like a class test problem. :-)

Best is to use a common unit in a situation like this, which are watts and watt-hours, to minimize conversion confusion. Power is power regardless of voltage, current and resistance/impedance.

Once you've converted all the component specs into power you can do your math straight across to get hours.

Where you'll need more data or testing is conversion loss. Inverters are lossy, even good ones. I would assume the 12V -> 120V to be no better than 80% by the EGO without specs or measurements. It's not specifically a knock on the device, just the nature of them.

For comparison in this size I have a Samlex SA-300-112, similar pure sine, 300W, etc. It's spec'd 89% efficiency and no-load of 0.24A, both of which I've found to be accurate.

I've done a little bit of testing running my Engel with it but nothing too rigorous at this point.

For example, approximate numbers. My MT45 fridge draws 34W running directly on 12V DC. The raw numbers measured by the battery shunt were 13.07V at 2.60A. The Engel compressor is natively 12V so this is a good number to have in our backpocket.

The inverter powered on, fridge unplugged the draw was 3W, that being 13.10V at 0.24A. This is the no-load inverter draw and matches the Samlex specification very well.

Fridge plugged in but dial turned OFF the draw increases to 6W, numbers being 13.10V at 0.46A. This appears to be the consumption of the SMPS inside the fridge that converts 120V to 12V.

The fridge running on 120V (thus battery -> inverter -> Engel 120V input) I measure 50W at the battery shunt. The actual numbers being 13.06V at 3.84A.

We know 34W of this is the fridge compressor and 3W is the Engel power supply. That means 50W - 37W = 13W was consumed in the inverter.

We can then infer that 3W (the no-load consumption) probably runs the inverter control circuit and 10W is the actual conversion loss. It's not unusual that at light load the efficiency will go down. In this case total inverter efficiency being about 74% (37W at 120V delivered for 50W drawn from 12V) at about 12% rated load (37W/300W).

It's unlikely you'll have this level of visibility into the EGO inverter but it gives you some idea how much power delivered 120V will cost from the battery. It's going to be significant losses.

You're right on with duty cycle, I regularly measure 35% duty cycle on my fridge at beer temps.

Regarding estimate of consumption, in my experience sitting closed and stable I get around 0.75 Ah/hr maintaining and when I put in new beer and am opening to take them out I go up to about 1 Ah/hr.

These are 12V numbers around 13.1V so talking 10 to 13 Wh/hr consumed at the ~35% duty cycle.

If you've read this far the take away is going to be that, with an Engel at least, you are better running at 12V by about 9% since there's a 3W penalty using the internal 120V to 12V power supply.

Secondarily from the battery side using an inverter is going to cost about 25% in my testing. Purely analytically the best case is a 11% loss using the Samlex 89% specification.

Now there is one additional possible loss. If you notice the ICECO battery spec is 14.4V at 17.4 Ah to give you 250 Wh. But it also tells you it has a 13.3V @ 10A maximum 12V output. This tells you there's a 4-cell battery inside (3.6V x 4 = 14.4V) that is running a converter or protection. It could just be a thermal fuse or thermistor, which would be low loss or might be an actual DC-DC converter. There could be some loss there, maybe a few percent. ICECO should calculate that into their capacity but might not. Just something to know if you find you're consistently getting 5% or 10% less time than 250 Wh would otherwise suggest.

Edit to add run time estimates.

So my battery is 74 Ah and at ~13V means 962 Wh.

Let's say I don't want to run completely to zero so I have a voltage cutoff that represents 10% minimum state of charge. For round numbers that means I can use 850 Wh for a cycle.

Using the fridge on 12V that means I'll get 850 Wh / 13 Wh/hr = 65 hours in theory.

Using the inverter and fridge on 120V reduces this to about 44 hours.
 
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Romer

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Does your Tacoma have a factory inverter? I run my 250 fridge on a small Ecoflow battery. It will power the fridge for 24 hours. I charge it while driving with the 250’s inverter. Doing similar could extend your times.
Not like yours since mine isnt a Hybrid

The 200 is my exploring vehicle and my dual batteries have been fine with fridge so far.

I was looking at the battery ICECO sells that provides 11 hours of power and wondered with gear I already have, what could I do with it. The Ego inverter forces a 110V solution if I use those. It just seemed to me I should be able get a day or several days if need be with what I have.

Then If I go camping in one spot for a few days, I know I could use the EGO setup rather than discharging my aux batt and having to run the truck for a bit to recharge. Thinking of last time I camped at the Doll House for two days when I ran my truck for an hour because the battery was getting low

@DaveInDenver Thanks for the details. I know I would be better at 12V and will lose efficiency at 110V. I am just looking at what I can do with the gear I have not what would be a better setup.

So if I add a 25% inefficeincy I am down to around 24 hours on one 56V 12 Ah battery? Then with 3 more batteries I could go for several days?
 

DaveInDenver

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Not like yours since mine isnt a Hybrid

The 200 is my exploring vehicle and my dual batteries have been fine with fridge so far.

I was looking at the battery ICECO sells that provides 11 hours of power and wondered with gear I already have, what could I do with it. The Ego inverter forces a 110V solution if I use those. It just seemed to me I should be able get a day or several days if need be with what I have.

Then If I go camping in one spot for a few days, I know I could use the EGO setup rather than discharging my aux batt and having to run the truck for a bit to recharge. Thinking of last time I camped at the Doll House for two days when I ran my truck for an hour because the battery was getting low

@DaveInDenver Thanks for the details. I know I would be better at 12V and will lose efficiency at 110V. I am just looking at what I can do with the gear I have not what would be a better setup.

So if I add a 25% inefficeincy I am down to around 24 hours on one 56V 12 Ah battery? Then with 3 more batteries I could go for several days?
Yeah, for rule of thumb assuming 25% is lost in conversion is probably a close enough SWAG.

I've done a little measurements with an older ARB Danfoss fridge. The power consumed is higher but still ball park similar. Your 40W number is probably close enough so at 35% duty you'll be at the ~15 Wh/hr number. In the real world the number is higher of course so say 20 Wh/hr?

56V x 12Ah = 672 Wh

672 * 0.90 (assuming low voltage cut off) = ~600 Wh available.

600 Wh / 20 Wh/hr = 30 hours per battery.

But you'd have to run a cycle to see if EGO assumes capacity with or without conversion losses. That screed above is to show it's there but only EGO knows if it's inclusive or not in any specification. You know the battery capacity, not the inverter efficiency.

If they do not include it then 30 hours becomes 22.5 hours. So, yes, this number would be my assumption, too.
 

Romer

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Yeah, for rule of thumb assuming 25% is lost in conversion is probably a close enough SWAG.

I've done a little measurements with an older ARB Danfoss fridge. The power consumed is higher but still ball park similar. Your 40W number is probably close enough so at 35% duty you'll be at the ~15 Wh/hr number. In the real world the number is higher of course so say 20 Wh/hr?

56V x 12Ah = 672 Wh

672 * 0.90 (assuming low voltage cut off) = ~600 Wh available.

600 Wh / 20 Wh/hr = 30 hours per battery.

But you'd have to run a cycle to see if EGO assumes capacity with or without conversion losses. That screed above is to show it's there but only EGO knows if it's inclusive or not in any specification. You know the battery capacity, not the inverter efficiency.

If they do not include it then 30 hours becomes 22.5 hours. So, yes, this number would be my assumption, too.
22.5 hours on one battery is still pretty good considering I can just swap in another battery if I need to. And even better, with gear I already own.

I will order the new fridge once I sell my existing one Corbet passed and I PM'd @gr8fulabe since he posted interest. I will post for sale if he doesn't want it

Then I will test this once I get the fridge :) I probably should fill it with water bottles to simulate a loaded fridge. Nearly empty fridges run a lot harder
 

DaveInDenver

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BTW Ken, there's another option.

You could use a 56V to 12V DC-DC to run the fridge.


716qRL+s1UL._AC_SL1500_.jpg

Wire it to an EGO battery adapter.


s-l500.jpg

Total conversion losses for a buck converter could be fairly low. Less than an inverter for sure. Just depends on how much effort you want to put into it all. Would be smaller than the inverter space-wise, too.
 

Romer

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DaveInDenver

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That might be a good option Dave. Thanks

Lets see what the test at 110V shows
Something I'd also like to know is if the Danfoss style fridges have as much loss on 120V. I have a feeling the compressors in them run on AC and might be natively higher voltage. So they may incur loss at 12VDC doing the step up and would have an inherent inverter loss internally. They may actually run on 120VAC better than an Engel. Not that 3W is horrible. If a Danfoss runs at 40W on DC I wonder if that stays even or maybe even goes down on 120V.
 
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