What other tips and tricks are you using to get better performance of battery economy out of you 12v fridge?

OMG i remember seeing the host in a video a while ago, they had a wonderful accent and were very funny. The vid was about baking some yummies with cordless power tool batteries, and i forgot to sub and always wanted to find you again! Glad this got recommended to me, love it!

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

I never really think about myself having an accent! :) Though you're right, I do have a reasonably heavy Aussie accent!

Cheers for doing all the leg work and presenting this useful data for all of us. Much appreciated.

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

always great info, thanks again!

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

You're welcome!

Another great vid mate. Been a fan of yours (and subscribed) for years now. If you ever get the chance, it'd be great if you could do a vid on lithium batteries.... and whether the charging of these batteries by 'non-lithium chargers' is actually that bad. I've heard many opposing views. Some say lithium chargers are not really needed (and only differentiated by one wire? from non-lithium type chargers... ) and the non- lithium chargers will do the job just fine (and save you heaps in the process). At least one well known company says their lithiums are just 'drop in replaceable' for your old agm batteries and able to be charged by non-lithium type chargers. Anyhow... Appreciate all your vids. They're awesome mate. Cheers 🍻

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

Great suggestion! I'm currently putting a Kings 120Ah Lithium battery through it's paces at the moment. I might check it out after this round of testing.

@outdooraussie6355

Жыл бұрын

@@LockyourHubs4WDing Awesome mate. Look forward to it! Cheers 🍻

Awesome vid love this content

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoy it!

Great Video on this topic 👍. Interesting to see the peak power is around 13.8v in this case, newer Engels have a regulated power supply so wonder if that's deliberate to make the most performance when the alternator is charging and then save some energy as battery voltage lowers? For some more technical info if anyone's interested , old school Engels used an iron transformer to generate the compressor voltage (about 23v) from either mains 50HZ directly or a very basic 2 transistor oscillator on the 12v side unregulated. This is why they don't work on 24v and just start humming without cooling from poor input voltage. Alternatively in every Engel after about the mid 90's they actually use a digital Mosfet based switching circuit to directly drive the compressor with its aprox. 23 volts AC. Before this 'inverter' section, internally there is a switching dc-dc converter that takes any input voltage (10-30 volts) and regulates it to the required voltage for the compressor circuit. This is why the new ones work much more efficiently on any dc input given, but makes an interesting point of why there is any variation at all with voltage. As stated I can only think its deliberate to give better cooldown performance when the alternator is charging. The 240v input is handled by a separate power supply board that just spits out usually 24-28v into the dc converter section. Hopefully someone's following, internally its (240v power supply) -> (28v DC or DC input) -> (DC-DC Converter) -> (regulated stored DC) -> (Inverter Circuit) -> (AC for Compressor). Of course a lot of the efficiency loss in this testing is the external step up or inverter units but there is still going to be some extra loss with the internal 240v supply as well.

@LockyourHubs4WDing

11 ай бұрын

Thanks for the info! I haven't actually pull one apart to check out the internal wiring. I would assume the circuitry is designed to operate most efficiently at driving voltages in a 12v car as that's probably what a vast majority of the customer base will be doing.

It's funny, 10 years ago when I was looking at a new car fridge I was mostly concerned with power consumption. These days with LiFePo batteries we have so much capacity for so little weight penalty that the power consumption doesn't really concern me anymore (but I still love my Bushman fridge!). On that grounds the step up looks like it could be worth a shot trying on a secop compressor fridge.

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

LiFePO4 Batteries have completely changed the electrical landscape for 4WDers. Induction cooking, airfryers and even coffee machines aren't completely unreasonable to want in the back of your 4WD these days.

Fabulous work like always, thanks heaps for doing this for all of us!

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

Glad to help, I had looked a little into it when I was checking out the transit cover. But at least now I know for sure what's the best option, and so does anyone else who checks out the video.

Thanks for that mate. Here's an idea for a future video. Starlink.....it requires an inverter to supply the router, which then sends 48vdc to the dish, which is the brains of the whole outfit. Some people have converted their unit to a 48v converter and POE, to avoid the need for an inverter. I'm currently running a dedicated 300w inverter that is only for the Starlink and also the Wavlink AC1200 wifi extender that I have mounted on the roof of the canopy of the Chevy because the Faraday effect precludes getting a decent signal when the canopy is closed. I'm wondering if my plan to use a 48v converter for Starlink and a 24v converter for the Wavlink, as well as a separate router to do away with the Starlink router is likely to save me any energy.

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

Most routers run off of a 12v DC plugpack, so that should be an easy fix. I'll have to look at the rest, but it sounds feasible. I made some decent gains in efficiency (around 20% from memory) using dedicated car chargers for 18v tool batteries as opposed to using a battery powered Inverter and mains charger, so there's probably gains to be had.

I don't have an engel - I run a kings. They run happily on 24V, though, truth be told, I haven't compared efficiency between 12 and 24V operation. I know you are meticulous with your comparison setups, but the increase in terminal volts of 0.4V between the LA and Lithium seems to be contrary to your time results with 13.8V. I'd expect a slight improvement from the higher volts of the Lithium as you plainly demonstrated with the 13.8V step up inverter, but instead it went down (took longer). I'd be double checking those terminations... Hey, that was a great video (again) and glad to see you back up on the silver screen.

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

Every test is conducted 3 times (probably why it takes me so long in between videos!) That way I can check out the standard deviation to look for errors like you mention. Sometimes the results are just surprising! The published results are the average of three. This testing methodology is standard practice if you want data that you can rely on.

@BenMitro

Жыл бұрын

@@LockyourHubs4WDing Well, I did say you were meticulous! I'm well and truly surprised by the result - its definitely not a loose terminal or something, as I originally guessed. Must have something to do with the Engel.

Back in the mid 80’s I tried modifying the my Engel motor drive electronics frequency. My theory was the swing motor resonate frequency may not be exactly 50hz & matching that frequency may improve efficiency. Compared standard 50hz then below & above 50hz by up to a few hz. Found i could not make any significant difference from standard 50hz. My theory was wrong but had some fun testing.

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

I've done plenty of testing that went nowhere! If you're not making mistakes, you're not learning.

@evil17

Жыл бұрын

I tried a similar feat with a 40ltr Engel a few years ago using a 150w inverter and a few other tricks, it worked for several days at a time and then played up. I have more recently got an old caravan Engel fridge with the same Sawafuji swing motor for parts & experimentation, the 12v side does not work but I found the output from the 240vac was actually 138hz (not 50hz as one may expect) at 14.2vac, so I am having another go at making a power supply for my 40ltr Engel using a variable pwm in the 138hz range or there abouts, possibly this frequency can be tuned for better performance. Hope this helps. Cheers

Off topic but an interesting comparison between a travel buddy and a cheap air fryer power consumption heating a meat pie

@LockyourHubs4WDing

9 ай бұрын

That's a great idea!

Another great informative video... So if I recall correctly you said in your oven video the same results were with the 13.8v step up... so if a person was to run both in their car do they connect them both to 1 step-up unit or one unit for each appliance? I have an old 40L Waeco fridge that I put in my 80 series when I go away and it is connected to my second battery which is a 120ah AGM battery should I consider getting a 13.8v step-up unit? and later on, I am also considering getting an oven.

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

I didn't test a conventional (usually Danfross as used in the Waecos etc) type compressor, if they don't have a voltage regulator in circuit, you should see similar results. I would use two step-ups personally, that way you can keep the step up as close as possible to the thing you're running off of it to minimise voltage drop, just like a DC-DC charger.

As always, I love your videos! Two questions, with a step-up, does it matter if your supply is from an AGM, or Lithium? Would a Lithium give the step-up a higher final voltage as the input voltage is higher? Lastly, will the results be similar for any brand of fridge and is the step-up’s wattage sufficient for a bigger fridge unit?

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

Great questions! Firstly, the step-up doesn't care what flavour of battery chemistry is feeding it, as long as it's in it's voltage input range and regardless the output voltage would remain roughly the same. I haven't tested any conventional (danfross) style fridges, so can't comment there, though the step-up in the description will work for any 12v car fridge.

@paulvictor9368

Жыл бұрын

@@LockyourHubs4WDing thank you very much. I just ordered one for my fridge through your link. Will order a travel buddy step up soon too.

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

@@paulvictor9368 get the 15v for your Travel Buddy, it absolutely transforms the little oven.

Or turn the fridge on as you go for a drive.... The charging voltage will be close to 14V. Once you reach stable temp the step up converter will only add ongoing losses

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

Once you're at a stable temp, the step up should reduce the on time during cycling.

Well done great content again. I use 3 X 12 v fixed solar panel array wired in series which running through a 100 amp mppt charge controller. I have 2x 135 amp AGM batteries and a DC to DC 25 amp charger wired in parallel . It runs my freezer at -18 and my fridge @+2 24/7 whether the car moves or not. I would be interesting to see you evaluation of such a system. Cheer Rob

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

I haven't done any solar videos as yet. That's a great idea, thanks!

Wow, I would have put money on the 24 volt giving the best performance. The result was a big surprise to me. Not so much of a surprise for the power useage though. I expected the step up converter to chew more power. Considering the relatively small difference in performance once the fridge is down to temp, I can't see any reason to use anything but vanilla 12v as that, over time, will use less battery capacity. This was a very interesting vid, thanks for the effort you put in to making this stuff.

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

I would have initially thought the mains would have provided the best performance, being that the fridge's compressor runs on AC. Now having completed the testing, I'm thinking that I should do a further comparison on maintaining temps in hot weather at various voltages. I would assume the 13.8v step-up voltage could reduce the cycle "on" time enough that it would reduce overall battery consumption, just like a Travel Buddy. But, I've just finished 3d resin printing an optical spectrometer to finally put to bed the whole LED vs HID vs Laser vs Halogen light argument, so it might be a while :)

Any chance of doing a performance test between a kings stayzcool and a engel. Cheers Jack

@LockyourHubs4WDing

6 ай бұрын

Is that the King's dual zone fridge?

@robwharton8348

6 ай бұрын

@@LockyourHubs4WDing . Yes I would assume you that would have to compare a dual zone to a dual zone or a single zone to a single zone. I am looking at either the 38 ltr plastic Engle or a 45 ltr stayzcool kings. A Engel is $899 A stayzcool is $369. So you can have 2.5 staycools for I Engel I need a fridge to maintain -18 deg C.... As ice cream is a must have or my world will collapse.... . It would be nice to know if the king's temp gauge is accurate and the thermal efficiency of each unit along with the power units. The king's have a 5 year warranty as well.. I really enjoy your detailed reviews. Cheers Jack

Can u piggy back the x1 -15v step up for say 2 Engels ?

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

Sure, no problems.

what about other fridges? not everyone has or wants to spend $1500+ for an engel, especially these days

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

Buy once, cry once! I've got a Waeco fridge as well, though that thing spends more time getting repaired than it does working unfortunately.

@WesternAustraliaNowAndThen

Жыл бұрын

Having had many other fridge brands, none of which have lasted much longer than 7 years, I have to say buy Engel. They cost a lot because they last so long and when you divide the initial cost by the length of time, they are almost always going to be a lot cheaper than fridges that don't last long. For the record the worst brand we ever had was Vitrifrigo. Absolute junk, lasted a bit longer than warrantly and then died.

@arronjohnston742

Жыл бұрын

@@WesternAustraliaNowAndThen yet i know of a few people personally that have had nothig but problems with engel, dometic/weaco, evacool, arb and others that have kings sitting on the back of their tradie utes out in the weather for 8+years, it's all bullshit it's a wank factor bragging rights thing in the end they're ALL made in china... spare me the "oh oh oh engel is aussie made" bullshit!! at best it's bolted together in aus the parts are made in china...........

@arronjohnston742

Жыл бұрын

@@LockyourHubs4WDing as i said i know people that went the wank route and had nothing but problems with engel, just because the price is high don't make it good

@LockyourHubs4WDing

Жыл бұрын

@@arronjohnston742 I know no brand is perfect, that includes Engel. I can only speak from personal experience, and so far that experience with the Engel has been faultless (bar the transit cover! )