Thread: How long should a battery last?

It depends what type of fridge you have? How many amp/hrs does it say it uses?

Originally Posted by inside

It depends what type of fridge you have? How many amp/hrs does it say it uses?

Also, you say it’s a new battery, how long have you had it and was it fully charged before you you connected the fridge.

A 40L Waeco for example uses 3a/hrs.
Given you battery is good and fully charged, should last 55 divided by3. approx and at max.
That's if fridge has to work hard to pull down the temp and maintain in, also where fridge is, like in a hot non vented car.
Fridges suck the juice, there is no doubt about that and be careful not to draw down the battery too much, they are not nicads or nimh type they do not like it.

Had the battery about 10 days.

Fridge is a 40L ARB (rebadged Engel). According to the manual it uses a "low" amount of current.........which is pretty useful information.

Hi CRL,
I suspect that your experience is about right for Townsville.

With my Engel, I pre-cool it using mains power before running it from the aux battery.

I also found last year, while in QLD, that if I left the D3 closed during the day, the interior temperature rose to 50-55C. Neither the Engel nor the battery liked that. Just opening a side door & tailgate allowed ambient air to flow past the fridge & all was well.

HTH,
Peter

In my experience up this way with 27 degree ambient, a stock 40L Engel would be chewing about 3-4ish A/ hr.
55AH battery may give you 40AH (estimated) before the voltage drop means the Engel compressor wont kick over, thus no more cooling. The problem is when the compressor first kicks over it requires big current, if that draw drops the say 11.2V battery down to 10.6V then the low voltage cutout in the compressor will stop the motor. You will never get 55AH out of a 55AH battery, well using a fridge anyways.

If it is up to 19degrees after 19 hours Id say you have got all you will get out of a 55AH battery >>>> the 15minute drives would have helped but you are limited by battery capacity on this one.

Up north you need, better insulation / airflow to the condensor and keep an eye on your battery voltage whilst the compressor is running.

S

Thanks for that info. Like you say I am limited by battery capacity. I would like to stick a bigger capacity battery under the hood but I am limited by space. I might have to look into one of those battery packs for running the fridge while camping.

Hi Crl I've only just joined this site and was looking through,so probably to late.But I'm guessing you have an ARB duel battery system,being that it's a 55hr battery,I've an 02 td5 disco with ARB battery system.My Engel is about 14yrs old (still goes good) though chews the power,so I've put in a 75hr now no worries,But you'll need to modify your battery tray.