Running two fridges off a Traxide and Optima Yellow Top

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Russrobe

For the odd time you plan on staying somewhere for 3 nights without driving, we just asked for a powered site and plugged the battery charger in...

I think the only time we used ours was in Exmouth as we did 1 day whale sharks and the next scuba so car sat still for 3 nights. Weighs a fraction of what solar panels do, takes up no room and costs nothing if you already have one!

---

We always carry a 240v charger in our camper for that reason, and it has a DC /DC charger powered from the car when travelling to keep it topped up but it never seems to charge the camper battery fully on extended trips, so we top up the battery with our 20w solar panel if free camping and sunny or use the 240v charger via an inverter from the AUX battery in the car when we get to camp, I've been doing this yonks in two vehicles, always worked well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Baz and I would be very surprised if you did not get at least 5 years of HARD use from your Optima!

---

I was hoping that was the case Tim, one day I'll toss that DC/DC charger Tim and save the double charging[bigwhistle]

Personally, while you might be OK, I would prefer to have a battery for each fridge. We carried a spare battery across the Simpson while running an Engel. You are both drawing down the battery from the fridge while also charging it at the same time. I found swapping the fridge between batteries meant the one not powering the fridge charged much faster.

Hi Mick, in Shane's setup, with the large capacity alternator and the high operating voltage, the recharging of the batteries will not be effected at all, even if both fridges are cycled on at the same time and the batteries are low.

I have a rough as guts setup that I use when travelling that seems to work and I have used this setup for half a dozen trips so far.
I run a 40l Primus 12v fridge at -10 as a freezer and a 80l Waco at -2 as a fridge.
When travelling I plug in a lead I have made up with several Anderson plugs attached to the Anderson plug I have fitted to the bumper and hook up both fridges and the 2x 110AH batteries in Ark packs to the same lead.
When I pull up somewhere I unplug the lead at the Anderson plug on the bumper plug and the fridges run off the 2 batteries, If needed I plug in a 160w folding solar panel to the "Christmas Tree" lead if I am staying for a few days to keep the batteries topped up.
I make sure that there is plenty of ventilation around the fridges and I try not to open them up too often and so far this setup has done the job even in 40 plus heat.