Battery powered fridge/freezer

[Muaddib1116]

I know a lot of people use the 12v fridge/freezers from companies like domestic and bougerv. I've recently seen some battery powered versions on Amazon. Does anyone have experience with these? I normally keep an Engel 50 cooler on my aft deck for drinks. But I'm wondering how feasible it would be to use one of these battery powered fridges, maybe connected to a solar panel during the day to keep the battery topped up. And then run through the night with the battery. I'm partially interested because it would give me a backup in case my primary fridge goes down.

[sailorboy1]

I don't really see a function difference between using a house battery or a frig specific battery. Either way it really comes down to making up the power

8n other words I see no reason not to use if it makes sense for up

[glenn.225]

I've been using an Alpicool 50 l for the past couple summers. Has worked great on the boat. I have 2 old golf cart batteries and it will run 40 odd hrs (at 3 degrees C) along with interior lights and some other minor power usage.

[CaptTom]

I'm with @Sailorboy1 on this. If I'm going to add more battery capacity, it'll be to the house bank, where I can use it for anything.

I can see the argument in favor of having a dedicated battery for a critical function like food storage. If it were cheap enough, and especially if it could be jumpered into the house or starting bank for emergencies, it would start to make sense. But I think if I were adding sufficient storage to handle a day or two of refrigeration, I'd want it where I could use it for other things in emergencies.

[JBP]

I have an Alpicool C22. It's great on my small boat. I used to run it on a 75 Ah FLA and 120 watts of solar. This was not quite enough if I had cloudy days. I now run it on a 100Ah LiFePO4 with 260 watts of solar and I have oodles of power. I can easily handle 3 days of no sun. This is also my house battery, but the fridge is by far the largest consumer.
It uses about 3 Amps on a 30% duty cycle.

I saw a couple battery fridges on Amazon, but their run time was only a few hours to a day. Great for occasional picnics or such, but not a full time fridge.

[Muaddib1116]

The reason I was thinking about the battery powered units is that I don't really have a space inside the boat that I would be happy keeping a DC fridge/freezer, but I do have a space on the stern where I could (the spot that I keep my Engel cooler). So I was looking for an option where I could have a stand alone unit outside that doesn't require me to run a power line to.



The Eenour 48quart battery powered freezer on amazon would probably fit in the space where the Engel is. The listing claims on max mode it uses 40W, approximating 400Wh/day, and at max it claims 15hr run time off the batteries. So I think a small solar panel mounted nearby or even on top of the thing might be able to top up the batteries and keep it going during the day, and the batteries would keep it going through the night.

[Grith]

I have successfully used a compressor freezer with its own battery (a Brass Monkey) here in Australia as a backup to my main Waeco compressor fridge. It was connected to my main power supply but had a removable battery which would have kicked in if my 12v system ran low on power. ( but it never did but worked during my testing phase). Your comment about placing it on the stern however intrigue's me as any exposure to direct sunlight will dramatically increase its power consumption. Also I am not familiar with your proposed brand but some batteries/systems are voltage sensitive and direct plug into an unregulated solar panel may not be advisable in some circumstances. Just worth checking which you probably have already done.