Time to play with Beer Fridges . . .
This is the 40L frisge that i got (its listed above)
Testing beer capacity, i found that if you lie the beers down . . .
you get . 8 x 5 high and 6 in the fridge section = 46
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If you stand them up . . .
then you get 19 x 2 high + 6in the fridge = 44
so for more beers lie them down . . . . . =]
Yes i have removed the white cage thing that comes with the fridge.
OK, what next . . . .
lets look at power usage . . .
The Fridge is rated at 60W . . . . . but I've noticed some interesting things . . .
like this, when plugged into mains . . . . ie 240vac . . .
look 90w, even upto 100W . . . . =]
drawing around 7.7A @ 13.04V from the battery Box vis a Bestek inverter . . .
.
this was confirmed by plugging into the wall and getting the same reading . . .
which is interesting . . . . . but it cools the beers down very quick . . .
once down to the set temp the compressor throttles back and the fridge just ticks over . . . .
here you can see it has dropped back down to 11w and only drawing 0.86A or 860mA . . . which is nice . . .
with the temp logger above we can see the fridge working here , , ,
Dropping a full fridge pack of Beers (at room temp 24degC)
down to the 2degc setpoint - fridge internal temp is more like 4degc - which is perfect for a cool tastey beverage . . . ABOUT 3.5HRS
what about ECO . . . . .
well switching on ECO mode changed a few things . . .
First of all the power draw dropped from around 90w (full load)
to below 60W (full load) and seemed to cycle less often . . .
I think whats happening here is the fridge is seeing above 14v and assumes its on EHU or the car engine is running and has unlimited power reserve so just runs 100% to get those beers cold asap.
as soon as the voltage drops below the 14v mark it start to reduce power and starts throttling . . .
...
what about direct 12v?
well with the fridge 12v lead directlu plugged into the battery box we had 13.2v of DC power. . . . (remember the EHU power pack is 14.5v dc)
The fridge lit up and started to cool . . .
but seemed to hover around the 60W mark max . . . .
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switching it ECO done the same thing . . . reduced the power draw and extended the compressor duty cycle . .
you can see the power draw here . . . . 13.1v @ around 3.4A to 5.5A
thats why it didnt run on the ALLPOWERS 375 regulated OP on RHS as they are 5A max !!
But would run on the unregulated OP on the LHS (10A max)
....
So whats my conclusion . . .?
well once again it seems that thing are more efficient running on 240v via an inverter off your 12v battery . . . . .
why?
well even with the efficiency losses going through the inverter 12-240-14.5v etc . .
it seem that the fridges are much happier when the see a good health voltage of 13.8v or above, (14.5v in the case of this power brick)
this power draw can be seen via the Victron Smart Shunt. drawing 100W @ 7.62A (full load)
But when moving over to the 12v battery direct you already start with a much lower voltage . . . .
in this case 13.1v on the lifpoe4 battery box. . . .
as soon as the compressor startup and drawing more power you get more volt drop causing the battery voltage to sag more . . .
which causes the low-volt alarm on the fridge, or the light inside starts to dim when the compressor kicks in . . . .
all signs of volt drop and power issues . . . .
plus when the voltage drops the current increases causing more of an issue with the plus and wires starting to heat . . . .
so if you are going to run these from a 12v battery . . . .
dont bother with a cheap SLA battery. . . . has low static voltage and suffers from bad volt drop under load
get a decent AGM battery as a minimum.
try it out with a small inverter and see the irreverence for yourself . . .
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This is the 300w inverter i used in the above test (my previous MSW inverter)
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This is the previous 200W MSW inverter i used with my cooler boxes (almost silent) (also got one in grey i keep on the van)
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but not its not fused so add one or be careful and know what your doing . .
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