What do you always keep in your fridge?

TallPaul_S

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For those of us with solar and a fridge, I'm assuming everyone keeps their fridge turned on as we get 'free' energy. If so, what's always in your fridge, regardless if you're going on a camping trip?

Nice cold cans of coca cola?
Fully stocked with brewdog punk IPA?
A bottle of 15 year old dom perignon?

What's in your fridge?

Mine is currently empty. But if I can get hold of some, I'll have a few cans (or bottles) of orangina!
 
Having just blown mine up by jamming the DC adapter into it with reverse polarity (don't ask...) I'm more in the market for a little 8-10l fridge at the moment, regardless of contents!!
 
I was previously in the "fridge always on camp" but I have been wondering recently if it is damaging to the Lifepo4 battery to just be 'sipping' from it with only the fridge on. It tends to go down to about 85-90% overnight but will be back up to full by lunchtime.

Contents when on. Coke zero and my packed lunch for work!
 
I was previously in the "fridge always on camp" but I have been wondering recently if it is damaging to the Lifepo4 battery to just be 'sipping' from it with only the fridge on. It tends to go down to about 85-90% overnight but will be back up to full by lunchtime.

Contents when on. Coke zero and my packed lunch for work!
That's what mine does currently, 10% usage (230Ah battery so about 20-25Ah) overnight from the fridge and my 4g router and Cerbo GX, then full by 1-2pm thanks to solar.

I'll probably turn off the solar every other day to let the battery get down to 50-60% before recharging. With a 50a DC-DC and 300w (20a) of solar it charges fast!
 
A bottle of garlic olive oil, and one of chilli olive oil. Only in the ‘fridge so it doesn’t fall over and leak.
 
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Drinks mainly. Mostly water but a couple of cokes and (emergency) beers and some chocolate. I was told the fridge works better when full. Dunno if that's true but that's how I roll.
I am going to use that theory. Apparently the dark colour of Guinness also helps.
 
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Not quite the same but as we motel/apartment "camp" our Alpicool P18 tends to only be used to transport stuff between sites so when at site I tend to fill it with drinks and set it to about 10 (cellar temperature).

That P18 is really impressing me as a small fridge @z1ts especially if you can find the battery pack for not silly money.

 
I was previously in the "fridge always on camp" but I have been wondering recently if it is damaging to the Lifepo4 battery to just be 'sipping' from it with only the fridge on. It tends to go down to about 85-90% overnight but will be back up to full by lunchtime.
With any battery chemistry it's not a fuel tank to empty and refill, each cycle causes some wear to either the plates or the electrolyte. However good quality LiFePo cells have rated cycle life in the 3-4000 so it's not really an issue.

More of an issue (slightly) is that the one thing LiFePo really doesn't like is being held at full charge - you get much longer life shuttling them between 20-80% charge or storing them at around 40%

Ideally if you are not using a big leisure LiFePo for camping during daily drive use it would be useful to try and set things up so it's not brimmed full every day but settles around 80% - I'm not convinced the industry and devices are quite mature enough to so this reliably currently but it's a more common approach now in phones to preserve battery life. It's an area I'd tinker with if I had that setup, but that's cos I'm a geek.

In general I would think a modest shuttling up and down by leaving some things on is either nothing to worry about or slightly beneficial keeping off 100% all the time. If you worry about maximum life then consider shutting your BMS down at around 40% when not using for a while and never run under 20% - but realistically shortening a 4000 cycle pack to 2000 cycles is dropping from a 10 year life to a 5 year life (assuming one a day) and for many that's the length of ownership of the van.
 
With any battery chemistry it's not a fuel tank to empty and refill, each cycle causes some wear to either the plates or the electrolyte. However good quality LiFePo cells have rated cycle life in the 3-4000 so it's not really an issue.

More of an issue (slightly) is that the one thing LiFePo really doesn't like is being held at full charge - you get much longer life shuttling them between 20-80% charge or storing them at around 40%

Ideally if you are not using a big leisure LiFePo for camping during daily drive use it would be useful to try and set things up so it's not brimmed full every day but settles around 80% - I'm not convinced the industry and devices are quite mature enough to so this reliably currently but it's a more common approach now in phones to preserve battery life. It's an area I'd tinker with if I had that setup, but that's cos I'm a geek.

In general I would think a modest shuttling up and down by leaving some things on is either nothing to worry about or slightly beneficial keeping off 100% all the time. If you worry about maximum life then consider shutting your BMS down at around 40% when not using for a while and never run under 20% - but realistically shortening a 4000 cycle pack to 2000 cycles is dropping from a 10 year life to a 5 year life (assuming one a day) and for many that's the length of ownership of the van.
@TeeCeeJay ... **goes outside to turn fridge back on...**:whistle:
 
Our fridge is on all the time, the cycle clicks up by one on average every week, ten days. 58 cycles in 3 years.
My Victron B2B is currently set to power supply only so we only have solar input, works well in the summer.
Wifey and daughter have stolen the van this week for a trip down to Weymouth for Mother in Laws birthday, while I look after everyone's various pets!
I'm a little bit 'fingers crossed' as wifey only has the Roamer app to see the available credit of the battery, I didn't trust her with the Victron apps!
79% this morning, so far so good, the forecast looks good. She does like to boil a full kettle though on the induction hob, I'm hoping this break will show her the reason for my battery usage concerns! I can but hope!
 
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