A Small Power Station for a 12V Fridge - A bad idea? Let's have some data.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- A lot of viewers of my previous video "Should you buy a 12V Refrigerator?"
• Should You Buy a 12V D...
felt that using an off-brand 300Wh power station to power a fridge was simply not a workable idea (or maybe downright dumb). So I did some actual testing to see which of the various doubts viewers expressed were on target. Check out the results in this video.
Some testing items used in this video:
Electronic load tester: www.amazon.com...
PowerWerx DC Wattmeter: powerwerx.com/...
Inkbird temperature logger (no longer available): www.amazon.com...
small cheep is first mistake
Sorry, but that was the point of the exercise for me - if it couldn't be small & cheap, I wasn't all that interested for something I didn't really need. 😁
More than likely, if the heat is up the solar radiation is also up. Not always a direct correlation, because heating in the summer can also produce storms and other cloudy weather patterns, but as a general trend, most of the time it's to be expected. Really enjoyed this!
This is certainly true in my area - we don't get many cloudy days in Idaho in the hottest part of the summer. But most of my family lives down South, and the weather is much more variable there with respect to cloudiness.
This is very nicely done, sir. Useful and interesting. Thanks!
I've been extremely happy with my EcoFlow River Pro for the last 2 years. I would definitely go with one of the larger EcoFlow Delta series units for running a fridge off grid.
Thanks for your reply,
I’m just bewildered as to what I should do.
I would rather have more power and not need it, I don’t want anything that has remote connection as I will 300 plus miles from any road or phone.
I know I want the batteries that last as many cycles as possible,
Any other thoughts is always welcome
Thank you again
Alaska Paul
btw...i wondered about the power station internal battery "stack", of 3, or 4 lithium-Ion (or LiPO?)...3S gives nominal 12.6 V at Max charge, but, as you are probably well aware, realistic average of 3.6 V x 3 = 10.8 V...
if it's a 3S system, it needs a Buck/boost to deliver some nominal Vout, but a car system should be expected to run at 13.5 V nominal during running of the vehicle, and, what, maybe 12.5 V with engine off.
if you had a power bank with 4S internal battery, you'd get nominal running voltage 3.6 x 4 = 13.2 V
discharged state of 3.0 - 3.2 V x 4 = 12.0 - 12.8 V ...in this case
in this case, a "smart Vout" would give you a slight 'buck' mode operation from Vbat(Max)= 4.2 x 4 = 16.8 v, probably 92-95% efficiency, and then switch to "pass-through mode' when the imntetnsl battery voltage got to about 13.5 V. = 3.75 V per cell,which is pretty much a good nominal voltage during Lithium Ion discharge curve, and would still give a "safe" cell cutoff at 3.2 V , for an output of 12.8 V...LiPO of course has a bit different cell voltage profile, but could still operate without boost mode during most of its life... well, just a few thoughts from an old test & measurement. and mobile power management guy...
and would
Thanks for the logic, and you could well be correct. After looking at the voltage curves I found, it's not at all clear to me what's going on with respect to cell architecture (since at least one of them obviously had some intervening electronics ahead of the output), but I did find it interesting that two power stations with the exact same Amp-hour rating (and presumably same number of cells) had such wildly different discharge voltage behavior. Obviously one of them is doing things much differently than the other, but I frankly haven't taken the time to look up raw cell characteristics. What really mattered to me was that they delivered pretty much identical energy and fridge running time in spite of those differences. But if you were powering something that didn't like the 16.5V initial voltage of the Renogy, it certainly would matter then.
I need your help if you would be so kind.
I will provide you with some limiting factors for my situation.
I’m 60 years old but I’m very strong and physically capable at 6’3” 265 very muscular, I say that because I can haul and lift so the weight is not an issue and won’t be for 20 years.
I live in Alaska and this will be for my place just outside of town and will be back up for generator use.
I will retire in 3 years and plan to go build a cabin 200 miles from anywhere and again this will be back up to a gas generator.
Will be using a chainsaw mill too.
Basically I want to power up the solar generator using the gas gen in the day and after the sun sets use the solar gen I. The evenings.
I have used a gas gen in the past at night to power all lED lights,
TV, DVD, and sound bar, a sump pump for the shower system when I warm water on the stove,
I have a wood cook stove and wood stove for heat,
I’m sure there’s other devices that will come into play but for the most part that’s the major uses,
So here is the bad part
I’m electronically challenged as far as reading someone else’s directions I can’t emphasize this enough.
I can wire in an entire house,
But if I need to follow someone’s written instructions I may as well just toss it into a lake.
That said what would you recommend.
Again I thank you so very much for taking the time.
Alaska Paul
I'm sorry but I am really qualified to recommend a solar generator for full-time use like you appear to be planning. However, none of the loads you mention sound like they would need more than maybe 200 to 400 watts, and if you're willing to charge the thing up with a gas generator every day, it wouldn't need to have a huge amount of energy storage. In the absence of any data about your daily energy use (which you really should try to determine), I would probably look at something like the new Bluetti AC70 or AC180 power stations, which are what I would buy if I was in the market for a larger one than I presently have. They claim to be able to do an 80% recharge in 45 minutes, which would be really good for using a generator, and of course you could always hook the thing up to some solar panels and need even less generator time. In fact you could probably just leave all your loads connected to it (or wire it directly to your power panel if your cabin has one) and just run the generator however much you needed to keep it charged.
But again, just recognize that TH-cam advice is worth just as much as you pay for it.😜 Everybody has an opinion, and everyone's application is a little different. The only way to be sure (or at least safe) is to have a good handle on your daily (and maximum) power and energy use and size the thing accordingly. Even then, it's easy to miss the mark. I helped my brother-in-law set up an off-grid solar power system at a cabin in Arkansas, and we had "expert" help and thought we sized it properly with 7000 watts of solar and 30 kilowatt-hours of battery. But he has still run out of battery a couple of times after 3 cloudy days in a row. As they say, 'your mileage may vary'.
We used a EcoFlow River 2 Max power station with a midsized Dometic portable cooler (35L) in my pickup truck (no solar panels) on a road trip in Texas. The cooler could be powered by the truck while driving. The power station lasted about 1 day and was recharged when we stayed in hotel rooms from utility power, so it was not a true 'camp site' experience. I have since acquired a EcoFlow Delta 2 which has more capacity.
Yeah, I did something similar on my first road trip (1500 miles) with the fridge. I did have the solar panel on top of the car, but I didn't really need it. A 50 watt USB-C PD converter plugged into an outlet in the car was really enough to keep the power station charged (and run the fridge) while driving and it lasted fine overnight.
I love my EcoFlow River Pro. I want to get the larger Delta model now. This spring I'm going to buy a 12v fridge for my work car. At the moment I have a nice cooler but I'm sick of dealing with ice!
if you take the "exhaust heat" from the fridge compressor, and put the "body"of the fridge in an insulated box, you can use the fridge as a small "heat pump" to give it a higher "ambient" temperature...so, kind of recycling the heat output of the fridge...to even out the temperature in the box, maybe put some bottles of water, which can heat up, during your '"cool down" time... hopefully makes some sense..
Actually that's very similar to what I intend to try - I found a spot in my basement where I can "enclose" a space big enough for the fridge and some airflow around it and then hopefully pump in however much warm air it takes (over and above the fridge self-heating) to get a stable temperature for testing. Wild estimate of heating requirements is that it should only take 30+ watts of heating for this ~20 cubic feet space (depending on the losses through the 'walls'), so the 100W heater I plan to use should easily get it up to 100 degrees or so. We'll see.