Monday, September 5, 2016

Chillin' time

One of the main reasons I went to the expense of having a refrigerator in the Rolling Steel Tent is cold beverages. Well, yeah, keeping food fresh, too, but mostly frosty cold drinks.

The fridge draws considerable power from my batteries. That's not a problem during the day, when the sun and solar panels keep the batteries well charged. The batteries store enough electricity to keep the fridge running and the contents properly cooled through the night.

Unless...

There are times when I'm not paying attention and I run out of chilled drinks toward the end of daylight hours. Putting air-temperature things in the refrigerator raises the fridge's temperature. The fridge then needs to run a lot to cool things back down. And that depletes the batteries. So I end up waiting until morning before restocking. Then drinks won't be chilled until later in the day.

Ah, but since I'm camped next to Forrest's shop, I have shore power. The fridge isn't wired to run directly off 110 volt current, but I have a battery charger. Shore power to battery charger, battery charger to batteries, batteries to fridge. Problem solved.

3 comments:

  1. Ah ah... you have everything figured out, excellent, keep those cold drinks coming, specially when your in the desert !!! by the way, other than the car battery how many have you installed in your home ? Read some nomad stating ' you're never overpowered '... the more solar panels , the more batteries you have the better shape you are in, it makes sense, uh ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have a 270W solar panel charging two 104Ahr batteries, for a total of 208Ahr.

      Delete
  2. That diet soda is a killer. I go with 1/2 bottles of water with a packet of cane sugar and a few drop of lemon or lime juice stored inside plastic fruit.

    ReplyDelete