Looks for recommendations on solar panel charger OR other ideas. When I leave the ARB fridge in the Jeep it will only run for about 30 min before it shuts off to protect the battery. I set the sensitivity to high because I do not want to risk draining the battery. I plan to put a new quality battery in soon but I do not want to step up to dual batteries. I was thinking that a solar charger might help keep the fridge running and battery safe. Surfing Amazon this morning I found this which seems reasonably priced.
Opinions needed: Portable Solar Panel Battery Charger
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Short answer, 10w isn't going to do much to help and is basically a waste of money.
My fridge draws between 36 and 55 watts when the compressor is on. I have a 50w renogy panel going into a 288wh battery with 12v out and an inverter. I did the math and I would need a 100w panel to pretty keep up (as much as one can predict solar output) but I only had room for the 50. I would either get a bigger panel with a real charge controller, turn the sensitivity down on the fridge (mine is set to the lowest and I've tested to make sure it still starts) or just walk over and start the Jeep every now and then.
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Damn that's what I was afraid of. The 50W & 100W panels are way too big for us unless I mounted it to the top of the Jeep. I figured this wasn't going to be easy!
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Exactly what I did
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What Stafford said. Friends of ours had one of the dash top 10w chargers on their pickup that sat for long periods left hooked to their living quarters horse trailer and was used periodically for horse camping. They didn't see a difference from before they installed the charger and didn't bother with it on their new truck.
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If they put it in their dash that's probably part of the problem. Glass blocks a lot of the wavelengths it needs, the panel should be outside. I could also be misreading your comment
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Until I have another option I bought a Battery Tender and will plug-in when AC is available. That combined with a new battery and turning down the sensitivity on the fridge will hopefully be sufficient for what we need.
Added benefit is that I do not need to keep the back of the Jeep open to plug the fridge into AC power.
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Update: We bought a AutoCraft Platinum AGM Battery, Group Size H6, 760 CCA from Advance Auto Parts for $146.24 (25% coupon) and the guy installed it for @KellyF for free. I'll get the charger done this weekend and hopefully that buys us a nice cold fridge!
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All done!
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If they put it in their dash that's probably part of the problem. Glass blocks a lot of the wavelengths it needs, the panel should be outside. I could also be misreading your comment
No, they had it on the dash top, makes sense about the glass blocking the UV rays, though.
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