Battery charging while driving?

[Coastrunner]

A few tricky Questions.

Hi guys.

Like a lot of us, I have a 100AH Deep cycle battery in my van and will be doing a 15 hour trip shortly.

My van battery also gets charged from the 110 Watt solar panel I have on the van roof.

My questions are,

Question 1. When I drive with my van all hooked up to the car, which battery does the fridge run off when running on 12 volt battery power? Does it power off the car battery or the van battery? _______________

Question 2. Does my car charge both batteries at the same time or only the car battery? ________________

Question 3. I have the basic 7 pin flat car to van connection. Does that do the job and keep my fridge contents cool?______________

Thanks in advance.

Coastrunner.

 

[gspy4u]

Didn't think a flat 7 alone would be used for charging anything. Most will have either a 12 pin or a 7 + anderson plug for the fridge. I've got the plain 12 pin, fridge runs off the car while in transit and isolator cuts it off when the engine is turned off for a bit. Doesn't run off the 12v in the van as it would not run long at all.

 

[Capt. Gadget]

Hi Coastrunner
I think
1: The Fridge in the Van runs off the Car Battery
2:The Car would charge both batteries but only a minimal amount would get to the van Battery if you are running the fridge
3:To get more current to the Van maybe run some heavier cable to Van through an Anderson Plug

Maybe best to get some advice from [MENTION=1773]boots33[/MENTION] or [MENTION=1856]ElectricGuru[/MENTION] or I seem to remember someone new to the forum is an Auto sparkie sorry cant remember his name
Cheers Grant

 

[Bank of Dad]

Coastrunner - when we had our Eagle with a 90 litre fridge, our set up was the same as yours.

Our 7 pin plug was wired via an in-line fuse and a relay to charge both the battery and run the fridge. The relay ensured the van did not draw power when the car was turned off.

Now we have the 150 litre fridge we had to run a 12 pin plug with an additional fuse and relay. I am pretty sure that if you have the 90 litre fridge you will be OK. Remember, on DC the fridge really only stays cool, not get cool. You need to get it running before you go away if you want to use it straight away.

It will charge the battery too. We hook ours up once a month for 24 hours to the house via the ampfibian to charge the battery. An Anderson plug is better though.

 

[Burnsy]

Hi coastrunner as BoD said, start off with cold fridge and battery charged. We also ran 90L fridge through 7 pin in our 16 and all was ok but not alot of charge to battery with 7 pin. I recon you'd get a better charge with your solar.

Cheers.

 

[Stone Stomper]

We have re-wired the fridge to run from the van battery and the fridge works as well on 12v as it does on gas/elec but you will need an anderson plug with a min 8b&s cable to maintain charge in the van battery, this still may not be enough charge from the car and a DC-DC charger in the van maybe needed as the 90lt draws 10-12amps and the 150lt draws 25amps.

The fridge will never work that well on 12v through a 7 or 12 pin plug they are not designed for the amps needed.

Christian

 

[Coastrunner]

Thanks for your answers guys.

I was hoping that was the case.

I wanted to leave home with a cold fridge and freezer, and was hoping it would simply stay cold while driving. It seems that will be the case.

Thanks again.