Help to work out AH draw on cooler box please

Help to work out AH draw on cooler box please

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Djtemeka

Original Poster:

1,812 posts

192 months

Sunday 21st August 2016
quotequote all
I have a Halfords cooler box that I use whilst camping.
My question is, is the 3.5A draw of the cooler per hour? So if I had it running constantly (3.5x24) it would use 84 AH over the 24 hours and thus 168AH over the weekend or would this draw slow down once the cooler is at temp? It is a fan cooler not an actual fridge. Im not great at the maths side of things and any battery over 200AH is rather expensive.
I have a split charge system in my van that charges it until we get to our destination.
Really all we need to use it for is the fridge and maybe charging the phones everyday for 2 days without depleting the battery.

What AH battery should I get as the one I currently have is flat after around 30 hours

http://www.halfords.com/camping-leisure/camping/co...



Halfords 40 Litre Mains and 12V Electric Coolbox Extra Info


Wattage is 42W. Draw in amps is approximately 3.5A from a 12V supply
Wattage is 55W. Draw in amps is approximately 0.25A from a 240V supply

Djtemeka

Original Poster:

1,812 posts

192 months

Monday 22nd August 2016
quotequote all
Looking at used fridges, they seem to use more amps? Would a 100w solar panel be enough to top up the battery?

Thanks
J

Djtemeka

Original Poster:

1,812 posts

192 months

Monday 22nd August 2016
quotequote all
I've got a split charger in my van already so the battery is charged all the time but when camping, I'll not be using the van and don't fancy it just idling there all day.

Usually, I arrive on a Friday eve and the battery runs fine all sat then goes flat by early Sunday morning so in reality I'm only looking for around 10 hours extra charge but of course I'll need more as the battery is really flat by then.
Looks like I'll use 1 battery per day so u sure of the solar panel vs just using a 3rd battery on the Sunday.
Battery will probably be cheaper but more of a faf.

Perhaps a bigger battery and the solar panel? 100w panel should do if I'm using that per day.

Djtemeka

Original Poster:

1,812 posts

192 months

Friday 26th August 2016
quotequote all
Will get a gas fridge in the future.

Found out that the 90ah regular van battery that I had was dying when I took it to my autoelectrician to test. He had a machine that prints out a lot of weird info and the life of the battery wasn't good.
Got a 115ah marine leisure battery now and a 120w foldable solar kit. Also taking my multimeter along to check the discharge rate so I don't discharge it too much. Also got one of those phone battery packs but that is also npbuilt in solar. Th regular types are 5000-6600mva (?) and this one is 15000mva so it can change up to 8 iPhones or 3 iPads.

Will see how I get on. My best mate and my wife are laughing at me ( I always buy tat that I never use) but we will see who laughs when I have cold beer and a working mobile. Battery flat love? £10 please.... Or a blowie biggrin

Djtemeka

Original Poster:

1,812 posts

192 months

Saturday 27th August 2016
quotequote all
Wedg1e said:
I have some quite good mates but I'm sure they'd cope for a couple of days with a dead phone rather than give me a blowie whistle
Hahahaha. My mate can. My wife? She'd be gargling after an hour without her phone biggrin