[Closed] Using car batteries for camping - any experience?

Camp closer to food and wine source.

Camp closer to food and wine source.

We don't want to visit shops if we can help it though.

Does the cooler say how much current it takes?

I'll investigate in the garage. Should clarify - I meant running off a stand-alone battery, not existing car one.

You're very likely to blow it if you run it straight of the battery. I think a battery is capable of delivering 10amps. A cigarette lighter is transformed down to 5amps. Pushing 10amps through your fridge is likely to damage it.

AFAIK.

Doesn't the campsite offer an ice-block freezing service?

...and keep your beer in a bucket of water, and drink red wine not white!

It shouldn't be a problem. A leisure battery is the one to use, as cranking ( standard ) batteries don't take kindly to being run until flat.

Should be an easy calculation as to how long the fridge will run on a battery of a given capacity, but a friend of mine can run a coolbox for a weekend on a reasonable-sized battery.

Oh, and I take it the coolbox has a fuse built in ? If not an inline fuse in the cable would be a nice thing to have.

EDIT: obviously, pre-freezing a bunch of those coolblock things and putting them in the cooler/running the coolbox from the car ( when the engine is running ) on the way down will also help.

You're very likely to blow it if you run it straight of the battery. I think a battery is capable of delivering 10amps. A cigarette lighter is transformed down to 5amps. Pushing 10amps through your fridge is likely to damage it.

I'm no eleccy guy, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought a device would only draw as much current as it needs... e.g. I have a 100amp battery in my boot, if I hook up something to it, it will only draw what it needs e.g. 0.5amps for my iphone charger.

What you will need to do is run a fuse inline with the battery, but most 12v fridges come with internal fuses.

You're very likely to blow it if you run it straight of the battery. I think a battery is capable of delivering 10amps. A cigarette lighter is transformed down to 5amps. Pushing 10amps through your fridge is likely to damage it.

Electrics FAIL on so many levels!

The VOLTAGE of your battery pushes the CURRENT (amps) through the circuit (ie your appliance, fridge, whatever). More volts = more amps.

If the voltages match (ie it's a 12v fridge and a 12v battery) then the battery needs to be able to supply enough current (amps) to run the thing, otherwise you'll have problems. The fridge will be drawing a current from the battery (not the other way round).

Fag lighters can supply up to 10 amps, if you try drawing more than this you'd blow the fuse. If you didn't have a fuse, you'd draw enogh current to melt the wires.

A car battery can supply at least 500 amps. So you don't need to worry 🙂

But a fuse is still a good idea in case you stick a tent peg in the wire from the battery.

Right. It's a Mobicool which runs off DC 12V and it says power input 47W. We run it straight off 12V socket in car when mobile. We also run it off 3 pin socket using a Mobitronic Rectifier; this has output of 12V , 5A, 60W. I knew I should have paid more attention in physics!

And any recommendations on leisure batteries? Probably need to somewhere to buy local as going down on Thursday.

use a 'leisure battery' rather than a car battery better suited to the task..

much camping stuff comes with crocodile clips for direct connection to a leisure battery etc..

used to use leisure battery for model car racing to charge nicads up via a 12v charger croc clipped to the leisure battery.

47W means it draws 3A MAX. A car battery might be say 70Ah (amp hours) meaning that it can supply 70A for an hour, or 35A for two hours or 1A for 70 hours (more or less). So at 3W you will get 23 hours ISH out of a car battery IF the thing draws that current all the time. Fridges of course come on and off all the time - so it'd be 3A for a few minutes then nothing for a while. However I suspect your cooler is not the same as a normal fridge. Of course, running for this theoretical 23 hours will flatten the battery of course, so you won't be able to start your car. You need a fair bit left to start the car.

It will be fine, we sued to run allsorts of stuff off allsorts of betteries,

Pop into your local halfords/motor spares place and ask if they have any scrap ones, odds are if it cant supply 500amps to start an engine, it'll still manage 5amps to a coolbox, and being free and infrequently used you wont need to worry about it being damaged by draining it too far.

If using every weekend a leisure battery might be a good idea, as would a split charge relay off the car's alternator, but for one off events I wouldn't bother.

some halfords stock leisure battery otherwise know as caravan batteries...

[url= http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SearchCmd?catalogId=10151&storeId=10001&categoryId=-1&langId=-1&action=listrefine&constraints=ese||i:1;258;;battery;:batteri;1,1;%2B0||sea||battery||tax||1||Camping+%26+Caravanning ]Clicky[/url]

failing that, you mush have a battery supply place or caravan place near you

mind you they are big and heavy!

You need a fair bit left to start the car.

So to summarise I need a leisure battery and then some way of connecting the 12V 'plug' to the battery. No crocodile clips on this!

ok, you also need to know the specifications of the battery you want to use, or, decide how many hours you intend to run it and decide on the battery to get. halfords site, has them on, but you can probably find them cheaper locally.

Like what they said.

I used to run all manner of equipment from car batteries on site. Most notably borehole pumps. It'll be fine.

you can get a 12cv plug to croc clip adapter...

or just make one - get a female 12v socket with flying leads, then attach some croc clips to the wires.... positive is on centre pin of 12v, lead either red or if both black, the one with the white strip

or if you want to be pikey, strip the wires a lot, twist then wrap the wires around the batter terms and twist...

Be frigging careful if you are going to have a battery lying about with exposed clips and wires and stuff. One small clip could mean an explosion showering you all with boiling acid. Worst case scenario, admittedly, but still nasty.

you could use [url= http://www.google.co.uk/product_url?q=http://www.toys4cars.co.uk/index.php%3Fmain_page%3Dproduct_info%26products_id%3D39829&fr=AJpi-h1j4UgXti1ZhuEmiHWb13sRZcIOgObv-1E2xD8jCPsa9zkrbKjVSsIfIusdFi9jFYYQmeFLakpL4wPQgqrm0He9UEtUfwppsvdeYhVjUThloPjt1VQBeMhRf--8W6BkLAjEZCtE9Med8IO7sHvY9mVWwJahOAAAAAAAAAAA&ei=ratqTP_QGcXE-Qb57pj2AQ&sig2=hdtKGorefrZ-iCGO9ocs6w&gl=uk&hl=en&sa=title&ved=0CAkQgwgwADgA ]this [/url]but you say no croc clips, maybe get the parts and use [url= http://www.google.co.uk/product_url?q=http://www.johnscross.co.uk/products/Leisure-Battery-Lift-Off-Battery-Clamps-.html&fr=AOYmE3nZcCpv5yp9Jo0ayXD2GsjMQiME2MxUdcaOqGLcPzrjk__eDx5fUKdVoxOE4xX64pkX8KMllo-uBW9dudToe17Igj4eqL8czyUQqoFltuMT95mGirBSvyYD1kb1Es6799UkClDUvpXNgh9Gg_0Oa0FFSQTbeNULC7-9j0MKAAAAAAAAAAA&ei=natqTN_RItyN-AaVkI33AQ&sig2=oeZWI0Pf2Xj3mqbeaVV64Q&gl=uk&hl=en&sa=title&ved=0CAcQgwgwADgA ]this[/url]

you can put a bit of wood over the top of the battery to protect the terms...

people do seem to worry a lot...

only time i have seen a battery go is when someone left a spanner across the terms... that was fun!

one option is to drill the terms and attach ring terms on the ends of the wires to them via self tappers / or tap properly... done both and works fine

PIKEY!! 🙂

I don't think buying a battery for this is the best option for regular use.

The cooler is most likely to be the thermoelectric type which have a fan and a heat exchanger. 47w @ 12v is 3.9amps, and as far as I know they do not have a thermostat, i.e. it will draw 3.9amps all the time.

I had a similar cooler with drew around 5amps, run from the car it would still be cool after 12 hours, but the car wouldn't start, and that was a diesel with a 110amp (largish) battery. It is pretty much redundant and just used as a glorified coolbox, we only plug it in when driving on long journeys. We have had the plug work loose and overheat, resulting in the plug melting, disintegrating and falling out of the dash. Burnt my hand picking it up. Replaced corroded 12v socket and also the melted plug, still gets hot which just shows how much current these things draw.

The problem you will run into is a battery should only be discharged to around 50% if you want it to last any real length of time. (despite what they say, leisure batteries should not be discharged below this either) Below 50% and it will suffer during charging and capacity will reduce noticeably. So a typical 110ahr battery only provides around 55ahr of usable power, on top of this, unless you are using an intelligent multi-stage charger, it will realistically never charge to 100%, more like 90%. An alternator is not capable of charging the cars battery to 100%. So the battery will be on its last legs within 12 hours.

What you really need is a 2 or 3 way coolbox, which will run off 12v whilst driving, gas or 240v hookup whilst on the campsite, and 240v when you want some extra beer chilling space for BBQ's at home. They are easy to find for around £150 so if you are considering spending around £100 on a leisure battery, its a no brainer. Just don't run them on gas in a small unventilated tent or in the car as they create heat.

http://www.mobilegas.co.uk/mobilecoolbox/gasfridgefreezerunit/index.htm (free next day delivery) Waeco is a good make, we have one of their compressor fridges in our camper. If you can find the fittings, you can T into the gas pipe for the cooker and share the bottle, though I think most shops will recommend that you use a separate cylinder. Probably find them at most camping/caravan places as well.

Check out the equipment forums at [url= http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/ ]UKCampsite.co.uk[/url].Lots of useful info about this sort of thing on there.

We used an Igloo Maxcold at BBB last year and it kept my Koppaberg chilled to perfection, still managed a few visits to Lukes beer tent as well though.

Are you near [preferably running] water ?
Waterproof bag and bricks, tied to side, main problem is nickability.

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