Thought the battery was gone
Posted by offroadwander@reddit | overlanding | View on Reddit | 8 comments
Thought my fridge battery completely died this weekend and I was THIS close to complaining to the support.
Battery hits 0%, screen wouldn’t turn on any more, nothing. I genuinely thought the battery was cooked.
Turns out… it was literally just fully drained lol.
Plugged in into AC power for a bit and everything came back to life normally.
I think there are a couple things worth keeping in mind with these batteries:
• If it fully dies, give it a little time on the charger before assuming it’s broken.
• Keeping it topped up during trips helps a lot, especially in hot water.
• Probably not a great idea to leave it sitting at 0% for too long.
Curious if anyone else has had the same mini heart attack before.
my_next_chapter@reddit
Have the same experience with the power generator. Thought it was completely dead thought it should have still had a charge. After about 15 minutes plugged in it came back to life.
WWYDWYOWAPL@reddit
lol. The mental gymnastics that battery companies have gotten people to do to call their batteries “power generators” is hilarious.
A solar panel, an alternator, and a gas generator are power generators. An overpriced battery with some outlets attached is power storage.
oilystairs@reddit
You have a fridge with a battery?
offroadwander@reddit (OP)
Yeah. Portable fridge with a detachable battery.
its-not-that-bad@reddit
wut kind
AnotherIronicPenguin@reddit
Not the OP. I have this one and it's great.
https://a.co/d/0emwnao1
And this is the battery; https://a.co/d/06sPGXGP
Note that the battery can be hard to get ahold of but the same part number is sold under many different brand names and may also be cheaper from non-Amazon suppliers.
The onboard battery keeps it running 12-24 hrs depending on ambient temp and whether you are running it at freezer temps. I have it plugged into a switched 12v socket so it runs on alternator power when the car is running, but when you shut off, the fridge keeps things cool and you don't go through the cycling of temps up and down just because you're parked for a few hours. Then, plug it in the next day and it charges back up. Using that approach I don't need to carry my big aux battery for day and weekend trips.
AnotherIronicPenguin@reddit
Yeah I had the opposite problem. Left the fridge battery plugged in and charging for oh, a year. Fried it, had to replace, and that little bastard is Not Cheap. I cracked the old one open for funsies, it's just a housing and 18 18650 cells, but I'm not good enough at electronics to repair it.
So now I charge the thing and remove it from the fridge, keep it on the shelf. Plug it in again before I use it to make sure it's charged for the trip, good to go.
ultradip@reddit
I have a 150w solar panel on the roof connected to an external Iceco battery that powers my fridge. During sunny days, the battery is always at or near 100% as the draw from the fridge at most is around 40w.
I could reclaim more space on my roof rack if I went with a smaller panel though.