I was wondering if I could have some advise or help. 

 

I'm planning on doing alot of camping trips this year with our Yeti. 

 

We don't always book electricity hook ups on the sites and dome remote sites don't even have electricity. 

 

My thoughts are could I run an additional battery in the rear in a battery box with a split charge system. I want to power portable fridge, charge phones etc without worrying about the car battery going flat 

 

Would this impact the car atal or its electrical system? 

 

Much appreciated

Hi Oneshot, welcome to the forum - I suspect that the additional battery in circuit will confuse the supposedly 'clever' micro-hybrid charging system. Unlikely to damage anything but you may find that without coding the additional battery capacity into the BMS you will get little (or no) charging from the vehicles alternator.  Worth a try though.

1 minute ago, Warrior193 said:

Hi Oneshot, welcome to the forum - I suspect that the additional battery in circuit will confuse the supposedly 'clever' micro-hybrid charging system. Unlikely to damage anything but you may find that without coding the additional battery capacity into the BMS you will get little (or no) charging from the vehicles alternator.  Worth a try though.

Hi thanks for the reply 

 

Yes I'm just concerned it might cause havoc with the electrics. The split chargers you get are quite clever these days but I certainly don't want to damage anything. 

 

Transporters and caddys have them all the time which is a vag platform. 

Any fridge on a leisure battery will not last very long. Better to have one that will work 3 way mains / battery / gas

AS above, you'll only get 1/2 day out of the battery before it dies when running a fridge. As well as the 3-way fridge, if you still really needed 12v electrics then why not take a spare battery and charger to top it up when on sites with electricity.

 

Colin

My Yeti battery did not like camping, so I always booked a pitch with a hook up and avoided expensive yeti electrics failure.

 

As others have said you will not be able to power a fridge just from a 12v leisure battery for more than a few hours. They have to be run on either mains or gas.

The only way to charge one from the car would be to have the specific extended additional towing loom fitted to the car, as this provides the required circuitry to protect the BMS. And from experience the amount of power/charge provided is very low and not very beneficial. Most decent campsites provide battery charging facilities, plus I would buy a decent solar charging unit. I'm able to last well over a week away in my caravan with a 90amp battery charged by a 100w panel.

Sorry guys when I say a fridge I mean a halfords cool box which kind of acts as a fridge 😊

 

We took one last year and ran it off a jump starter back but it died of power after the first day :(

I'm thinking the only way to do it would be by drawing the power to charge the battery via the cars existing wiring (12v socket for example).

 

This way the car "sees" the current being drawn and will continue to kick out power via the cars battery and alternator.

 

I'm thinking a 12v plug attached to a 12v charge controller and plug it into the boot socket (assuming you have one).

 

The only downside being is you're going to be limited to the charge current. You'd need a charge controller that's not going draw more than 10a ideally.

 

A solar panel is also a great idea to supplement the power usage and top-up the battery whil it's not being drained. 100w+ would be recommended to make it worth while.

^ Good post, but got me thinking...

Actually, almost any way you connect things up, the car will still see the extra current demand, and react accordingly, unless you earth the new battery directly to the negative post of the existing (bypassing the battery management shunt), but I can't see why you'd do that.

1 hour ago, Oneshotlpm said:

Sorry guys when I say a fridge I mean a halfords cool box which kind of acts as a fridge 😊

 

We took one last year and ran it off a jump starter back but it died of power after the first day :(

Those things use nearly as much power as a caravan fridge, so I'm not surprised!
I suggest you invest in a gas powered unit AND a solar panel.

The largest Halfords cool box come with mains plug as well, not sure about the smaller ones. Great cool boxes , very reliable. 

As a tramper we've run them 7 days a week, day and night .

As also an ex-caravanner and notoriously tightfisted , from experience even the cheaper sites ie the 5 pitch Cls and Cs affiliated with the 2 main clubs have electric hook up. Think we used to pay nine/ ten pound per night and they are everywhere. Well worth joining either the Camping and Caravanning club or the Caravan club to access these.

So with the Halfords cool box your sorted, 12v plug during driving, then use its mains plug on site.

Only weak point on cool box was cigarette plug. Needs a good straight connection or they burn out.

I have no doubt the Halfords box will run for 24/7, as I also did this myself many years ago. It does not however compare in any way with the performance offered by a fridge. 

12v cool boxes typically pull down by 18c against ambient temperature. In an air conditioned car this is fine, but find yourself on a campsite in France in the summer and you have daytime temperatures of 35c + so not so good. For the 5 summers I owned my Yeti I carried a table top fridge and table top freezer in the boot between home and campsite. On one journey the freezer was without mains power from 8pm one night till 3pm the following day and was still -10c. The matching fridge was holding 2c without problem in daytime temperatures hitting 40c+ when on site. 

A fairly recent introduction has been the "hybrid" 12v cooler with 230v fridge/freezer. I have bought one of these for this summer. In the car it acts as a normal cool box whilst on site I can run it at any temperature between  +10c and -15c, irrespective of ambient temperature. I can therefore use it as a fridge or as a freezer. Tristar Hybridcool 45 HC Compressor Cooler 12v/230v from Camperite Leisure

 

 

Colin

Edited 8 March, 20215 yr by eribaMotters

I think that could be very usefull for a future project and something to always keep as a just in case standby, I have bookmarked it, thanks for the info!

I bought a cheap 12v coolbox but can't remember the brand name.

 

I ended up modifying it slightly as I wasn't impressed by the performance.

 

It only had very thin polystyrene foam inside the walls with massive gaps on the corners and near the edges. So I installed extra sheets of silver insulation that has a thing layer of like bubble wrap inside.

 

Also installed some in the lid and under and around the warm air vent.

 

Also the fan would just run and full speed all the time. Which meant the temperature of the air coming out inside was never actually that cold.

 

I fitted a little fan speed controller from a PC so I could turn the fan down. This massively increased the performance since the air was much colder coming out. It also meant we could run it 24/7 without annoying fan noise since it was now silent.

 

Used it once while camping in 30c+ temps and it kept everything lovely and cool 😁

You would want a compressor fridge, they use much less electricity compared to other types. 

 

I have this: https://www.camping-adventure.eu/produkt/kompressor-kuehlbox-40l/ 

(I did buy it locally, cost me around 250€ two years ago) 

I had it in my T5 Transporter, as a 40L box it is quite a big one to store in a Yeti... I haven't tried to fit it in yet. They do make smaller ones too, size just wasn't an issue when I bought one. 

 

As a leisure battery I have been thinking about those called as "solar generator" or "portable power station" (check Amazon for examples). Basically it is a battery in a box, with an inverter and several outputs built in. Get one that you can charge from 12V output in car while driving and also with a solar panel at camp. Charge it at home before you go camping.  

 

That kind of is my plan, if I ever get this thing called vacation. 

Edited 9 March, 20215 yr by KLF

3 minutes ago, KLF said:

You would want a compressor fridge, they use much less electricity compared to other types. 

 

I have this: https://www.camping-adventure.eu/produkt/kompressor-kuehlbox-40l/ 

(I did buy it locally, cost me around 250€ two years ago) 

I had it in my T5 Transporter, as a 40L box it is quite a big one to store in a Yeti... I haven't tried to fit it in yet. They do make smaller ones too, size just wasn't an issue when I bought one. 

 

As a leisure battery I have been thinking about those called as "solar generator" or "portable power station" (check Amazon for examples). Basically it is a battery in a box, with an inverter and several outputs built in. Get one that you can charge from 12V output in car while driving and also with a solar panel at camp. Charge it at home before you go camping.  

 

That kind of is my plan, if I ever get this thing called vacation. 

 

This is exactly what I'm now looking at. I was getting some quotes to have a leisure battery put in and its very expensive. I was Somthing I could of done myself but I'd be seriously cheesed off if I caused damage to anything else electrical. 

 

Thanks for all the information I've seen a power pack which is very much like you have described its around £500 but does everything and lasts 3-4 days off power. Only time will tell if it lasts that long. 

 

You can charge them when you are driving around aswell so that's a cool feature 

Yeah, fridges are cool.