The Camping Thread

[sgt_doofey]

Thought that I'd give a bit of feedback with my Adventure Kings 60L Fridge/Freezer...

Have used it a few times now, once as a freezer when moving house and a few times as a fridge.
I've been quite impressed with it. It has worked well without any problems so far.
The time I used it as a freezer, set the temperature on -16 and it kept things at that temperature. Have also used it as a drinks fridge whilst away on a little holiday. Kept drinks cold (not ice cold) and it was quite good. Have mainly run it off of the 240V adapter most of the time with a few trips in the car. The time I did leave it in the car on 30+ degree day for an hour or so, it only got up to 6 degrees from 3 or 4 when turned off, so it keeps it's cool pretty good.

As it's a 60L fridge, you can fit a fair bit in there too, so quite happy with that. For the $600 price tag (which included a thermal cover), it'll work quite well for what we'll use it for.

As an aside, I reckon the temperature these fridges report is the temperature of the fridge walls and not the air temperature. Opening the lid for an extended period of times doesn't see the temperature change, so it's not reading the air temperature IMO.

Will have to experiment a bit more to get things like drinks and beers nice and cold (ice cold) from the fridge. Have basically had it set a 4 degrees but that doesn't chill the drinks just quite enough.


I've also gone and put a new tent on layby. It's my birthday next month so have asked the family to get me some BCF vouchers to pay for it.
Link to BCF page...

Looking forward to this one. Nice big one with two rooms, one for the wife and I and one for the kids.

[prydey]

Recently fitted a solar panel to the roof of my van. I only run lights and a water pump off the battery, but wanted to be able to run a couple of fans as well. We are heading back to Mambray Ck campsite in Mt Remarkable NP for easter, and even in April it can still be a bit warm in the day, hence the desire to invest in some fans.
I decided to take it out for a couple of nights over the LWE just gone to give it a test and make sure its all good. I took my 10yr old daughter to one of our favourite parks, about an hour from home. Its called Wirrina and I've no doubt already posted pictures of it earlier in the thread a couple of times, given this is our third visit.




I purposely parked under a tree, so that the panel would end up having shade for some of the time, to get an idea of a worst case scenario.

the main attraction. The park has 11 horses and some goats. we take a couple of large bags of apples and carrots to feed them. New Clydesdale foal this time.





This is a few pics of a Memorial/lookout heading toward second valley, from Normanville. We stopped off for a quick look and walk along the beach.

The fans I bought are Jayco ones that replace the lights that go in each bed end. they aren't the best fans out there, but it was just more efficient use of space getting ones that hung from the roof brace, rather than using benchspace, which is already at a premium. I ran them on high speed for most of the weekend and overnight on low speed, to really test out how much they would use of the battery, and how well the solar panel would work in topping it back up. Long story short, the battery rarely dropped below 13v. the morning after I ran them all night it dropped to about 12.8 but was back up on float by mid morning. it was overcast for a fair portion too. pretty happy with that outcome.

rather than drill a hole in the roof, I just run an extension cord that I made using 8b&s, from an Anderson on the panel, to an Anderson on the chassis. you can see it in the 2nd pic running down the side.

all in all, a successful weekend, and a great dad n daughter weekend.

[prydey]

some pics of the solar panel and regulator/charge controller.

[BENT_8]

Looks good Rob, what output does the panel provide and what AH is the battery?

I thought about mounting a fixed panel on a bracket on the draw bar of our camper, but at places like Mambray it can be hard getting full sun because of the big tree's and hills where the campground is in the gully.
I usually end up moving mine multiple times a day to keep them producing but if you're not running too much from the battery you should be ok.

[prydey]

Battery is 100Ah. Panel is advertised as 200w, but probably closer to 160, according to people much smarter than me concerning those things.

It kept up with demand on the weekend. The only means of battery monitoring I have is a volt meter that plugs in to a 12v socket. These are only really accurate if your battery has been at rest for a few hours apparently, but whilst the panel is charging, that will read 14v. The regulator (I only have cheap pwm, not mppt) switches to float at 13.7, so most of the time the battery was full.
Panel doesn't need sun. They just need light, so even on a cloudy day they will still produce some power. Fixed panels have that downside (being fixed) but it's much less hassle for me and one less thing to carry and set up...

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by prydey

Battery is 100Ah. Panel is advertised as 200w, but probably closer to 160, according to people much smarter than me concerning those things.

It kept up with demand on the weekend. The only means of battery monitoring I have is a volt meter that plugs in to a 12v socket. These are only really accurate if your battery has been at rest for a few hours apparently, but whilst the panel is charging, that will read 14v. The regulator (I only have cheap pwm, not mppt) switches to float at 13.7, so most of the time the battery was full.
Panel doesn't need sun. They just need light, so even on a cloudy day they will still produce some power. Fixed panels have that downside (being fixed) but it's much less hassle for me and one less thing to carry and set up...

Fair enough, I've got 160w panels and the most I've seen from them on a good day was about 110w so 160w from your 200's is probably on the money, should do the job no problems at all.
Last year we had a wet day up there and on my 130ah with two fridges and lights/chargers going over night I got down a bit and was only getting around 40w back in at best, still got back to near full but took most of the day.

Also, for any SA people watching, just thought I'd mention, there's a Carp fishing comp in Barmera on the last weekend in March with good prizes for different categories if anyone's interested.

[prydey]

My fridge is 3 way so runs on gas while camping without power, so I have very little draw on my battery.

[Beastie]

Originally Posted by prydey

Recently fitted a solar panel to the roof of my van. I only run lights and a water pump off the battery, but wanted to be able to run a couple of fans as well. We are heading back to Mambray Ck campsite in Mt Remarkable NP for easter, and even in April it can still be a bit warm in the day, hence the desire to invest in some fans.
I decided to take it out for a couple of nights over the LWE just gone to give it a test and make sure its all good. I took my 10yr old daughter to one of our favourite parks, about an hour from home. Its called Wirrina and I've no doubt already posted pictures of it earlier in the thread a couple of times, given this is our third visit.


image
image
I purposely parked under a tree, so that the panel would end up having shade for some of the time, to get an idea of a worst case scenario.
image
the main attraction. The park has 11 horses and some goats. we take a couple of large bags of apples and carrots to feed them. New Clydesdale foal this time.
image
image
image
image

This is a few pics of a Memorial/lookout heading toward second valley, from Normanville. We stopped off for a quick look and walk along the beach.

The fans I bought are Jayco ones that replace the lights that go in each bed end. they aren't the best fans out there, but it was just more efficient use of space getting ones that hung from the roof brace, rather than using benchspace, which is already at a premium. I ran them on high speed for most of the weekend and overnight on low speed, to really test out how much they would use of the battery, and how well the solar panel would work in topping it back up. Long story short, the battery rarely dropped below 13v. the morning after I ran them all night it dropped to about 12.8 but was back up on float by mid morning. it was overcast for a fair portion too. pretty happy with that outcome.

rather than drill a hole in the roof, I just run an extension cord that I made using 8b&s, from an Anderson on the panel, to an Anderson on the chassis. you can see it in the 2nd pic running down the side.

all in all, a successful weekend, and a great dad n daughter weekend.

Good idea testing in the worse case scenario, but you’d be surprised how well the panels perform these days.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Beastie

Good idea testing in the worse case scenario, but you’d be surprised how well the panels perform these days.

I bought my panel off eBay. Not the cheapest. Chose a seller that had a lot of sales of that particular item. Had over 1000 sales. Bought it on a Sunday mid morning. Came from Altona. Delivered to my door (Adelaide) tues morning. I ordered cable and Anderson plugs at the same time from a local Adelaide seller, and they arrived Friday. Crazy.

A reputable seller (I found out afterward) for these things is lowenergydevelopments in eBay. Bit dearer than most but the claimed ratings are pretty much true to what you get.

[Beastie]

Originally Posted by prydey

I bought my panel off eBay. Not the cheapest. Chose a seller that had a lot of sales of that particular item. Had over 1000 sales. Bought it on a Sunday mid morning. Came from Altona. Delivered to my door (Adelaide) tues morning. I ordered cable and Anderson plugs at the same time from a local Adelaide seller, and they arrived Friday. Crazy.

A reputable seller (I found out afterward) for these things is lowenergydevelopments in eBay. Bit dearer than most but the claimed ratings are pretty much true to what you get.

I have 2 x fixed panels on my roof feeding 2 x 110ah batteries. It still charges (well maintains) with a cheap Aldi cover over the panels...

[prydey]

Haven't got around to getting a cover yet. Probably should at some stage.