Glacio 60L Fridge / Freezer

[stockstandard]

Bit the bullet and bought one of these bad boys off ebay as I don't have the funds to lash out on a waeco or an engel.

Also bought this battery & box as well as this solar setup. I have also attached this sucker to the side of the box and added individual 15amp fuses for each socket. Extra sockets never go astray.

All up it came in under 1k. I also have 150w "can holder type" inverter for the basics like phone charger, camera charger etc.

Will be testing this setup out over the christmas period around the shallow inlet / corner inlet areas to subject it to the kind of environments i plan to throw at it quite often.

I have it connected to the battery at the moment and in the 30 mins of running it has gone from 30 degrees down to 4. I had to check that it was actually running because the compressor is pretty quiet.

Will keep people updated as i run this setup through its paces.

Christian

 

[Robski]

Will be interested in how it performs mate, please let us know

Cheers Robski

 

[stockstandard]

Currently running on 240v and funnily enough it seems to take longer to drop in temperature. Started at the same temperature (30 degrees) and took about 7-10 mins longer to get down to 5 degrees.

Panels arrived today, so that is everything. Well almost everything. I ordered one of these bad boys today to see the output of the panels and to track how much they are putting out during the day / time connected.

Eventually what i may do is connect an analogue zero centered ammeter gauge to monitor everything as its running / charging. Essentially this should give me a quick and easy read out to see if the battery is in a state of charge or discharge with everything connected.

 

[Dave-D40]

Sounds like a pretty good setup, but excuse my ignorance but do you just wire the LCD Voltage Power Analyzer Watt Meter in after the panels and before the battery.

 

[mike1303]

If your having trouble dropping the temp, before you go away for the weekend pulg it into mains, the added food will make the fridge run harder and that extra juice will help coll it down

How is it all going?

 

[robmacca]

I too would be interested in how the fridge performs...... looks the goods

 

[stockstandard]

Sounds like a pretty good setup, but excuse my ignorance but do you just wire the LCD Voltage Power Analyzer Watt Meter in after the panels and before the battery.

Hey mate,

I'm still trying to figure out the best way to hook this up too. I'm not sure if I should be connecting it to the panel input or the battery output.

From what I have read most people seem to be putting these on the input side of the charge controller, but i want to see what the panels are producing after going through the charge controller, i just have to find out if this is possible or not.

At the bottom of this link it gives several scenarios for how you would connect up their own type of watt meter. My understanding is that is goes from the charge controller output on the source side and then direct to the battery on the load side. It does say to go from the solar panel, so i am assuming it will be the output of the controller.

Good chance I will be buying some 30amp anderson connectors like these to make connecting and disconnecting easier.

Mike1303 - Both 12v & 240v are dropping the temps fairly quickly, its just interesting that it is more efficient at 12v.

All running fine so far. am just about to hook up the panels and test them out. It would be good to have the meter so i could see what the output is for overcast situations like right now.

 

[stockstandard]

Quality "Protable fridge" box.....actually comes very well packed.

Heading up to eildon just before New Years. This should give it a good run

 

[Knickers]

for those who know, is the set up in the OP very efficient? is there a better way to go and a better fridge and solar set up?

 

[stockstandard]

There are definitely more tried and tested fridges out there that's for sure. The likes of engel and waeco all have a pretty reliable history as far as fridge life is concerned. There are reports of blokes will Engels that have been running for 30+ years.

The next thing to add to this setup is a ctek 250s dual. Main reason being is that I will be doing a dual battery setup for car and the 250s can handle a solar input as well as being the voltage sensitive regulator you find in most dual battery kits.

The solar panels I have already has an mppt regulator, but I seriously doubt it's a proper mppt reg. the 250s will replace this and more than likely do a better job due to the fact that is a multi stage charger as well.

All of this obviously adds up to bulk $$$, hence the reason a went with a cheaper fridge.

 

[stockstandard]

Chucked the panels out to see how they go. Once connected the battery indicator shows that it's charging. It was blinking intermittently, but I just had to adjust the angle to the sun and I got a good steady green light.

On the right hand side of the battery box I added 2 extra baintech cigarette adapters. All good so far.

 

[stockstandard]

Everything ran pretty well for the last 2 days. the fridge was connected to mains before we left for eildon and it was set to 5 degrees and I didn't change it for the duration of the trip. It was running for about 4 hours off the battery while the car was being packed and we made our way out there.

We arrived at about 2:30pm and connected the solar panels and got about 5hrs of direct sunlight and topped up the battery. Fridge ran all night without fault and according to the battery level tester on the battery box, the battery still had full charge the next morning. The fridge also has a battery level indicator which matched that of the battery box indicator.

One thing I did notice is that when the fridge is cycling the indicator on both the fridge and the battery box shows the battery is at medium charge. About 5-10 mins after the fridge has finished cycling both indicators show full charge. I'm assuming this is because power is being drawn from the battery so the indicators are picking this up.

So far I'm pretty happy with the purchase. Would like to do a longer stint to see how effective the panels are, but based on the last 2 days it's seems as though they can sustain prolonged fridge use. I'm betting you could run LED lights with little dramas.

 

[jjohn]

Gotta love that. Having a win.
Nice to know the brand is successful.

Thanks for sharing your setup.

 

[stockstandard]

Have just added a ctek mxs 5.0 into the mix as well to charge the battery at home / powered camp sites at night. It will also maintain the battery for prolonged periods of no use and can recondition heavily drained batteries. This will work for standard batteries and agm. It also has the ability to act as a 0.8amp charger for motorbike batteries, both normal and agm.

Cost about $80 off eBay for the 2014 version.

 

[Malicious]

Hey Stockstandard how's the fridge going? Been looking at getting one,

 

[stockstandard]

Moved back over to perth a little while ago and the fridge handled the trip with ease.

Also took it camping the other weekend (Wilbinga). Handled the rough tracks and beach sand very well and made it back still running. Is currently running as my beer fridge and will probably test out its freezing capabilities down the track as well.

The solar panels seem to be working well and keeping up the charge. Will probably be upgrading the solar controller soon as im not sure how good it is. Will update if it do.

C.

 

[stockstandard]

hey guys,

Been a while since I posted anything on this. The fridge is still running well and has seen several more camping stints. While waiting for the weather to clear up a bit I decided to do a bit of a test to see how many amps it draws starting from room temperate.

When i plugged everything in and turned the fridge on it was sitting at 16 degrees. This fridge has a delayed start (unsure what this feature is for) so it took a a couple of minutes to kick in. I have the compressor speed set to minimum and the amp draw is fluctuating between 2.9 & 4.2. The target temperature im after is 3 degrees.

Given that the ammeter I have will log consumption over time Im going to check on it after an hour to see much it has consumed. I'll check back later with the results.

EDIT: Put the compressor speed on to high and the amp draw shot up to 6.5.

 

[stockstandard]

Ok, so I checked the consumption after the first hour and it was sitting at 3.043ah. Im pretty happy with that so far, but the big test is how much it draws to maintain the 3 degrees. Will do another update in an hour.

 

[vicszd30]

hmmm nice find indeed ! keep "us" posted !

 

[stockstandard]

2nd hour in and the consumption is @ 4.153ah.

This is with the fridge completely empty. If I had to get this down to 3 degrees while food was in there I imagine it would take longer, but once at temperature it would cycle less.

Obviously there are several factors that will change the rate of consumption like ambient temperature, opening and closing the door multiple times etc etc. For the amount its costs me im pretty happy and I will connect the meter up when i go camping to see how temperature effects it.

I'm going to leave it on overnight to see what the consumption is like over a 12 hour period. Will post once I have had a coffee and my brain is working.