power chest freezer by inverter

[natepelton]

Still working on the 1983 LeMirage, but it won't be ready for this trip I don't think. Heading to the Grand Canyon for a rafting trip and we want to pre-cook many of the meals, vacuum seal them and keep them frozen from NY to AZ. I will be traveling with an E-350 Ford van pulling a trailer. I hoped to power a small chest freezer in the van with a 1000W hard-wired inverter. Is this going to work?

Thanks-
-Nate

[akroyaleagle]

Nate,

It might.

Consider these:

What is the wattage of the freezer? You might need a bit larger inverter.

Is this some cheap China inverter?

How will you power the inverter when the van is not running? 
Do you have a couple of batteries from your conversion that you could wire in to the van to supply the inverter?
The van battery is probably not powerful enough supply the inverter without the alternator running.
The van battery is not a deep cycle. Inverters need deep cycle batteries.

I'm sure some others will add their input.

Good Luck,

[luvrbus]

Aren't most of the small chest type 15 amps draw running if so a 1000w is not going start or run it,I have a Norcold 12/110 volt it does good on DC with 1 group 27 battery but a 1000w inverter will not start it on AC 


good luck

[belfert]

I have a 15 CF chest freezer we keep in our trailer on trips.  we run a cord from the bus to the trailer to keep the freezer powered from the 3,000 watt bus inverter.

Anyhow, that 15 CF chest freezer has a tag showing it draws under 5 amps.  It probably draws a lot more on startup, but most inverters can surge momentarily.  A bigger question might be can the batteries handle the start up current when the inverter has to draw a lot of power.  Why not plug it in and test prior to the trip?

[luvrbus]

5 amps is good I just looked at the Danby's most of theirs are 11 to 15 amp I thought my Danby was 15 amp and it is

[Ralph7]

      I have an Sundanzer ( Electrolux) 8cu. ft. 12-24V. freezer. Yes it was $$$$ but runs cheep, holds -20 in very high heat, has a double seal, and 4in. foam insulation. Bought  it from Butch just north of Chino Valley, they sell propane firgs and freezers for homes, etc. 

[natepelton]

Forgot about my Xantrex Freedom 458 2500 watt that I bought for the Prevost. Figuring all I need to do now is wire from the van battery to a continuous duty solenoid (powered after ignition) to two deep cycle batteries. Batteries to the Xantrex and Xantrex to receptacle box for the freezer to plug into.

Another question : In a pinch, would my 1000watt Honda generator be able to supply enough charge to the deep cycle batteries to power the Xantrex/freezer?

Plan to get a remote thermometer with an alarm, so we know if the temperature in the freezer comes too high when stopped for the night.

[Oonrahnjay]

Forgot about my Xantrex Freedom 458 2500 watt that I bought for the Prevost. Figuring all I need to do now is wire from the van battery to a continuous duty solenoid (powered after ignition) to two deep cycle batteries. Batteries to the Xantrex and Xantrex to receptacle box for the freezer to plug into.

Another question : In a pinch, would my 1000watt Honda generator be able to supply enough charge to the deep cycle batteries to power the Xantrex/freezer?

    I think your bigger question is whether the Xantrex will "load share" what you have.  If (as has been noted) you can really get about 750 watts dependably out of the little Honda, you'd need for the freezer to run on less than that.  Probably what you'd see in "real life" is that every time the thermostat tripped on the freezer compressor, you want enough power for the "start up" surge, then you'd need to supply enough wattage to keep it running in steady state.  What may (should??) happen is that the Xantrex would pull a little power out of the batteries to get over that momentary power need, then -- assuming that the generator is making more power than is needed for "steady state", then the extra power goes to charge the batteries.  
    Of course, the freezer won't pull any significant power (other than a trickle for maybe a thermostat or something like lights) when the freezer has dropped to it's Off state (i.e. the compressor on the freezer isn't running) -- during this time, the full output of the generator is going to charge up the batteries.  
    I am going to take a bare stab here -- it's on a guess -- but I'd guess that a "Honda 1000" would power anything that's less than 5 amps current draw at 120Volt.  That would be 600 watts, you'd need the margin for efficiency losses in the inverter and that "extra power" for the battery charging after the inverter has needed to pull power from the batteries.  And that would mean that the generator would need to run about all the time.
    A more useful scenario would be for the batteries to power the inverter and the freezer.  Then when the batteries are down to about a 50/55/60% state of charge, you'd start the generator and bring the batteries up to fully charged (actually 94-96% of the theoretical full charge for new, sharp, efficient  batteries).  Then you'd stop the generator and let the batteries carry the load until you repeated the cycle.  You'd need calculations for this - you'd need to calculate the amp-hour capacity of the batteries (and probably convert that to wattage); adjust for inverter/switching/wiring inefficency, and that would give you hours of time that any given amount of batteries would cover the needs of the freezer, stated in watt-hours.  Another guess -- you'd need more than "a couple" of deep cycle batteries (unless they're *very* big) to run a setup like this for more than just a few hours.  Would you be able to fully charge at 8PM (wouldn't want to run a gennie much later than that if there are other people around) to carry you through until morning?  As I guessed, you'd need a fair amount of battery capacity to do that.
    (And remember Bare-Bones won't do it for you -- you'll always have to have a little reserve built into your system.)

    These are just my opinions (and my guesses), but I hope they'll help you.   BH   NC   USA

[bansil]

something that will help is, fill the fridge with small water bottles so there is more "mass" have everything frozen a day or two before you go when on shore power.

I normally freeze a case of the water, and we use it throughout the trip as ice in cooler bags etc

[Dlsnow]

Get the Sundanzer that Ralph mentioned - I think they run from $600 - $1200 depending on size but they run off a tiny amount of DC 12 or 24 volt directly and are reliable.