How To Install A Fridge In The Car
We show you how to install a refrigerator in the car. With this practical solution, you can enjoy cold food and drinks for any long road trip or a field trip with friends or family.
Installing a 12V fridge
First of all, we are going to see how to install a 12 V cooler in our private vehicle. The most appropriate place for this will be the trunk, where we can have enough space to place the refrigerator and have cold drinks and food.
The necessary materials will be, simply, a roll of cable, the portable electric refrigerator and some connection terminals. For the cable, it is recommended that it be in two colors, red and black, in order to easily differentiate which is positive (red) and which is negative (black).
The refrigerator can be connected to any power source, such as the cigarette lighter connection, but it is best to connect the cables directly to the car battery. Using the lighter has certain added complications, such as having to place a safety fuse in series.
We connect the red cable to the positive pole of the car battery, and the black cable to the negative pole. Once ready, we place the refrigerator in the trunk of the vehicle, in a position from which it is convenient to access its interior.
Then, we connect those same cables to the connection sockets of the portable battery through the connection terminals. At this time, we can turn on the refrigerator to check if it works correctly. After a few minutes, we will be able to verify that, indeed, the inside of the refrigerator begins to cool down.
Can the cool box consume the battery of the vehicle?
There is a very important factor to take into account throughout this installation: the ‘activity’ that you give to your fridge. The consumptions of a refrigerator vary depending on whether it is at rest – when it is not opened and you leave it connected to the car unopened ( or if it is active ). For example, when you open and close it repeatedly.
In this second case, you will be forcing the refrigerator compressor to activate to reach the cooling temperature. This will force the car battery to send more energy to the fridge, which may drain more quickly.
On the other hand, we must also take into account the type of battery you have in your vehicle. If you have, for example, a 100 A AGM battery, you can consume 70% of it safely. That is, you can consume 70 amps if your refrigerator with a compressor uses an average of 4 amps per hour.
This stocking wears out when you open and close the refrigerator, causing the compressor to activate. The refrigerator can then be connected to the battery with the car stopped for up to 17 hours.
The result is obtained according to a simple calculation: 70 amps of battery / 4 amp hours of consumption = 17 hours of consumption. On the other hand, absorption refrigerators consume a little more – about 6.25 amps per hour.
When the vehicle is stationary, these types of refrigerators consume about 10 grams of gas per hour. In this case, the refrigerator with a compressor is the best solution in terms of consumption.
Advantages of electric coolers
As an example, when you buy a thermoelectric refrigerator or a refrigerator with a compressor, you can turn to ranges from Waeco TC or CDF with prices starting from around 300 euros.
In this way, you are not only gaining the possibility of having your food in good condition, but you are also gaining high performance and high autonomy to travel.
On the other hand, electric coolers are not such an attractive solution in electric cars, where the refrigerator’s cooling system will use up part of the car’s battery power.
This, in turn, will be reflected in a loss of range in kilometers, which is something that potential customers of electric vehicles look at with a magnifying glass.
In short, the installation of a portable fridge is very simple, no advanced knowledge of electricity is needed, and they can be a very interesting extra for those cars with enough space in the trunk.
