Forget Overlanding!

  • HTML tutorial

grubworm

Rank V
Launch Member

Member III

2,358
louisiana
First Name
grub
Last Name
worm
Member #

17464

Service Branch
USN-Submarines
Glamping is where it’s at.
View attachment 122335

Adding a Snomaster fridge/freezer to the back of the Jeep has been great. It was a bit of a learning curve for the power requirements, and I think we have it dialed in now. Also helps that it’s not 120 degrees.

If your on the fence about getting one, go for it.

Todd
Now THAT'S a picture!! Guess youre left handed and bite off the right side and shes right handed and bites off the left and together you get perfect symmetry!

Anyway, I can definitely get with the glamping thing...ice cream in the desert, perfect...:sunglasses:
 
S

SubeeBen

Guest
Can you enlighten on the power requirements & what you did as I am getting ready for the vehicle fridge/freezer & would like to dial the electrical in before purchasing the fridge mowing it will work. I also have a Jeep Wrangler jku. Any info/ pictures would be greatly appreciated.
 

OutdoorsBen

Rank V
Launch Member

Enthusiast III

1,886
Western Massachusetts
Member #

11214

Can you enlighten on the power requirements & what you did as I am getting ready for the vehicle fridge/freezer & would like to dial the electrical in before purchasing the fridge mowing it will work. I also have a Jeep Wrangler jku. Any info/ pictures would be greatly appreciated.
I can’t speak for the OP, however I run a separate lithium battery pack that power the fridge. I get two days without charging the battery. Takes 6hrs to charge and I have it under the center rear seat. I also have a portable solar panel I throw on the roof at work that charges it daily. I personally use a Flexopower power battery but I wouldn’t recommend it.
 

rsweet

Rank V

Member III

2,298
Huntington Beach, CA, USA
First Name
Robert
Last Name
Sweet
Member #

17264

Ham/GMRS Callsign
KN6IHR
Getting ready for a Dometic fridge. Just picked up a Renogy 200 watt solar panel kit and a 100 amp iron phosphate lithium battery. Hopefully it will be enough juice. Mounting tomorrow. Will post pictures.
 
  • Like
Reactions: grubworm

Apprweb

Rank 0
Launch Member

Contributor I

60
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Member #

16985

Getting ready for a Dometic fridge. Just picked up a Renogy 200 watt solar panel kit and a 100 amp iron phosphate lithium battery. Hopefully it will be enough juice. Mounting tomorrow. Will post pictures.
That should be fine - I just installed a renogy 50 AH LIPO and get 2-3 days out of it with my Engell. Installed in the back along with a 40 amp DC/DC charger .
 

Todd & Meg

Rank V
Launch Member

Influencer I

Can you enlighten on the power requirements & what you did as I am getting ready for the vehicle fridge/freezer & would like to dial the electrical in before purchasing the fridge mowing it will work. I also have a Jeep Wrangler jku. Any info/ pictures would be greatly appreciated.
First some back story. You can skip to the What I’m doing now part if you want.

We got the Snomaster in the spring and used it on a few weekend trips with no problem. Our setup was fridge in the Jeep and the battery was in the tongue box of our teardrop camper. It was a new VMAX 125AH AGM battery. I also had a CTEC dc to dc charger that ran off the Jeep. The fridge would be plugged in the Jeep while driving and when we get to camp switch to the teardrop battery. Like first few trips no problem. Then I noticed the battery was getting to lower voltages on the same trips. Also the battery wasn’t charging like it was. Normally we would drive to the campsite and when we would get there the battery would be 100%, same on the drive home. We did a few weekend trips where we left on Friday night and stayed in the same site the whole weekend. This shouldn’t have been a problem, we should have been able to go two day on that battery. But by Saturday night I had to run the Jeep to get some charge and in the morning we were in the 40% range of the battery. Way lower than I want to run the battery. We had a two hour drive home and the battery only got up to the 65-70% range. The next weekend I did a test at home, ran the fridge off the battery to see how long it would go. The fridge and freezer were filled with water bottles and pre cooled on AC to start cold. The results were dismal. By early morning I was plugging in the AC battery charger. Now this was being done in the middle of July in Phoenix. It was hot, my garage where the fridge was the coolest it gets in there in the summer is high 95+ that is early in the morning. I just figured it was too hot and the fridge was just running to much. So this meant I was going to need to add solar to supplement the CTEC, the CTEC also has a solar controller built in. I picked up a 100 watt Renogy panel. And we headed out for a weekend trip to test it out before a planned trip to the North Rim. It worked great but we had full sun in the campsites we stayed at. We decided to get another 100 watt panel for the GC trip. That is where the photo above is from. I thought we had it all figured out. A few weeks later we did a weekend trip up north to beat the heat. The battery was at 70% when we headed out but I thought no problem it will be att 100% by the time we get to camp. Nope! Only 75% with a two and a half hour drive. What the #*&/? I get out the voltmeter and am not getting any power to the trailer. Ends up the wire was hitting the muffler and melted the insulation and shorted out. Okay easy fix and 75% will get us through the night. Wake up and we are at 11.Something volts. I have no clue what is going on now. I put the two panels on fid some good sun through the pine trees and see it starting to charge. We left the panels out and let neighbor at the campsite said he would keep an eye on them. We went out exploring looking for some nice dispersed camp sites. 3.5 hours later we we get back and we were at about 40% same as it was when we left. So we decided to head home. That week I called Renogy, CTEC (unless never talked to anyone and didn’t return my calls) and VMAX. VMAX was the most helpful even with the CTEC.

So I had a few things working against me, first because the battery was in the black tongue box we think there was a heat problem. I started check the temps and it would be in the 120’s but still in specks for the battery and CTEC. The reason the battery wasn’t charging like it did in the beginning was because there is a temperature probe on the CTEC it would detect high battery temps and slow the charging. And probably the biggest problem was the battery was defective. It was dying a slow death. $40 and a few weeks later i got a warranty replacement. So I wasn’t going to risk damaging the new battery the same way, so I decided to move the battery and CTEC to the inside conditioned air space inside the jeep. Then the battery would be stored in the house during summer.

Here come the biggest mistake in my teardrop trailer build. I’m mad and in embarrassed that this happened and it was a costly mistake. I was removing the CTEC from the trailer and pulling some wires and some how shorted the CTEC. Dumb mistake not having pulled some fuses before hand. If your keeping track that’s another $260ish. We had a 10 day trip coming up and didn’t have time to order another dc to dc charger and the replacement battery wasn’t in yet. So we pushed back the trip 3 weeks.

What I’m going now.

This is what I have now, I put it together quick because we only had a few weeks before our trip to Colorado.



I built this box to hold the battery and it also has drawers, i now have a Redarc dc to dc charger. (Black box on the right) I should have gone with this one from the start. It will work with lithium batteries and it has a short protection built into it. Also a solar controller. Next to that a fuse box, the two zip wires have power pole connectors, the long one for the fridge the shorter one is an extra. Two usb chargers and a meter. I have a panel that covers the battery.






I haven’t finished build the drawers yet I wanted to see how it worked on our trip. The drawer unit replaced 2 plastic tote that held our camp gear and the off-road tote that had compressor hose and tools. Plus we have room to keep extra dry food that doesn’t fit in the teardrop. There is a power wire that feeds into the bottom drawer where the compressor is so I don’t have to remove it to air up. Works good.

We have only used this setup on on a week trip to Colorado and it work awesome. Now temps were much lower than what I have been dealing with, but the voltage never went below 12.70 volts that I saw. I never needed to get out the solar.

The only thing I would do different would be a lithium battery over the AGM. Maybe when I need to replace the battery lithium will be cheaper. Now this is a spendy setup and I say it that I’m A cheapskate. But some things are worth the money. I’m real happy with this setup now.

I hope all this will help someone out and save some headaches and some money

Todd
 

Todd & Meg

Rank V
Launch Member

Influencer I

Because we had to move our trip back 3 weeks we hit the fall colors at their peak. That was well worth it.

This is our setup, I now have two cheap 55AH batteries in the tongue box for the teardrop for power in the camper. It powers lights, water pump, furnace, and different chargers (USB, cameras, phones). For weekend trips I’ll just take one of the batteries. On the lid of the tongue box is a 30 watt panel that is more than enough to keep those batteries charged, and I can always add the 2-100 watt panels if I need too.

9A7D859F-1DF2-488D-9FF6-027F4E50B66D.jpeg

Todd
 
  • Like
Reactions: CTO1Mike

rsweet

Rank V

Member III

2,298
Huntington Beach, CA, USA
First Name
Robert
Last Name
Sweet
Member #

17264

Ham/GMRS Callsign
KN6IHR
Just finished installing my 200 watt solar panels...Renogy premium 200 watt kit. Now for a Dometic refrigerator and rig will be done!
IMG_6135.jpegIMG_6136.jpegIMG_6134.jpeg
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: grubworm
S

SubeeBen

Guest
First some back story. You can skip to the What I’m doing now part if you want.

We got the Snomaster in the spring and used it on a few weekend trips with no problem. Our setup was fridge in the Jeep and the battery was in the tongue box of our teardrop camper. It was a new VMAX 125AH AGM battery. I also had a CTEC dc to dc charger that ran off the Jeep. The fridge would be plugged in the Jeep while driving and when we get to camp switch to the teardrop battery. Like first few trips no problem. Then I noticed the battery was getting to lower voltages on the same trips. Also the battery wasn’t charging like it was. Normally we would drive to the campsite and when we would get there the battery would be 100%, same on the drive home. We did a few weekend trips where we left on Friday night and stayed in the same site the whole weekend. This shouldn’t have been a problem, we should have been able to go two day on that battery. But by Saturday night I had to run the Jeep to get some charge and in the morning we were in the 40% range of the battery. Way lower than I want to run the battery. We had a two hour drive home and the battery only got up to the 65-70% range. The next weekend I did a test at home, ran the fridge off the battery to see how long it would go. The fridge and freezer were filled with water bottles and pre cooled on AC to start cold. The results were dismal. By early morning I was plugging in the AC battery charger. Now this was being done in the middle of July in Phoenix. It was hot, my garage where the fridge was the coolest it gets in there in the summer is high 95+ that is early in the morning. I just figured it was too hot and the fridge was just running to much. So this meant I was going to need to add solar to supplement the CTEC, the CTEC also has a solar controller built in. I picked up a 100 watt Renogy panel. And we headed out for a weekend trip to test it out before a planned trip to the North Rim. It worked great but we had full sun in the campsites we stayed at. We decided to get another 100 watt panel for the GC trip. That is where the photo above is from. I thought we had it all figured out. A few weeks later we did a weekend trip up north to beat the heat. The battery was at 70% when we headed out but I thought no problem it will be att 100% by the time we get to camp. Nope! Only 75% with a two and a half hour drive. What the #*&/? I get out the voltmeter and am not getting any power to the trailer. Ends up the wire was hitting the muffler and melted the insulation and shorted out. Okay easy fix and 75% will get us through the night. Wake up and we are at 11.Something volts. I have no clue what is going on now. I put the two panels on fid some good sun through the pine trees and see it starting to charge. We left the panels out and let neighbor at the campsite said he would keep an eye on them. We went out exploring looking for some nice dispersed camp sites. 3.5 hours later we we get back and we were at about 40% same as it was when we left. So we decided to head home. That week I called Renogy, CTEC (unless never talked to anyone and didn’t return my calls) and VMAX. VMAX was the most helpful even with the CTEC.

So I had a few things working against me, first because the battery was in the black tongue box we think there was a heat problem. I started check the temps and it would be in the 120’s but still in specks for the battery and CTEC. The reason the battery wasn’t charging like it did in the beginning was because there is a temperature probe on the CTEC it would detect high battery temps and slow the charging. And probably the biggest problem was the battery was defective. It was dying a slow death. $40 and a few weeks later i got a warranty replacement. So I wasn’t going to risk damaging the new battery the same way, so I decided to move the battery and CTEC to the inside conditioned air space inside the jeep. Then the battery would be stored in the house during summer.

Here come the biggest mistake in my teardrop trailer build. I’m mad and in embarrassed that this happened and it was a costly mistake. I was removing the CTEC from the trailer and pulling some wires and some how shorted the CTEC. Dumb mistake not having pulled some fuses before hand. If your keeping track that’s another $260ish. We had a 10 day trip coming up and didn’t have time to order another dc to dc charger and the replacement battery wasn’t in yet. So we pushed back the trip 3 weeks.

What I’m going now.

This is what I have now, I put it together quick because we only had a few weeks before our trip to Colorado.



I built this box to hold the battery and it also has drawers, i now have a Redarc dc to dc charger. (Black box on the right) I should have gone with this one from the start. It will work with lithium batteries and it has a short protection built into it. Also a solar controller. Next to that a fuse box, the two zip wires have power pole connectors, the long one for the fridge the shorter one is an extra. Two usb chargers and a meter. I have a panel that covers the battery.




I haven’t finished build the drawers yet I wanted to see how it worked on our trip. The drawer unit replaced 2 plastic tote that held our camp gear and the off-road tote that had compressor hose and tools. Plus we have room to keep extra dry food that doesn’t fit in the teardrop. There is a power wire that feeds into the bottom drawer where the compressor is so I don’t have to remove it to air up. Works good.

We have only used this setup on on a week trip to Colorado and it work awesome. Now temps were much lower than what I have been dealing with, but the voltage never went below 12.70 volts that I saw. I never needed to get out the solar.

The only thing I would do different would be a lithium battery over the AGM. Maybe when I need to replace the battery lithium will be cheaper. Now this is a spendy setup and I say it that I’m A cheapskate. But some things are worth the money. I’m real happy with this setup now.

I hope all this will help someone out and save some headaches and some money

Todd
Thank you very much for the great write up & great info & pictures.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sean Silvera