Rimmer Bros - AAAAH!

How long would this last off a car battery before it went flat?

I can't remeber any of the relevant equations! :)

A lot depends on the duty cycle of the fridge compressor, as I'm pretty certain that 100 watts isn't any form of time-weighted average, but is rather the "running" power.

I don't know about you, but the fridge in my kitchen doesn't manage more than a 25% duty cycle. Assuming that this it typical of a new fridge (and mine is 20+ years old), then you're looking at an average

240V power requirement of 25 watts. According to lots of inverter "blurb", modern ones manage better than 80% power efficiency, so let's say we're drawing 30 watts at 12 volts.

Now, that's equal to 2.5 amps. A sensibly-sized leisure battery will hold at least 75 amp-hours of power, so you're looking at running your fridge for 30 hours before your beer starts warming up. (Allowing for the fact the inverter will cut out once the battery voltage falls below 10V, you may only get 20 hours or so.)

A typical LR battery will have at least 50 amp-hours, so you can adjust the values above by two-thirds if you don't have a leisure battery to hand. OTOH, if you've got a FFR or similar, you'll presumably have battery capacity coming out of your ears ...

Sorry to here about the problems, I bought a stainless steel exhaust system for my V8i Disco from Rimmer Brothers recently. Although I would agree their website ordering system could be improved dramtically, I had no problem with delivery or customer service.

Their pdf Discovery parts catalogue I find very usefull aswell! :)

Mark

As my house is on solar power I actually run a normal domestic refrigerator on an inverter. On a 24 volt system uses typically about 60 amp -hours in

24hours, equivalent to 120 a-h on 12v. The duty cycle is very dependent on the ambient temperature and how often you open the door, but on hot days (40C+) it approaches 100%. Interestingly the freezer (a small chest type) uses about 60% of the refrigerator consumption, probably because the lid is on top, so you don't lose a lot of "cold" when you open the door, plus you tend not to open it as often. JD

If it ever gets that hot in the UK, we'll have bigger things to worry about than battery life!

Interesting figures!

One that I've heard is that, if we covered Australia with solar panels, it could supply the whole world's power requirements for the foreseeable future.

Our caravan fridge can runs on LPG, 12v or the mains supply.

We have just bought a small Marksman 650w generator from ebay for £120, inc delivery. Bought it Wednesday afternoon and it arrived via Sercuricor Omega at 7.15am Friday morning. Its only a two stroke, but it has a fairly long running time and is much quieter than the one we hired for Eastnor. It is supposed to be 57db at 7m, which was the quietist one I managed to find, unless you want to start paying silly money for one of the Honda ones. We don't want it to run much either - tv and video to entertain the kids when they are fed up with trying to get themselves lost! The Electrolux Fridge in the caravan will run on LPG, Mains or 12v, we don't have a microwave in the caravan, and use a stove top kettle.

On or around Sat, 12 Jul 2003 00:26:09 +0100, Mother < "@ {mother} @"@101fc.net> enlightened us thusly:

there was one I saw a while back, seriously crap. worked OK in IE, I suppose, but it was a crap design job, even so.

Me too, and ditto.

This is the main problem. Mine "only" draws 3-and-a-bit amps, but (as you say) the problem is the 100% duty cycle, and trying to keep it happy.

That's a bizarre coincidence, because I've been looking at the vary same things! There seem to be a lot of sellers selling what are, in effect, the same three generators under several different brand names:

The Xingguang XG950 (2-stroke, 650 watts continuous):

(picture) (details) The Ningbo / Liyuan LYF950 (2-stroke, 650 watts continuous):

The Ningbo / Liyuan LYF1200A (4-stroke, 850 watts continuous):

As far as I can see, the current eBay marketplace has the YF950 (~£120 delivered) slightly cheaper than the XG950 (~£130 delivered) (the XG claims to be slightly quieter), with the LYF1200A being more expensive still (~£165 delivered) (but then, it has a slightly higher output and is a 4-stroke).

There's a lot of badge engineering going on - SIP stick their own labels on (what looks to be) an XG950, call it a "Medusa 950" and give it a list price of £351.32! On-line discounters can then tell you you're getting a wonderful bargain when they sell it to you for 200 quid.

seem to be in a little world of their own (maybe that's why they chose their name?), claiming the SIP has a RRP of £634.50 ...

Ah, yes... Sort of. We ended up gatecrashing the line-up accidentally.

Best bet is to go talk to Steve on the club stand, and tell him you're ok for the arena line-up on Sunday at 11am. It would be nice to get as many 101s in there as possible.

I'm selling one of these at present if anyone's interested?

Used for a season, makes about a dozen small ice cubes, runs off 240 and will maintain the temp at 12v also runs on gas. 100 quid. The Land Rover sticker is free. Not as good as the Engel, but still sorted us with cold beer and the like :-)

LPG is a slightly different prospect - best by far to use the refillable LPG bottles I mentioned a few days or so ago.

Not a good idea to tow a 101. We have an emergency line established, we call it the RAC ;-)

This was an old, old idea from a few years back. I'll let Wayne tell you why they defeat radar speed traps ;-)

The fridge won't last long - they're simply not designed to be moved once en-situ. The way their bolted together is for a static location

- the compressor will blow if moved too much and it's a good idea to let them stand for 24 hours before use after moving home etc etc...

Any time Monday, Tuesday or before 2pm Wednesday?

If its good enough to keep baby bottles cold and to freeze some ice cubes in ice cube bags in the little freezer, so I should imagine that a gridge full of beer will keep cold. I've found it best if the stuff is cold when it goes in, and when on gas, turned up to maximium. It also works better the fuller it is.

If you don't mind me asking, what attracted you to the Engel, rather than (say) Waeco / Coolmatic?

And which Engel model do you have your eye on?

and who is it that lives beside the A58 on the way out of Rochdale, heading towards Halifax?

I spied a lightweight, a Rangie and 2 different sankey-type trailers there on Saturday morning.

I don't really think there's too much real difference between them. I was looking at the 'Minus40', too, but a few friends have used the Engel and rated them for durability. I also managed to get a Trade Price on one through the UK distributor - which made a big contribution to the decision!

I got it about a year ago, the MT45. It draws about 3A and will happily freeze anything put in there if you tweak the knob to around the 3 or 4 marker!

This it true for any fridge - as cold air in an empty fridge soon goes!

The 'top loaders' are the best, as cold air stays at the bottom. With a conventional 'open door' type, the cold air simply flows out of the bottom when the door is opened and is, as a consequence, less efficient.

It's always best to put cold stuff in, in the first place as there's less work for the fridge to do cooling it down - it essentially only has to maintain the temperature.