Portable Power Station Dilemma

I have a Whynter FMC 350 XP fridge/freezer. I have been looking at Portable Power Stations to keep the fridge working while my 4runner isn't running. Using search on this site I found guys saying their Jackery 300 ( the other guy had a Jackery 500 ) would keep their somewhat larger fridges running for 3 days. When I go to Jackery's website they say their Jackery 600 plus will run a portable fridge for 6 hours. When I called Outbound Power they said I should get a 1500 watt Portable Power Station for my usage. I'm lost. Are manufacturers trying to get me to buy way too much battery? If I have to pay $1000 plus to power a $500 refrigerator I'll use a Coleman cooler. Formulas to figure out what I need will be useless. Most peoples dogs are better at math than I am. If any of you folks can help in my plight I would appreciate it. I spent hours researching online. It feels like something relatively simple is eluding me.

Thanks
Dennis

 

Website specs: https://www.whynter.com/product/34-quart-portable-refrigerator-freezer-ac-dc-fmc-350xp/

You'll have to estimate your fridge's power usage (of course, it cycles on/off) - I suspect Outbound Power may have thought you were talking about powering a household fridge.

The fridge claims to top out at 70 watts (W) of power, so a 700 watt-hour (Wh) battery would theoretically run that fridge for a minimum of 10 hours. But that is assuming an unrealistic 100% efficiency and the fridge also running at 100%, 100% of the time.

the Jackery 300 says 288 Wh so if that goes for three days - assuming other folks use the same fridge in the same conditions, adjust expectations accordingly.

 

Thanks for the reply. THAT math I can handle. I forgot to add that it uses 70 watts. Maybe what I missed is that it only draws power when the fridge is cycled on, which is not the entire hour. This may be the reason folks were able to get away with much smaller power stations. How much of the hour it's cycled on is probably affected by many variables. I plan on plugging the fridge in at my house the night before a trip all the way down to max cold, which I believe is 0 degrees Fahrenheit and fill it with Nalge bottles of (frozen) water which I can take out as I need room. This should provide ice cold drinking water and skew the variables in my favor, reducing the time spent cycled on. I think...

 

Sounds like you got a solid path forward. Maybe you can purchase your best estimate with a solid return policy and see how that performs in your 4Runner at home and then you can ratchet it up or down depending on how it does and what conditions were versus what you expect the worst to be?

 

I know my fridge (Dometic CFX3 35) draws about 35W-40W when first turned on, settles in around 10W-15W steady state and that’s with an ambient out in the desert around 90°F to +100°F. I’ve been able to power it easily overnight with my Goal Zero Yeti 500 then switch over to a 100W panel during the day to both recharge the battery and power the fridge.

 

Yep - my Iceco draws about 20w after cool down. I can power it all night on a 256w ecoflow and still be above 50% in the morning

 

Thanks for the help guys. I'm pretty much set on an EcoFlow River2 Pro which has 768w, weighs 17lbs and is $359 on Amazon direct from EcoFlow. Planning on plugging the EcoFlow into the cigarette lighter and the fridge into the EcoFlow in what I'm hearing called a "pass through" set up and just unplugging from the cigarette lighter when I stop. Unless I'm missing something (else), this sounds like more than enough. Might even be able to run a little fan while I'm sleeping. My Luno bug netting keeps the bugs out, but they don't let much air flow thru. Inside of the windows are real drippy in the morning.

 

Sounds like you've got it all figured out. And I think you should get an ecoflow. I know there was the 1,000 watt ones going on sale for about $500 which used to be $1,000. Maybe a new version is coming out?

I think an important metric worth looking at is lifetime cycles. I forget off the top of my head but ecoflow was pretty good. Jackery, at the time and the specific jackery models I looked at, could handle much less cycles for their lifetime....just good to take a quick peek at specs.

You guna get a solar pannel? Once you have a battery station the options open up. Get to charge anything and everything. Lanterns, phones, blue tooth speakers. Could power some little outdoor lights. But then you might need a solar pannel.

Personally I use mine the most to charge drone and camera batteries. I then got a 900w water kettle so we could all get coffee real quick in tbe morning.

 

Hey another thing. At least my ecoflow wont charge from the 4Runners AC outlet because that's not pure sine. I upgraded ny inverter to fix this.

There are battery stations that can charge off the outlet. You could also get a pure sine inverter and just pop the good and hook it directly to your battery in a worst case scenario where you need to charge the ecoflow a lot and quickly. Note - that if you get an inverter you need to use your phone app with the ecoflow to tell it to charge just below the max watts of the inverter or you could damage tbe inverter as it will overheat as it struggles its little heart out.

 

Maybe later. Right now I'm trying to add as little to the gear inside as I can. That's why I was so happy to find a small power station with plenty of power. but perhaps down the road. That would be interesting to play with.

 

I'm hoping charging from the cigarette lighter will suffice for simplicity's sake. It's slower but I drive around a lot when I'm in the woods hitting various fishing spots.

 

Thats what I did too with my ecoflow before the inveter upgrade. We would be driving all day on dirt roads. Plenty of charge time too 100%

 

I got the ecoflow 160 watt pannel. Too damn big. I'd go smaller unless I was really running a lot of stuff.

 

I've got the Eco flow river pro 2. It's a good unit and will power my Set Power fridge for 48-72 hours easily depending on ambient temperatures. Even longer if it's cool out.

The problem I had was with charging it from the 12 volt cigarette plug in the back. It only outputs about 90 watts. With roughly 800 watt hours, it takes a long time to charge the unit. 50% charge takes at least 5 hours of charging.

The problem I had was the 4Runner cigarette plug would stop charging. It must have a built in circuit that would cut out if it overheated. It never blew the fuse, just stopped charging. I would fire up the vehicle and check that it was charging, but when I'd stop an hour or two later, it would no longer be charging.

I ended up putting in a Victron voltage booster and that solved all of my charging issues.

Just got back from a trip to Utah and my fridge/Eco flow ran for 3 weeks continuously without a hitch.

 

See this thread for more details...

https://www.4runners.com/threads/ecoflow-800w-alternator-charger.42312/

 

Thanks for posting this. This is way beyond anything I am willing and able to do. Plus my 4runner is still under warranty. Glad I saw this before I ordered the battery.

 

Thacrow mentioned that some power stations can charge off of the rear AC outlet. If there are quality power stations that don't require pure sine wave and can charge from the stock 400 watt AC outlet in the rear I would go for that, if they don't have any other debilitating drawback. I'd like to keep this very simple.

 

The inverter only puts out 400 watts when the transmission is in park. While driving, output is restricted to 100 watts.

There are ways to "trick" the inverter, but I believe it involves cutting some wires and grounding out a switch. Not something you probably want to do while still under warranty.

Wiring up the voltage booster is not really all that hard. If I managed to do it, any idiot can!

 

What voltage booster did you get? I purchased two. Both work the same way. They replace a fuse in the fuse box that's under the hood.

Im running the voltage booster pro
https://voltageboosterpro.com/product/og/

 

Is that a similar type used for AGMs? (asking for a friend )

 

Yes correct. I went yellow top and had charging issues. This voltage booster is real cool since it has two settings (you can see the metal switch on it). It can make your system increase more if you have a stock alternator.

Or if you have an aftermarket alternator that already is a little higher voltage than stock, it can give a smaller bump in voltage

 

Cool, thanks for the info. Another Q, any issues running the stock alternator? I’m still contemplating whether I go with a std lead acid replacement or AGM, when the time comes as my factory batt is going on +4 years.

 

I installed the victron

Like I mentioned earlier...I am an idiot.

Technically it's not a voltage booster, but a DC to DC Converter. It does boost 12 volts to 30 volts.

This is the unit I installed.

$141 Victron Energy Orion 12/24-Volt 20 amp DC-DC Converter Non-Isolated, High Power

https://www.amazon.com/Victron-Energy-Orion-24-20-Converter/dp/B01BF5BU20

It's a wonder that my 4Runner didn't instantly burst into a giant flaming inferno given my electrical incompetence.

 

Is that installed near the engine/battery?

Thats brilliant. Increasing the voltage then requiring thinner wire.

 

See the link listed earlier for details...

 

Just asked a question on that thread.