Do batteries charge well while being towed and fridge is on battery?

[mapoos]

Hi, my fridge seems to work great on propane, 120 volt AC and also on the 12 Volt DC. However, while driving about 450 miles and having the fridge on 12 Volt DC, and it was fairly sunny for my 160W solar panel, the E19 batteries dropped down to 33% capacity at the end of the trip. There was minimal idle time. I thought the tow vehicle was supposed to charge the batteries while keeping the fridge going well, let alone getting help from the solar panel. Is something wrong or is a tow vehicle a weak battery charger? thanks.

[HABBERDABBER]

The wires from the tow vehicle to your battery are too small in size to provide adequate charge to your battery. 12V refrig operation sucks up lots of juice. Unless you rewire with robust wires from your alternator to your battery, don’t use the 12V for refrigerator. Propane operation has worked fine for me,

[John in Santa Cruz]

yeah, the fridge is drawing something like 7 amps, maybe more, and that drags the DC voltage down when runnin gthrough the truck internal wiring, the 7 blade connector, the trailer internal wiring to the battery, so even if the truck alternator is outputting 14.4V or whatever, at the trailer battery, its seeing less than 12.6V, so the fridge sucks it down.

now, I switched to a DC compressor fridge, that intermittently draws like 2-3 amps, and my 360W of solar and 412AH of lithium batteries easily keep up with it.

[TahoeJoe]

Originally Posted by mapoos

Hi, my fridge seems to work great on propane, 120 volt AC and also on the 12 Volt DC. However, while driving about 450 miles and having the fridge on 12 Volt DC, and it was fairly sunny for my 160W solar panel, the E19 batteries dropped down to 33% capacity at the end of the trip. There was minimal idle time. I thought the tow vehicle was supposed to charge the batteries while keeping the fridge going well, let alone getting help from the solar panel. Is something wrong or is a tow vehicle a weak battery charger? thanks.

Simple fix: use it on propane while driving and not DC!

[HABBERDABBER]

Originally Posted by TahoeJoe

Simple fix: use it on propane while driving and not DC!

Yup. That will do it just fine.