Solar or Lithium Battery for Brass Monkey Fridge Freezer

dandandan on 26/02/2025 - 18:42

Hi,

I have 3 Brass Monkey portable fridges, a 62l fridge or freezer, a 15l fridge or freezer and a 35l dual zone fridge freezer. I have two of the 15.6Ah Brass Monkey Removable Lithium Batteries, however looking at options for longer portable life, so either the solar blanket, with the Brass Monkey one selling for $199 or a larger capacity lithium battery, where I see deals get posted for these all the time on OZBargain. I am wondering if anyone has experience with a cheaper solar blanket for the Brass Monkey's or what type of larger batteries others may use with one and how they connect them up etc. Thanks for any comments in advance.

Sports & Outdoors Battery Lithium Battery

Comments

  • Stevenw on 26/02/2025 - 21:09
    +2

    Value for money get a standard AGM deep cycle battery for about $100
    The Amp.hours capacity of a Brass monkey battery is a fraction of the deep cycle battery
    You can get a solar panel with inverter for the deep cycle battery for about $200

    • Malik Nasser on 26/02/2025 - 21:51
      +3

      LiFePo4 are way better than AGM for this application. Some quick points are covered here.

      • dandandan on 26/02/2025 - 22:45

        Thanks both. I was looking at AGM and then saw some posts on Gentrax LiFePo4 12V 100 Ah for ~$170. Obviously LiFePo4 will be more expensive. To complete the setup I would need a battery box, $120 on ebay for the HardKorr copy and then a lithium charger which is another ~$200. I would also need a solar panel still and could top it off with a Renegy battery monitor ~$90. The setup will probably cost me more than the 3 Brass Monkey combined!, however could be quite useful for a number of other things.

  • yoho on 26/02/2025 - 21:19
    +1

    for your 15L fridge, if you wanted a portable solution I have run my (15L Kings) from a Ozito battery (with a dc-dc converter on it). Seems to work well. I figure it would do a few hours from a 4AH, so OK for a picnic but that s about it.

    • dandandan on 26/02/2025 - 22:45

      Thanks will take look at this, as I have a few Ryobi batteries.

  • tamckinnon on 26/02/2025 - 22:14
    +1

    why not both?

    Something like this + solar panel

    https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/125800520150

  • techno2000 on 27/02/2025 - 10:07
    +1

    Get the 36Ah Kings Lifepo4 portable power pack.
    Prices go up and down daily.
    Can get it for as low as $250 after using ebay codes and giftcards

    https://www.4wdsupacentre.com.au/36ah-lithium-portable-power…

  • Euphemistic on 27/02/2025 - 14:29
    +2

    What sort of 'portable life' are you talking about? How do you run them etc? All at once? Is it a freezer or only fridge? Full or empty? Do you know how much power they draw? You really haven't provided enough info to give an informed answer.

    While i dont need to know the answers, id aim to run them off solar with enough battery capacity for a day or two. Measure or calculate how much power they consume on average. Do some sums to determine how much solar and battery you need. Hint: more solar is cheaper than more battery.

    Recent camping trip one teen put his fridge on freeze mode, had it relatively empty of non frozen foods and wondered why his battery didnt last. It was because the fridge was working overtime to try to freeze the air and the stuff. If his fridge was full of pre- frozen goods it would have used a small fraction of as much power. His mate had a fridge full of cold drinks on fridge mods and the battery lasted really well.

    We plugged his fridge to our powered site, added a fair bit of our frozen foods (our fridge was on the fritz too) and it held temperature well.

    • dandandan on 27/02/2025 - 21:37

      I suppose it would be for the 62l or 35l one. For example, I took the 35l one on a boat fishing last week and the 2 batteries just lasted for the 6.5 hrs on the boat. The 35l was pre-cooled to -18c for the freezer and 2c for fridge before leaving, with cold items put in as well, so nothing hot went in, which is my usual practice and was kept running on the car battery while driving to the boat. I was thinking before the day that a solar panel would have been great, turns out the day was perfect for it, however the conditions may not always be great for solar.

      I am thinking of getting a second hand boat now, so I suppose the 62l or 35l being able to last the whole day on a boat might be the answer for how long I want one to run for. It taking to kids sport etc the current batteries are fine. Maybe I get a battery box with 100Ah/200Ah LiFePo4 and solar panel so I could run both the 62l and 35l all day if I wanted. I will have to do some calcs.

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