this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2024
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Watt hours are watt hours. Sure the compressor won't run on 12 volts as is but the energy is there, just needs a converter.
Fwiw, our 15 year old fridge uses around 1000Wh per day.
That's a big joule thief
Sure, buy an inverter and burn up 10% of your energy in the conversion if you're lucky. That inverter will cost roughly as much as the contents of a standard fridge + freezer, by the way :)
At that point just buy a well insulated cooler and always have some ice on hand. It'll last much longer.
3500 watt inverter is 300 dollars at a Flying J. Mines 7 years old and was used 5 years straight when I was a trucker, as I removed the 12v factory fridge that could kill 4 batteries over night, with a 110v fridge, I could safely leave food in all my days off and the truck would still start. Now it's hardwired to my pickup as a emergency generator and electric impact wrench power source. People laugh initially when they me pull out the impact and then ask what it cost. I also mounted a coffee maker behind the seat because gas station coffee is fucking garbage and its 4 hours to a major center
The question wasn't "Is it efficient or cheap", it was how much energy is in a battery, and if and for how long would it run a fridge. If you also want to add one more point to why you probably shouldn't do it, car starter batteries don't generally like to be deeply discharged, you'd want to get a marine battery for that use.
As for how much the inverter would cost, depends on the fridge, but Amazon has a 1000W inverter for around $85, that should be enough for most. Ours could run from a 300W one, they cost around $30. Pretty handy devices if you want to run any kinds of electronics from a car anyway, I have one for when I want to charge my laptop and RC batteries on the field.