Suaoki power pack problem recharging from van

[Kaylee]

Thanks Sternwake!

First & foremost, fridge/icemaker is purely theoretical, because those two 6k$ engine repairs mean I'm even stressing over the $14 inverter.
Your thoughts on that inverter are welcome.

I didn't stress over the cost of the universal laptop charger, cuz it's a necessity.
I suspect Creating Code is to me, as Surfing is to you.

Food cooling (in theory only)...
My cooler is relatively small.
I put the ice into two large fast food soda cups, which eliminate the water-pooling-at-the-bottom issue.
Was very pleased how well that worked, the first time I tried it.
I have a separate container for storing the melted-water-from-ice, for later reuse.

So far, I've been using it mostly for a few hardy items like cheese, plus short term fragile items.
When I do a town run, I'll just buy a few cold items (frozen morale food, milk, etc) and refill my ice cups at a gas station or fast food place.
I eat the cold items fairly quickly (~2 days).

If I had an icemaker, I'd only make two large cups worth, every couple of days, which feels manageable.
It would be handy so I could open multi serving canned goods, without stressing over it going bad.
Examples: diced tomatoes, corned beef hash.

I'm getting by ok, as is. Remember: I'm the queen of shelf stable foods.
This is purely luxury stuff.
I like planning tons in advance, and it may be years before I can afford any such things.
I accept the limitations, and enjoy working within/around them.

[Snikwahjm]

Freeze 2 big 1 gallon jugs of ice. Then alternate them freezer to cooler every morning. That said mine runs a lot more on freezer mode than of fridge mode. I don’t know how the solar would do like that.

[Kaylee]

If I had a freezer, um... ???

Reminder:
I'm doing pure dispersed camping.
I have no homebase.

So far, I've found it's easy to get a couple of cups worth of ice, if one asks.
I'm mostly way out, nowhere near town, and can't afford the time&gas to pop into town regularly.
My cooler's capacity is 20 quarts. Yes, it's small.

I'm eating a lot of eggs (which don't need refrigeration), cheese, SPAM, and lots of shelf stable food.
I'm fine with that.

[sternwake]

My thoughts are largely immaterial about that inverter, as I have not used/owned or tested that model.  I don't like giving opinions on products i have no experience with, just as I do not put any weight into reviews written by those that have no experience with a method/product, and are just parrotting what they read and perhaps misunderstood, which was perhaps originally written by somebody with an incomplete understanding.


That ciggy plug design shown in the pics, if it is similar to the ones I have had and used in the past, is one of the better designs, but much depends on just how much force those ground spring contacts on the side are exerting against the  walls of the receptacle, and the spring pressure of the nipple tip+ against that contact in the back of the receptacle.

The inverter might be good at providing 150 watts all day long, but that ciggy plug, and likely the receptacle it feeds into, cannot handle that much current continuously.  Take that 150 watt rating with a large grain of salt as long as that ciggy plug is in between battery and inverter.

That particular ciggy plug design, if one unscrews the nipple tip, should have a fuse inside of it.  But a fuse and its mating surfaces are added electrical resistance which heat up and will melt the plastic, given enough time passing higher currents.  Some manufacturers, knowing of these issues, either eliminate the fuse entirely, or they will actually solder the glass tube fuse to eliminate some resistive heating.

While one would think the fuse would blow before the plastic melts, this has almost never occured in the many failures of ciggy plugs I experienced ~15 years ago, before I realized just how craptastic the ciggy plug and receptacle are when asked to pass 60+watts continuously, often, and stopped using them.

If you can cut off the ciggy plug and wire it right to your fuse block, it will increase its ability to provide that 150 watt rating longevity wise, and be slightly more efficient, as it is not heating all the connections inside the ciggy plug. The higher the DC voltage the inverter receives, the more efficient it will be in the conversion to 115vAC . So simply hardwiring the inverter to the fuse block can increase its efficiency by a few percentage points as it will receive higher DC voltage.

It is also stressful on electrical components inside of the inverter, when there is an intermittent or poor electrical connection, so eliminating the ciggy plug can greatly increase the expected lifespan of the inverter. If The inverter also losing its connection to the battery and shutting off, it is stressing whatever the inverter is powering too.
  Equate this to flipping a light switch on and off as much as possible until the light blows, compared to if it were just left on.  The stress is  cumulative, and best eliminated.

My thoughts on inverters in general is they are a necessary evil, best avoided if possible, as opposed to being seen as the cure all for running household AC appliaces on DC battery power.  I've not bothered to replace my failed 400 watt PSW Wagan Elite Inverter.  My 800 watt coleman inverter, from 2003 or 2004 still works. I last used it to power my buckethead shopvac vaccuum,  4.5 amps x 115vac = 517 watts.  517 watts divided by 12.2vDC  = 42.41 amps + 15% for inverter inefficiency( 6.36 amps) for  48.77 amp total load on the battery.

This 517 watt buckethead vaccuum also worked on my 400 PSW watt inverter, which perhaps contributed to its premature demise.   These buckethead vaccum fit atop any 5 gallon bucket and are under 22$ at Home Despot. I use mine on a 3.5 gallon bucket in my workshop way more often than the full size 14 amp model.  It is quite powerful.

As far as recharging AA and AAA batteries, I employ a Nitecore i4 v2 charger, which does most every size of lithium cell, 14500 and 18650 being the two sizes I use. It also does NIMH AA and AAA batteries, and can be run directly off of 12vDC.  No inverter needed.

https://www.amazon.com/Nitecore-Intellicharge-Universal-Channel-Charger/dp/B007URMD4C/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=nitecore+charger+i4&qid=1558575167&s=gateway&sr=8-7

They have a newer better version only slightly more expensive.

[Blacktank]

i hate ciggy plug,have all my life,remember being a kid and have to wedge and grind them to make connection,in fact when i bought my fan used i went to the car and plugged it in and it didnt work,remembered ciggy plug,ground it in and it came alive and then immediately cut the ciggy plug off and added anderson power poles

no idea why those things are still made

[GypsyDogs]

no idea why those things are still made

for the same reason they have to put warnings that your hot coffee "May be Hot" and tags on hair dryers "Do not use while bathing"


***
for some weird reason society feels compelled to protect the lowest common denominator from weeding itself out of the gene pool..  LOL

[sternwake]

The 12v ciggy plug and receptacle/ powerport, is not going anywhere. Been too much of a standard for too long.

Does not mean we have to use them. They can be fine for low wattage items. 60 watts is the absolute limit I will use them for. I still have 7 receptacles, and use 2 of them, one to power a LED light, the other a fan which can go as high as 40 watts.

On the topic of ice in a cooler, My IR temp gun aimed at food in the partially submerged wastebasket with foods i wanted to keep away from icewater,, which still had plenty of ice in it well over 40f.
40 or 41F is said to be the maximum allowable refrigeration temperature. Obviously some foods are better than others in ths regard. Just don't assume that if there is ice, everything within the cooler is 32f and perfectly safe.

This seems to be a common misconception regarding coolers and ice, that it is 32f until the ice melts. Actual data with accurate tools will easily disprove this misconception. Whether it is an issue in one's personal usage is of course debatable. I never got sick from food when I was the in block ice and cooler mode, but I certainly had to throw away food prematurely as it dd not pass the sniff test, or was in general suspect, or contaminated with cooler water.

[Kaylee]

partially submerged wastebasket with foods i wanted to keep away from icewater

Wow, now that is Guru level hackery!
A wastebasket hadn't occurred to me!

I still prefer my two ice cups, but I'm also all-but-certain that I'm getting warmer than 40F, and am careful not to use anything likely to cause problems.


Picked up my inverter today (as mentioned above).
For far future visitors, had the nifty idea to try this with a crockpot/slowcooker, and spun that out into a separate thread:
https://vandwellerforum.com/showthread.php?tid=2897

As I mentioned there, I've been trying out the wee inverter, most recently (2 hours ago) with my Suaoki power pack.
It has not (yet) exploded.
Nor has it even got warm.

The power pack is charging up nicely (obviously far better than the zero charge produced by the Suaoki car charger), and much faster than with my 60 watt Suaoki folding panels when used inside on my front dash.
My solar system's BlueSky display is now showing 97%, so it's definitely putting more strain on the system. Note that I plugged the Suaoki in at 5:40pm, so it's had much weaker solar.

Probably tomorrow or Thursday I'll be checking out those thrift stores for a slowcooker/crockpot to play with.
That will really stress test it!


Questions:
At what percent level should I be concerned?
For example, is it no big issue if it almost never goes below the high 90s%, particularly if the next day is expected to be sunny?

My plan is to only stress it during the middle of sunny days.