We’re going to let you in on a bit of an industry secret, which many 4WDers and tradies have stumbled across. The simple fact is that if you are looking at running a 12v car fridge in your camping setup that if you shop anywhere other the 4WD Supacentre you are probably paying way too much. When looking back 30 years there was a serious descrepancy between ‘entry level’ and ‘pro grade’ but with advances in technology, many of the leading brands share internal components with the range of fridges from the Adventure Kings Range!

The range of Adventure Kings portable fridges that are on offer at 4WD Supacentre are some of the best value refrigeration systems on the market and are so energy efficient they can be run from your cars 12v system!

Even with the tremendous energy efficiency that you can get from using one of these fridges from 4WD Supacentre, they will still eventually run your starter battery dry when setup at camp for extended periods of time, this is why 4WD Supacentre and Adventure Kings offer one of the best ranges of 12v gear in the country.

So we’ve put together a bit of a how to guide which should show how anyone can easily install a complete 12v system in their car, van, 4×4, boat or caravan at home in the drive or in the garage. That will let you keep your fridge turned on basically all the time! No matter whether you drive every day or set up camp for a week at a time!

Let’s look at an ideal setup;

START WITH THE RIGHT BATTERIES
For the perfect setup you will absolutely need at least one auxiliary deep-cycle battery to run your fridge and 12v accessories this is because if you run it off your starter battery, you risk draining the battery too flat and not being able to start the engine again.

But what does Deep Cycle mean and why, do you need one of these special batteries? Car batteries (your standard starter “crank” battery) in particular can be sensitive to being drained of current below a particular safe level, and if drained below around 12v can have long term irreparable damage done. This is where the name “DEEP CYCLE” comes from. Being able to withstand a deeper drain cycle, they tend to have a much larger “usable” capacity.

The Adventure Kings AGM deep-cycle batteries use an absorbent glass matting (AGM) to hold the batteries electrolytes to prevent the electrolyte from overheating and “gassing off” or sulphating from occurring on the lead core!  These clever deep cycle batteries are available in both 98 amp-hour and 115 amp-hour sizes.

What size do you need? Many people camping overnight find the Adventure Kings 98 amp-hour battery to be plenty. But we’re talking the hypothetical ultimate 12v setup here so we’re going to start with two of the 115Ah AGM deep-cycle batteries, and wire them in parallel, with the positive terminals connected together and the negative terminals connected together. This will give you an insane battery bank of 230Ah! Considering the Adventure Kings Fridge Freezers use around 1-2A average per hour at their absolute most, that gives you almost 5 days of running time without putting any additional charge into the batteries at all, and you will still be able to crank your motor over!

12V BATTERY CHARGER

Because we’re now running a huge battery bank, you need some serious charging capability. 4WD Supacentre stock and have a price-match guarantee on a huge range of the unreal and supa high tech CTEK 12v and 240v battery chargers. In this scenario, we’d run the CTEK D250SA DC-DC charger, and pair it with the CTEK Smartpass120 which can massively boost the charging capacity of your 12v system – up to an incredible 120 amps! That means that even on short drives, you’ll be hammering heaps of juice back into your batteries, and from almost dead flat it’ll take you about two hours of driving to completely fill the batteries again. That’s blisteringly fast!

SOLAR FOR CONSISTANT CHARGING
Whenever you’re not driving your car or 4WD, your batteries can still be charging if you add an Adventure Kings 110W mounted solar panel to your electrical system and wire it, so that it is permanently connected (or via an Anderson style plug so you can add a series of panels).

You can easily fit one of these 110W Solar Kits to your steel roof racks to suit most vehicles, and you’ve got a place that you can permanently mount your solar panel. Or if you want the ability to chase the sun with your panel for more charging ability you can grab one of our 250W Folding Solar Panels and bypass the integrated regulator and plug straight into your D250SA because this device has its own in-built solar regulator.

‘did you know’– the D250SA can cleverly handle multiple types of input charge at the same time this means whilst you’re driving down the highway, it’ll be taking the power from your alternator, supercharging it and directing it to your auxiliary batteries – and at the same time, it’ll also be harnessing the power coming from your solar panels and putting that into your deep-cycle batteries too!

PACK A 240V CHARGER FOR PIECE OF MIND

This next bit of gear is perfect for tradies who spend long days on job-sites, those who camp at powered campsites or those who don’t drive their car or 4×4 every day. Permanently connecting a 240v charger like the CTEK M200 or M300 battery chargers allows you to top up your batteries any time they start to run a little low. This means wherever there’s a power-point you can be assured that within a couple of hours, your batteries will be full back up to the brim again, even on hot days with the fridge running all day.

VERSATILITY

The benefits to hooking yourself up with an EPIC 12V battery bank system like this setup, is for more versatility than just running a 12v Fridge/Freezer. With a 12v system like this you will be able to plug in all of your 12v accessories such as a full suite of 12v LED Campsite Lighting, by connecting up an Illuminator 4 Bar Camp Light Bar Kit, you can also connect to the waterproof connectors an Illuminator Complete 5 Bar Camp Light Kit for an absolutely intense LED camp lighting, without forgetting the versatility of the Adventure Kings Orange LED Light Bars to keep insects and creepy crawlies away from camp!  Along with keeping iPads, laptops, mobile phones and all other 12v accessories to keep your whole campsite happy and stress free!

SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE!
With these simple tips you have the ultimate fail safe electrical system that you can add to any car, van, boat or 4WD that’ll let you run your portable fridge pretty much permanently and all the major components listed above are available from 4WD Supacentre! Just add in a bit of wiring and a couple of lazy afternoons in the shed, the driveway or a quick day visit to your local auto electrician’s, and you’re good to go!

Don’t forgot that 4WD Supacentre have a price-match guarantee on all of the CTEK gear that we stock. If you find a better price anywhere, we’ll match it! Terms and conditions apply, please see https://www.4wdsupacentre.com.au/terms#ctek for details.