Running a domestic chest freezer!

[XTR]

Almost every time we make a trip to the UK we haul along our chest freezer (it's not that huge) and plug it into the mains in my mum's garage,then when we are ready to come home everything is frozen nicely and it usually stays that way until we get home to Belgium.
Mum lives 30 mins from the tunnel at Folkestone and then it's nearly 3hrs to home from Calais.

I say lives,she died suddenly last October from cancer,so we now have a bit further to go,to Felixstowe,where my brother lives.

So,I decided to look into running the freezer off an inverter.
The first thing to do was see what amp/wattage the freezer was,turns out to be 150w,so I purchased a 300w inverter to err on the side of caution.
Next was to run some heavy cable (I used motorcycle battery cable) from the battery,around the back of the bulkhead,underneath the car and into the boot.The cables are protected with convoluted conduit and ran seperately and secured along the brake pipes.
The side panel in the boot was removed and the inverter was connected.


Did it work? Yes it did,even the milk was almost frozen when we got home!

[ffrenchie]

Is it because you get better horse meat here than in Belgium ?

[XTR]

Is it because you get better horse meat here than in Belgium ?

Not quite,there are many things you can't get in Belgium.
Mind you,meat is something we usually buy from a local butcher in Whitstable,it's much cheaper and of a higher quality than we get here in Belgium.
And I don't eat horse meat,not knowingly anyway

[Fletch]

I'm surprised a 300w inverter would start a fridge compressor. Compressors can take up to 6 times their running current during the first second of starting. They have a seperate start winding that is brought in by a relay. Look up 'split-phase motor' on wiki

It will be having a hard life