I have an ICECO fridge with the option to power it by 12v DC or 110v AC. Is there a preferred way to power the cooler? Will the battery last longer longer with one connection over the other?
You will most likely have to test both methods. The AC200P uses a significant amount of electrical power while on and using the DC output converting the 58 volt battery voltage to 12 volt output. This consumes power while being on so the advantage of using the DC vs AC power is somewhat less existent than in other smaller units. To be sure in your case I would perform the same experiment both ways and report back your findings.
Thank you for your thoughts. I will test both ways to see if there is a noticeable difference.
I have a iceco cooler 54qt I think. Once I got down to about 37 it hardly ever kicks on. I think it would make it a week on 1 charge in the 12v socket with my ac200p. I did by the brick for it as well but have not used it.
The AC200 is still consuming power while on and in DC mode even if the fridge is not running at the time. This is what will consume the battery.
In my experience so far, if an appliance can be run on either DC or AC, it will be more efficient on DC.
The problem with the fridge in this case is that while the fridge is off and the compressor not running, you still have the overhead of the dc voltage conversion running at all times. Since the DC fridge consumes a small amount of power per hours, the DC overhead of the AC200 is a high percentage of the total power consumed each hour.