Update SunDanzer 12 vt freezer

Hi All;
Just an update on the SunDanzer 13.9' chest freezer. I have had it almost 6 months now. Lives outside in the 90 year old barn.
Best purchase ever!  
I have 600 watts of solar panels I bought , on hand to supply the Sundanzer... Eventually I will install part of them but, NO RUSH! I hardly need them!
This freezer sips power! So little I hardly notice!
I have it stand alone , with its own pair of t-105 6 volt battery's.
I have a small high frequency trickle charger that I have plugged into the house power. We shut off the power every night.
I literally can't notice it using power.
The freezer has 5 settings on it. I have it set on #2,  Steady 8-9 F mid way up the freezer!

I delayed literally 20 years before buying this.... The old should have ,would have , could have...
If my Diamond brand Amish made 17' propane fridge/freezer ever decides to break... (had it 15 years now...) I will replace it with a SunDanzer 12 volt refrigerator!
They are that good!      So is the Diamond brand propane if you don't have good solar.  

I heard they are really expensive and with the price of solar going down for refrigeration it does make me wonder if I should go the route of taking an ac chest freezer and one of those over-control devices to turn it into a chest refrigerator.  I have to weigh the cost of upsizing solar and using ac appliances over these 12 volt solar or lpg alternatives.

Maybe sundanzers will eventually lower pricing as I have been wanting one for a while.

Thomas Rubino: Cool!
I'm curious, how much wattage does it pull a day?
And what are the bricks on the lid for?

Here is a link to the SunDanzer site with all the spec's.  https://sundanzer.com/product/dcf390/

I knew some observant soul would ask about the bricks...
I happen to have a good supply of heavy firebricks on hand...
Our old freezer had a warped lid and needed bricks on top...
Old habits die hard... only takes a moment to move them ...

I have not checked power usage myself.  It's too little.
Spec sheet says, an  ave. 800 watts a day @ 32C or around 90F
Or 67 amp hrs a day 12 vt @ 32 C

If you wanted, I could plug my kill a watt meter into the battery charger and see how much 110 vt I'm using to keep the 105's charged up.

thomas rubino wrote:

If you wanted, I could plug my kill a watt meter into the battery charger and see how much 110 vt I'm using to keep the 105's charged up.

Would you please? A 24 hour reading would make me very happy :)

Hi Denny;
Yes, the initial cost is high. That is why I delayed as long as I did. I wish I had not waited!
As far as A/C freezers. I did a lot of comparing and looking at spec sheets.

This freezer has almost 4" of insulation on all sides. 98% of A/C freezers  DO NOT say... only how great and "Energy Star" efficient they are...
I found one comparable A/C freezer , 4" of insulation, slightly smaller than the SunDanzer.... it was $2200 plus delivery... makes the SunDanzer at $1600 much more reasonable.

Anyone who has concerns about the power going out and thawing their thinly insulated A/C freezer, just might consider having this battery powered beauty in the barn, happily keeping the ice cream frozen!

For anyone else interested in the numbers...
Thomas's freezer used .18 KWH in 12 hours (he powers it down at night.) off his solar.
My freezer, similar size, old, used, with 2.5 inches of foam insulation added on all sides (held on with a camo ratchet strap, I'm so stylish!) in 22 hours used 2.08 KWH off the grid.

So was the price of his freezer high? Doing the math off that data, I'm probably buying one at some point. It's WAY cheaper.

:D

To clarify  for folks.  
Pearl's stylish freezer is connected to her house power.  Her number is a true reading of running power use.
My boring white freezer is running off of the 2 six volt battery's in series. The power use reading at my house is on the high frequency trickle charger keeping my battery's full.
I have 600 watts of solar panels I purchased to supply this freezer. The manufacturer suggested 270 watts was sufficient.
I never suspected that simply hooking up an efficient charger would do the job with my existing power system!

New update on my Sundanzer.
We have had this over a year now and could not be happier!  
I still have not put up the new solar panels! There is no rush, as this thing sips power!
My two T-105 six volt battery's do not even know they are working!

We are so happy, that this week after receiving our stimulus check .
We decided that one 12 vt freezer was just  not enough.
I went on line to buy a second.  Right away I noticed the price was up 50-100$.  Oh well its well worth it to us.
And then I discover that the factory is out of stock ! Puck! And then they tell me it will be 6-8 months before they have replacements ! Double Puck!

Sigh... I guess we will still want one in the fall.

I Highly recommend these to everyone!  Especially the folks with grid power !  Imagine if those folks in Texas had one of these in their barn when the power went down for so long...
On that line of thinking.
Imagine if they had built a RMH ???  Warm and with frozen food... all without power... who would have thought?