How to keep 12v outlet powered 24-7?

When I get my roady in a year or two me and my friend are taking a long road trip and we are towing his camper. I am a type 1 diabetic and I need a way to keep the 12v outlet in my future car powered 24-7 to keep a small fridge running to protect my insulin supplies and our food. Would I attach a battery mantainer/trickle charger to the battery overnight and plug it in to keep the battery from running down as the fridge runs in the car overnight? Finding an outlet to power the battery maintainer will be no problem because we can find an outlet at a rest stop or something (and he's packing a 100-foot extension cord for this very reason).

Your imaginary outlet is already powered 24-7 on these cars.

Damn... took the bait again!

Lol but seriously will my crazy battery maintainer idea work?

Nevermind I figured out a solution. I'm going to get an onboard maintainer and get a waterproof plug inlet and put that in the front bumper or wheel well and I'm putting an extension cord in the trunk.

In that situation I'd probably opt for a separate battery and inverter for the fridge that's charged by the car when it's running. They make isolators for that sort of thing, it's no big deal. Also I would imagine a fridge that's designed to run on 12V would be more efficient than running an AC powered one via an inverter. I'm sure there are dual-voltage RV fridges out there, or maybe one of those 12V peltier-style camping coolers would do the trick.

lamune wrote:

In that situation I'd probably opt for a separate battery and inverter for the fridge that's charged by the car when it's running. They make isolators for that sort of thing, it's no big deal. Also I would imagine a fridge that's designed to run on 12V would be more efficient than running an AC powered one via an inverter. I'm sure there are dual-voltage RV fridges out there, or maybe one of those 12V peltier-style camping coolers would do the trick.

Oh I forgot to mention we're using a 12-volt fridge, the Powerchill 40-quart. Should've put that in my first post oops.

That's good. You need to see what the power draw of the fridge is, and then size your battery appropriately. The devil is in the details however- and I'm assuming we're talking about lead-acid batteries. If the unit is small and draws really low power, you may be able to just get away with a cigarette lighter cord. If not the separate isolated battery may be the way to go.

Is there a spot in the 95-96 roadmaster engine bay to mount a second battery?

you could move the computer and air cleaner and put battery in the drivers side just like the pass side. you could put air cleaner right on the mass air meter like raiss does and the computer move it up on the wheel well