If there’s been one 12-volt accessory that has made vehicle-based camping a hell of a lot easier, it’s the 12-volt fridge.
From the enduring Engels to the countless fridges now on the market, powered fridges make life a lot easier than the old eskies with ice. No more warm bevvies or smelly sausages because you ran out of frozen water.
Keeping your fridge powered when the car is not running requires a secondary power source, so that you don’t drain the car’s starting battery. This is best done with a dual-battery system, but these can be expensive and costly to set up. A cheaper and more versatile way to keep the power on is with a lithium power pack, and here we’re trying out the Rover Lithium Power Station from Companion.
The Companion Rover Li uses a 70Ah, 850Wh LI-NMC (lithium, nickel, manganese, cobalt oxide) battery as its power source. The unit can be charged in three different ways: by plugging it into a 240-volt household power point, from a 12-volt socket in your car while the car is running, or via a solar panel using the Anderson plug adaptor. Cords for the AC and DC charges are included with the Rover, as is an adaptor for the solar-input Anderson plug, but you’ll need to supply your own solar panels.
It’s not just a fridge that you might want power for when out on the road, so the Rover Li Power Station gives the users plenty of power outputs. There’s a 10A 12V ciggie-style plug, a 10A 12V two-pin style outlet, four USB outlets and a USB-C outlet. There should be something there for all your power needs and each outlet is individually switched.
Another use would be if you want to take your fridge away from the car to where you want your cold drinks handy; just plug it into the Rover Li Power Station and keep them close at hand.
The Power Station case even has an LED light for night-time use, and the LCD screen gives clear indications of the status of the unit and how much charge it has on board.
Power on demand
For this test, we were away for a weekend in a new Hilux, and while our car fridge worked well when we were driving it would have drained the Hilux’s battery if it was left on overnight. So, once we arrived at camp and switched the Hilux off, we transferred the fridge’s power source to the Rover Li Power Station and kept it monitored throughout the evening.
Of course, the fact that the contents of the fridge were already down to temperature helps a lot here, as the fridge, set to 2°C, was not working hard to pull the temp down.
It was also a cool night, but the car had sat in the sun for a few hours in the afternoon with the fridge running off the Power Station, and the next morning the Power Station had only dropped to 71 per cent power capacity. The fridge was still down at 2°C and the bacon was fresh and ready to cook for breakfast. While breakfast was cooking, I plugged in my LED head torch to one of the USB ports for a recharge as well.
“The Rover Li Power Station did everything we needed on this trip and we’ll certainly be taking it with us on future adventures”
I made sure the Power Station was charged to 100 per cent from the wall socket at home before I set off at the start of the trip. On the next day of the trip I plugged it into the Hilux’s 12-volt power outlet to up the charge lost overnight and found it was much slower to charge here than it was on 240V. After six hours of driving, it was not quite back up to 100 per cent charge, but 99 per cent was pretty close.
We’re keen to plug a solar panel to the Power Station to see how well that charges, if we are staying in camp for longer. The Power Station has its own in-built MPPT controller so it takes its solar input direct, not through any regulator. It provides charging at 12amp and Companion claims that a 200W solar panel should charge the unit in nine to 12 hours, depending on the weather.
If I had to find a negative with the product, it is that the unit doesn’t have anywhere to store the various power cords, so they can easily be misplaced.
However, the Rover Li Power Station did everything we needed on this trip and we’ll certainly be taking it with us on future adventures to see how many ways we can use it.
Available from: companionoutdoor.com/rover-lithium-70ah-power-station
RRP: $1470, but currently selling for $999
Keyword: Companion Rover Lithium Power Station tested