Checkout this Awesome Fridge

Muk said:

Send a photo of your fridge doofie cheers Muk.

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There is a link back at the start of the thread.

Cheers

Doug

Thanks Doug cheers Muk.

they do look like a neat setup, but with no current support in Au for them its a bit of a gamble.
Im going down the path of; my regular ARB fridge that Ive fitted a 50A Anderson plug to the cord, with a portable battery box, Lithium battery, solar/lithium battery charger, & a foldup solar blanket. Bit more universal & adaptable to other uses that way.

Hi Guys,

So I made a decision, time to get a freezer.

Criteria:
1. Must be between 40 and 60 odd liters
2. Must be able to work well in ambient 30-40
3. Must be able to work well while still driving
4. Must not be to rough on da Amps
5. Must be able to actually freeze items
6. Must be easily operatable
7. Easy to carry thus mobility important
8. Can run off cars battery and dont need a special dual battery system with Solar (can switch it off during night time)
9. Must be VALUE for money
10. Must be durable
11. Must be servicable in SA, and parts not an issue
12. Must be well priced, not more than 6k ideally, but lets see what you think.

Okay just some quick points there, but essentially this is not going to be used everyday, weekend or even month. This is something that will be used on very special camping occasions, like River Trip, Gariep, etc. Weekend away at least.

So what do you think, honest oppinion, weighted according to mostly price as well cause there is NO way I am paying 8k for something no matter how good it is, If you cant afford a G Wagon, you can just as well stop telling me how great it is.

Okay fire away.

What fridge have you been looking at that costs 6-8k???

point 8 is going to cause you some grief, unless you plan on keeping the car running through out the day while parked up.

Dilau, there's a few good fridge/freezers between $1000-2000, & some under the $1k are getting good reviews too.
just Google 12v fridge freezer in Australia. there are plenty available to choose from. The 3 top brands are usually accepted as ARB, Waeco & Engel.
A note on what MT said above on point 8; it can be a concern, but I successfully ran my fridge off a 'Dual Purpose' crank/deep cycle main battery until I fitted my Aux system, but, I never let it run more than 4hrs without running the engine for 10-15mins, and I always turned it off at night. I never flattened that battery. One trick is to chill your fridge at home on 240V before putting it in the car for an outing.
.
edit, add a note, its worth carrying a jump-start pack when you do it this way ... just in case!

Why not just get a 60 lt Engel ($2000) and then you can spend a bit on solar and extra battery and you should have $3000 left over.

Cheers

Doug

going full circle back to the original post about the Deltacron battery/solar run fridge, I was keen on the idea & contemplating if it would be worth getting one sent over, but I have since found that with an extension cord from my Aux battery, & the additional fold-out solar mat, so 2 panels keeping the battery topped up, that I have my needs covered.

Ded Driver said:

going full circle back to the original post about the Deltacron battery/solar run fridge, I was keen on the idea & contemplating if it would be worth getting one sent over, but I have since found that with an extension cord from my Aux battery, & the additional fold-out solar mat, so 2 panels keeping the battery topped up, that I have my needs covered.

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DD You have just made my day, did research on this company, Great ideas on what young engineers are trying to do

Ward69 said:

Ded Driver said:

going full circle back to the original post about the Deltacron battery/solar run fridge, I was keen on the idea & contemplating if it would be worth getting one sent over, but I have since found that with an extension cord from my Aux battery, & the additional fold-out solar mat, so 2 panels keeping the battery topped up, that I have my needs covered.

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DD You have just made my day, did research on this company, Great ideas on what young engineers are trying to do

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yeah I did a bit of a background check too, & like what they are doing. :Y:

Speaking of fridges...has anyone heard from Ridge Runner lately?

I hope pommyland wasnt hit by some sort of earth tremor and hes been buried under a pile of fridges, thermoses, tyre pumps, tyre gauges and winches.

I was wondering that yesty! maybe hes gone to hibernate for the winter :cloudy: :zzz:

He spoke about a possible Tree change thingie a while ago... He also has a Heart Condition that is very serious.......

Hope ARB hasn't sent in their Hit-men... And all is ok.....

LW....

madtuna said:

Speaking of fridges...has anyone heard from Ridge Runner lately?

I hope pommyland wasnt hit by some sort of earth tremor and hes been buried under a pile of fridges, thermoses, tyre pumps, tyre gauges and winches.

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His last visit was yesterday.
Probably just taking a break .

I'm still around Guy's,

I been messing around with some of my toys, I gave away that Snomaster fridge on the weekend, Glad to have it gone, flaming Guts of a thing eats about the same power as the ARB 47 and the 78 use combined and the 78L has a slightly bigger compressor than the snomasters have, Fast, Yes, and it will drop 1 to 2*c per minute maybe more but that comes at a price that being the battery, So it needs a 150w+ solar hookup 24/7, Nice size being a 35L and only weighed 19kgs empty, If and when I get a smaller one it will be the ARB 35,

But to be honest there are only 2 things that stand out with the 2 Snomasters I bought 1 is the speed they cool down at and 2 The Lid seals on the Stainless models is as good as you will get, Apart from that because of the nature of what we do with extended trips away There is No way would I recommend them even to my worst enemy, Remembering that I tested these out in a cool Climate so heaven forbid how they would behave out in the bush, I know The Guy on YT uses them but he also runs a 150w panel and a DC to DC charger and he is driving for 100/300Ks per day So being parked up for a couple of weeks would cane ya batteries.

Been getting stuff ready for winter, It tried to Snow on me Twice in October so I ordered some long johns, they messed that up but it worked out in my favour in the end, I ordered 4 double packs of them which means I would of ended up with 8 pairs Tops /Bottoms, I ended up with 6 pairs plus 4 pairs of the Draws Lol. :8

I got in contact with them and they asked me what was missing so I told them 2 Tops because they had sent me 2 extra sets of draws So really I need 4 Tops, Again they got it wrong and sent me 4 Complete sets, So Now I got 10 sets plus 4 pairs of bottoms, So they ended up costing me about $2.50 a set :Y:

I am hoping to find a Troopy in the new year, Got some Irons in the fire to look forward to so fingers crossed Ay, :Y:

At the moment I got my 47L set at 2*c and in 29hrs 14.9 mins it has used 12.987Ah, So it's using 0.444Ah or 10.661Ah per 24 hours, and the Battery is reading 12.497v,

To be fair RR - what is the ambient temp? As I've mentioned before, on a 20C day and probably more in the 4x4, my fridge uses an average of 1AH per hour. At 40C it's pretty well on all the time at 3AH. I've also noted that when it's winter in Vic and night temps are near zero it doesn't run at all.

It's all relative, so, ambient affects current draw, as does, is there anything in the fridge acting as a heatsink?

Given the max temp in London today is only 7C, your figures might well be expected, but won't be relevant to Aussie summers.

condor22 said:

To be fair RR - what is the ambient temp? As I've mentioned before, on a 20C day and probably more in the 4x4, my fridge uses an average of 1AH per hour. At 40C it's pretty well on all the time at 3AH. I've also noted that when it's winter in Vic and night temps are near zero it doesn't run at all.

It's all relative, so, ambient affects current draw, as does, is there anything in the fridge acting as a heatsink?

Given the max temp in London today is only 7C, your figures might well be expected, but won't be relevant to Aussie summers.

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That's right, I got it in the house because the House fridge went nuts and started eating power so at the moment I am using it indoors where it is about 20*c, But it is using a 1/5th of the power on AC than the house fridge uses in the same Temp when it was working normally,

So that got me to thinking about battery drain, So I hooked it up to my Battery box just to see how it would fare,

It's not relevant to Aussie weather but it helps me pass the time while the weather is cold, Outside It was 3*c when I got up this morning. And at some point we have Snow on the way soon.

And another reason for the Test is I have noticed that 4x4 Fridges keep food and drinks fresher for longer than domestic fridges do, I noticed this by accident when I put some milk in there on the 14/10/19 and the stuff is still fresh, That's 30.5 days ago and 21.5 days after the use by date, It must be because the Cold drains to the bottom of the fridge where as in a house fridge the cold drops out the door every time you open it, So that impressed me a lot with how long the items stay fresh. And since I have been doing this test every thing seems to last longer.

RR, I watched an article on a current affair tv program a while ago about food poisoning from refrigerated food, & an issue with domestic upright fridges.
Especially with a family of children holding the door open, every time you open the fridge the cold air sinks/falls out, literally, & is replaced with room temperature air.
If the fridge is opened lots during the day (common in summer), then the air in the fridge hovers around an average just below room temp, but well above the 5deg or so minimum that it should be, thus allowing food to go off.
In comparison, a car fridge is a chest style that keeps most of the cold air in when it is opened.

Ded Driver said:

RR, I watched an article on a current affair tv program a while ago about food poisoning from refrigerated food, & an issue with domestic upright fridges.
Especially with a family of children holding the door open, every time you open the fridge the cold air sinks/falls out, literally, & is replaced with room temperature air.
If the fridge is opened lots during the day (common in summer), then the air in the fridge hovers around an average just below room temp, but well above the 5deg or so minimum that it should be, thus allowing food to go off.
In comparison, a car fridge is a chest style that keeps most of the cold air in when it is opened.

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Well I think you hit the nail on the head there,

with just me using the ARB in the same way as I did the house fridge on a daily basis The Milk lasts for weeks and Minced Beef would start to change colour after 2 or 3 days but in the ARB a week later it is still a Rosie Pink colour where as in the house fridge it would start to turn brown in around 2/3 days and stink in 4 days,

I tested the house fridge's Temps and it was working alright but the Door area would warm up and cool down anything up to 8 or 9*c +/- and in the freezer that would vary between -9 and -15.7*c and that's without opening it, the moment it was opened that seemed to rise and so food went off a lot quicker,

I bought that milk on the 14/10/19 and it's use by date was 23/10/19 and now its 14/11/19 and it is still fresh so there's a lot of truth in what you say,

This all started back in March where the house fridge people claim that it will use about 220kwh per year, Well that's rubbish even with just me using it and in a cool ambient temp of 16 to 21*c, It's about double that and I was throwing out food in the process, Yet it is working fine, So I plugged in the ARB and my Power Bill has nose dived, Which ended up in me having a feud with the power company where the turned 4 times in a month to read my meters and then they came and Photographed them to try and prove I was cheating or had bypassed the meters, LOL.

So the bottom line is I am saving money via the power and the food and Drinks are lasting months "Except the Beer" LOL and I am no longer throwing food out,

Regardless of the brand these results would apply to any 4x4 fridge and the savings this self powered fridge can make is huge, It having it's own matched built in system is another saving because you don't have to build a custom system to power it.