Good compressor fridge

I don’t have an inbuilt fridge – but I have a portable Waeco.
It’s been nothing but trouble and now the 240 volt circuit board has died.
I reported this on this website a few months ago and it seems a common fault.

I don't have either but notice that EvaKool have just bought out what looks like a very nice upright fridge range from 110 to 210 litres. But I think they might be a little wider than the hole you have. Might be worth a look though.
Keith

Can I ask why you are wanting to run a 3 way on 12v and hence on solar when they work better on gas. For sure when actually travelling it need to be on 12v powered by either the tow vehicle or by solar through a battery - should work satisfactorily if big enough wiring is used but when stopped you should be switching over to gas.

Sure I know this is not the question you have asked but just curious to understand the logic of your question. If you had said my 3 way works terribly all the time and I am sick of it and am wanting to go to a 2way compressor I certainly have understood.

Cheers

Garry

Because 4 200w panels and 2 250ah batteries seems a bit overkill to run a couple lights at night. Because solar is free. I know the fridges run best on gas. We are working on a solution to get it to work. Apparently we need a bigger regulator. We've now been told that our system should run our 3-way fine so it's either the wiring to the fridge is too small or its the regulators.

I have a Vitrifrigo 150 which is now 10 years old. I don't know why anyone would say not to buy one. It has endured years of off road vibrations and tropical heat without complaint. My 160 watts of solar will keep it happy plus it gets power from the tow vehicle. I can hear it cycle on and off at night but it is not intrusive. The interior light failed and it was replaced with a battery operated motion sensor LED light. I wonder why you would use a gas fridge on 12 volt while stationary????

Same as Mikee had our Vitrifigo 8 years and so far no problems, unless I refer to the time Mary did not latch it shut when we were on a bush track.
She had a little jam lettuce meat and yogurt to clean off the floor, naturally I supervised with zsoggy beer o)))))

We have a WAECO compressor upright in our 'van and despite my misgivings of "downgrading" (in my opinion) by fitting the Waeco when the 'van was being constructed the manufacturer wouldn't even consider the Vitrifrigo because of the issues he had had.......(we are talking 3 years ago)..IT IS PERFORMING FAULTLESSLY AND WE ARE VERY IMPRESSED

To be honest....... in the portable fridge range we have only ever had Engel ( 4 current and one very old one).used for various reasons and flatly refused to consider the WAECO portables...........hence my concern in fitting the big upright WAECO

More than one couple we know have removed their Vitrifrigo and fitted the WAECO

I still wouldn't consider the portable Waeco in place of the Engel's.....but for the big 'van upright compressor ones they seem the go....obviously I assume a higher standard of manufacture in these?

I understand where you're coming from. Our Thetford 3-way in the caravan draws 13.5A continuously on 12V (so = 324Ah per day!!!) but we are very happy with its performance on gas.
We know people who have changed to a Waeco compressor upright and have been happy - Waeco is considerably cheaper than the Vitrifrigo

Another vote in favour of the Vitrifrigio DP 150 which I have just installed to replace a virtually useless Dometic 7851 3 way. . Efficient, quiet and so far works well at 39'C ambient. Cools very rapidly and maintains -18 in freezer/ and 4 in fridge section. Mind you I did add a Wilhi Digital controller, additional insulation, internal fan, and moved the cooling plate away from the rear wall a couple of mms.
I think most of the negatives about Vitrifrigio are about the larger one (230 from memory)

Sorry but running a three way on batteries is just not effective, if the fridge is
drawing aroundd 15 amps than thats 150 Ah over night assuming no
solar from 8 to 8, a couple of days of cloud and you need to relace around
400Ah and store arpund 800Ah just doesn't make sense to me.

I would be running it on gas, or a you first suggested change to a compressor
fridge, I have two waeco's, a 40ltr and a 80ltr and have no problems with either.

Go with the Vitrifrigo the Dometics are crap and are no good in hot weather. We have just replaced our Dometic in our 5th Wheeler with a Vitrifigo DP2600. We had a DP2600 in our 24ft Van and it was used all over the country in temps above 40 and worked perfectly. We have not had to use a generator to run the fridge and our solar keeps up with it and also keeps the battries charged. 2x125w solar panels.

Another vote for Vitrifrigo. Had one in our van, for 14 years. It stood up to travel over a lot of rough roads, ran perfectly for months on end in real heat (Pilbara in summer).

This may or may not suit the OP but interesting anyway....Samsung have a domestic INVERTER fridge, around 250l which will happily run on a 300w inverter.

I know of several people fitting them to vans.

I have measured against my Dometic fridge and it is only slightly larger.

The best thing is they are under $800 retail, a lot of solar can be bought for the difference in price to a 12 - 240v caravan fridge.

Cheers Neil

Thank you everyone for your replies. We've come to the conclusion that we just can't afford a new compressor fridge so we are going to shed a couple panels and a battery and just run the bloody thing on gas. In saying that does anyone want to buy a couple brand new solar panels and a brand new 250ah battery??