Waeco Fridge

trust me the 40 litre _Affordable_Storage_Drawers.aspx nearly 3 amps .\
and thats 2.9 amps not forgeting the duty cycle not constant.

The ARB dual battery system will run it no worries, long as your battery is OK.

If it suits your needs and the price is right, go for it.

A Waeco CF80 will use 84 amps a day at 30c with a cabinet temperature of 5C which is 1C above food safety standards. That is an average of 3.5 amps hour over 24 hours. Many people that buy these large portable fridges soon realise the massive amounts of space they take and power they use and soon want to downsize to a 40 litre.
Do you realise your auxiliary battery will not charge up in a days driving from powering an 80 litre fridge overnight.

As for the Engel Waeco argument there is no difference in overall power consumption in a 24 hour period. The best buy fridge at the moment is the $499 one from SuperCheap or Rays Wild Country that will match the price of $499

I've got the Waeco 80L and I run it off my 2nd battery which is one of those N70 starting batteries. Never had any probs with it. As for how much it _Affordable_Storage_Drawers.aspx that depends on an awful lot such as:
Temp in the fridge
Temp outside the fridge
How much is in the fridge
How often you open the fridge
How do you pack the fridge in the cargo area
What do you use to charge the battery
How often and long you run the car about

Sure the fridge takes a lot of space but the food has to go somewhere. So if you take everything with you and not buying it along the way as you need it then you either have it all in a big fridge or some of it in a little fridge and some of it in a box somewere.

I love it.

I have a 70 Litre Waeco running on a second N70 battery fitted to my 80 series TD and can run it for 3 days without even starting the car. If necesary, I can assist the battery while stationary by using a solar panel (32 W BP panel).

I do not run the fridge of a night. I have built a 12V timer that has about 50 combinations of when it turns off and on, but generally set it to turn off at about 10PM each night and turn of each morning about 7AM.

I also have the Waeco dual temp thermometer and have noticed that the fridge is generally running at about 2 deg Celcuis when it turns off at 10PM and in the morning it has generally only risen to about 4 deg Celcuis by 7AM the next morning. (season depending)

When we have been on the move, we have run it for 4 weeks while spending some days in transport mode with it obviously running off the alternator and some days in R & R mode with it running straight off the second battery and honestly have not had a problem at all with it.

I have never had to top up the battery with a charger, so I assume that the alternator is good enough to recharge the battery and run the fridge whilst in transport mode.

The 70 Litre uses the same Danfross 50 compressor as the 80 Litre, so the extra 10 litres should make no real difference to the running of the fridge.

My advise is if the price is right, the fridge will fit in the car and you have a decent auxilary battery system, then go for it.

Hope this helps.

As a side note, it may be worth having a look at an AGM battery. They charge much quicker than a standard deep cycle and to a higher level of charge, also completely compatible with your DB system. You can also run them lower without diminishing battery life.

I have a 110L waeco and so far, so good. As the missus likes to take masses of fresh fruit & veg away for the kids, we require big fridge space and we accept the extra power requirements that go with... from my less than educated experience, over 30C ambient and the fridge at around 3C(using waeco dual temp thermometer), it used closer to 4.5 - 5Ah and under 30C ambient, about 3.5Ah. We are carefull to plan daily food needs, minimising the time the fridge is open during the day.

David,

I've just got back from 7 days away. I run a CF80 off an AGM aux batt like Blue. It was cold, overcast and raining most of the time. I only bothered to pull the solar panel out twice.

The rest of the time I just relied on a bit of driving, about 30 minutes a day and idling the motor a couple of times a day. The beauty of the AGM is that it will accept a lot of charge in a short time. I check mine with a volt meter to ensure it never gets below 12.1 volts. When it hits this I start the motor. An idling motor uses very little fuel.

In cold weather you will find the 80 uses bugger all power.

In the warmer weather my 64 watt Unisolar panel keeps up easily combined with the odd drive.

Cheers,

Jim.

Ask a fridge question - like tossing fuel in a fire ! I'm with Roachie - if the price is right, and you can spare the space, give it a go ! I just bought a CF60AC a few days back - a tall 50 in fact. Will wait and see how mine goes - when the aux gets low, I have another battery in the camper. Whatever - I'll deal with it ! The 80 is a big bulky bugger - probably thirsty too. If you keep it, you'll probably end up with a gennie - if you traded it for a 50/60, you might still end up with a gennie ! I intend to top up my batteries from the car, as I move. I've been listening to all sorts of boolsheet from salespeople in the last two weeks - in one hour of research on the web, I ended up better technically informed about fridges and power than they were - quite pathetic.

If the price suits you ,buy it ,some say an 80lt is too big ,others say not big enough !! had our 80lt now for 3yrs ,, all the figures and stats say 3.5amp per hr average ,,,,I measure our amps in and out of our AGM batts thru a Steca solar regulator ,, in all our usage of freezer at -15 and fridge at 3c we use 64amps per 24 hr period =2.66 amps per hr ,,,, Just using a multi meter will not give a true indication of power usage per hr as it will show on/start 4.5 dropping to 3.5 running and .02 when fridge compressor is off ,,,,,Yes your ARB duals will run the show ,would suggest same as others have said that when up for new batt go AGM . a 1/2hr running the vehicle twice per day will supply enough amps for the fridge.

David,
please accept my own sincere apologies for my own part in the hijacking of your thread, I won't attempt to bulshet the reasons why it went off track but (I believe) it's an interesting thread for probably different reasons to those that you first initiated it, but it will give you some good information!

fridges are VERY popular while engals are king when it comes to ease of selling and resale i doubt you would have much trouble selling a Waeco Oh sorry what am i trying to say? If it is a good price - buy it you should get all - most of your money back if you decide you dont like it and want to sell it