Thursday, Mar 06, 2003 at 12:12
Rosalie,
I have a 70 litre with seperate freezer area plus the divider. Fridge and freezer works
well. I have a second 68 litre and would recommend them to anyone as long as you be aware of power problems, which is the same no matter what the brand.
A tip that I use is to have some of the kids water ice blocks in the plastic sleeves at the top of the freezer as they will be the first indication of things going soft.
In relation to power usage they say averages about .7 amps per hour. I think just over 1 amp per hour.
I have dual batteries in car and further deep cycle battery in camping trailer through an anderson plug.
I have not long returned from trip in queansland were I had a bit of a disaterous time with the power. (Second battery in car died) However, the main problem came from voltage drops and blown fuses. I will give you a long winded explaination as the method you intent to use will be okay for quick stops but be wary of the following.
The plug that it comes with is a cigarette lighter plug. It is spring loaded with a glass cartridge fuse in the actual plug. It has a light in the plug to show when power is connected. The workings of the plug are very close together and I found that there is a small metal bar that feeds the light. When the fridge plug is inserted into the vehicles cigarette holder this metal bar gets very close to the earth wires in the fridge plug and occasionally shorts out blowing either the fuse in the plug or vehicle. Had to bend this out of the way. Know of others that have had the same problem.
For three days had no cooling occured at all, however the fan worked the whole time which made me think that it was working when I checked on it. We lost the food, beer was hot etc. The problem was from voltage drops. To explain, the compressor has a low voltage cut out built into it for protection. Depending on the model it will either be 10.7 volts or 10.3 volts at the compressor. I found my problem by measuring the voltage at the battery (when the compressor cut in) (which was fine) and also measuring the voltage at the compressor when it cut in. I found that there was a 1.5 volts difference between the battery and what was reaching the compressor. Hence the voltage cut out came into play. (12 volts minus 1.5 = 10.5 at the compressor so it cut out. ) ( Long story as some of the fault lied with the wiring fitted to the camping trailer as
well as being fitted with cheap cigarette lighter plugs. I cut the fridge plug off and put the wires direct to the battery and it worked. As I was travelling past Caloundra I called into the factory and they were very helpfull.
Simply put, cut off the plug that comes with the fridge and fit a good quality plug to the fridge and have good wiring to rear of car (or were ever) with a good quality plug which will stop the voltage drop across it. This advise came straight from the factory. I have since changed the plugs in the car, the trailer and fridges and no more problems. There is a number of different type of plugs that can be purchased from auto electricians, Repco, super cheap etc. I know others that have had same problems on long stays. If you read the fine print they recommend fitting better plugs for serious campers.
If you purchase the 240 volt convertor (which I recommend you do so you can cool everything down in the house prior to putting in car or for use if you stay at a powered swight) you will need a lead fitted with the cigarette lighter plug that it came with. The factory supplied me with some extra plugs that screw onto the frdige so I have two leads for each fridge, one for the car and one for the convertor. Problem solved and works
well, just took some stuffing around. It was worth it as they are cheaper and better insulated than other brands such as engel etc,
AnswerID:
14558
Follow Up By: Mick n Sal - Friday, Mar 07, 2003 at 00:55
Friday, Mar 07, 2003 at 00:55
On the subject of plugs for fridges, I spent a lot of time looking for plugs that would handle the current of a Chescold ( 10 - 15 amps ) and stay connected through the rigours of heavy offroading. There are a lot of different designs of plugs out there, but the best I found is a self locking high-power audio connector known as Speakon. These connectors have a locking mechanism that will not come undone accidentally, and are a 4-pole connector where each connector is rated at 20 amps. the cost of these is around $25 dollars for the plug & socket. They are a little fiddly to set up in the first place, but once configured they are just about bulletproof. Another option is the self-locking Canon or XLR connector which are rated at 10 - 15 amps depending on brand. All of these connectors can be sourced at any good quality audio component outlet like Jaycar or Altronics.
Hope this is of use to people.
FollowupID:
8819