Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 at 23:56
We have one of both;
Get the 3 way / gas if your staying in one spot, and you just want to keep your food cool (not drinks) and if you chill your food down at
home before you transfer it into the fridge. Adding one or two frozen ice blocks before you go also helps. Its much more convenient / efficient on a gas bottle. You should be able to get a cheaper fridge as
well (maybe $500), and if your only using it for a week a year.... should work
well.
If you fill you fridge up with beer and wine every afternoon, that will take a lot of energy for the fridge to chill down and its unlikely that the 3 way will cope. Least our little Mobi-cool 3 way doesn't. Works
well only for storing the snags and milk, and very infrequent opening / closing of the lid. One must use it wisely and for a specific purpose for it to be any good. We use it mainly for the annual
Barrington tops trip where we sit in
camp spot for up to a week without moving. The ambient outside temperature is also quite cool : )
Consequently if your mobile, move campsites every few days, are in and out of the fridge every 5 minutes to grab beer, or your wife likes to chill her bottle of wine down in the afternoon, the compressor fridge wins hands down. Much colder and effective. Also if you go north into the tropics,
well I couldn't imagine a three way working at all. It would be a hilarious disaster. More likely to act as some hideous sort of slow cooker !
With any fridge, like the other person replying to your thread said, no matter which one you get, be kind to the fridge, keep it in the shade, only open it when you have to, in 40 degree stinking hot days up north, put a damp cloth on it and do what every you need too, to help keep it cool. This is so important. If you don't the three way will simply fail to keep cold, and a compressor one will run constantly / hunt the thermostat, flattening your battery twice as quickly.
If I remember correctly we run our Bushman 35/40 SC off a 140amp deep cycle truck battery, slung under the tray of the Hilux. I normally expect to get about 2 days out of it before having to recharge - In
Broome, I had to charge nearly once a day (It was Summer at the time and insanely hot). Down past
Canberra, maybe once every three days.
I have a generator but these days don't bother taking it on short trips. I recharge by turning on the hilux for half hour or I schedule in a little sight seeing trip. Best diesel generator ever invented. If I went travelling for a year again, I'd get a second battery if the alternator would cope and maybe a panel. Having the fridge cut out from a dead battery is such a pain, particularly if your using it as a freezer and by the time you have noticed, things have started to defrost!
In summary. Compressor fridge wins hands down. I wouldn't trade my Bushman for the world. It is 11 years old this year and still works a charm. An Engel or Waeco would probably be as good but I got the bushman on sale at the time....
They work
well as a beer fridge / extra freezer when you get
home if you buy 240/12 transformer for about $20. A 3 way however, could be a budget conscious and convenient choice, for a once a year annual trip, to a specific place in the colder climes.
Btw, don't bother with one of those thermo cooler things that pretend to be a fridge (supposed to keep your food up to 20 degrees colder than ambient etc etc). Had one of those as
well once, to use as a chiller to augment the Bushman. Absolutely useless. Chewed power and completely failed to keep anything remotely cool during the day. In my mind, quickest way to catch a dose of food poisoning.
Btw, have you thought about getting a monster sized, good quality fibre-glass esky? If you fill them up to the brim with ice, those things can last for days, and days, and days, with care. You might get one to last almost a week down south.
Hope rambling response helps
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