Tuesday, Nov 20, 2012 at 17:39
Hi Choc,
Honestly, get out with some contents that you would put in your fridge, and then try different fridges and see what you like best re how it packs/ fits etc.
We went out with empty egg cartons, butter containers,
water, milk containers etc, you get the idea.
Then see what fits best in your car.
copy and paste from an earlier post.
Ive travelled with a 3 way older chescold 32lt, would set it up on gas overnight, and ran it on 12v with computer fans and good wiring to the fridge, and it would freeze up to 32degish ambient.
Was good, kept things cold, and meat frozen uder the cooler plate.
But you had to work with it, and not fill it with warm stuff, as it just wouldnt cope.
It worked, but you had to be aware of its limitations.
We have used a friends 40lt engel, and liked that, but only used it as a fridge.
Even with the cover on it, its insulation properties were not as good, and it ran quite alot of the time in the warm weather. yes it kept stuff cool, but it worked hard for it.
With the fridge, we used a 32ah thumper battery, which would run it overnight, but that was about it.
Eventually went with an evakool 47Lt fridge freezer, and got a 20lt icecool esky as
well.
This runs off a 120ah fullriver battery, with good wiring to the battery in the tray thru a solenoid, you could use a redarc, or whatever you choose to use.
This battery setup was very affordable compared to the thumper batterys, which do not give the same ah, and at over double the cost.
A cheap basic battery box, with a fuse, and outlet for the fridge gave us alot of amp hrs, and all up around 450 inc batt, box, and solenoid/ wiring etc. With this, we have 3-4 days of running it as a freezer fridge.
Using 1.25lt bottles of
water frozen in the freezer section, 2 in the bottom of the icecool, one in the freezer section of the evakool, we keep all the vegies, defrosting meat, cold beers from the night before etc in the 20lt icecool esky, and this works excellently, even in 36deg temps, which was the hottest we encountered on our trip. It gives us more usable space, and if we need to get an extra milk, or item, we can fit it in the icecool till there is room in the fridge.
During summer, I put the icecool out in the direct sun, and it had 2x 1.25lts frozen
water in it, and after 24hrs, they had only begun to melt around their outside edges. Had the temp probe in them, and air temp was 1deg all day, unless I opened them, which I did every 2hrs as a test. Basically, they worked
well, and we found using them as a crisper, area to defrost food, or as an overflow for beer/ sandwiches etc, it worked very
well. Infact the defrosting food often took more than a day or 2 to defrost :).
Trains
We chose the Evakool 47lt for its excellent insulation, and I liked the fan cooled compressor/ condensor setup, even if its positioned on the end of the unit proper.
It fitted our vehicle
well, and our
camping setup.
Adding a icecool or 2 gives you alot more versatility etc that worked
well for us.
As it has the evaporator on one end, you can use this to graduate your temps, so you have ice cool beer one end, and dont freeze the lettuce at the other end of the fridge.
Or place frozen meat there, and keep it that way till needed, without freezing other contents.
Have used it as all fridge, fridge freezer, and used the divider so I had a very small fridge using the freezer section on lowest setting, and the fridge side for storage, ie brekky stuff etc.
For us, 2 adults, one small child, the 47 was fine, but it all depends on what food, and how you cater for your trips re size requirements.
As already mentioned, using the fridge as fridge freezer, to freeze 1.25lt bottles to rotate through our 20 icecools worked very
well and didnt take up much space, and was versatile as it could be moved about the car if needed around other packed stuff.
After a month on the road, we found it worked really
well for us and our setup/ requirements.
Trains
AnswerID:
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