Fridge's - 12V or 240V?

get a gas one - or one of the 12v/240v/gas ones. A fridge will drain a 12v battery in no time if the car aint running (a couple of hours in my experience) wheras a gas one will run for weeks off a little gas bottle

If you do get a 12V fridge, make sure it's a compressor type as opposed to a thermal type. They are much more efficient. Here in Zim I have an Engel unit - they're brilliant. Can freeze stuff even when outside temp is 40C. Thermal types can normally only go about 20C below ambient temp.

If you do go electric, second battery is essential with an isolator. Having said that, I can run the fridge for about 36 hours off my second battery, but it would be very easy to flatten the main battery if you left the fridge on by mistake.

Gas is good if you want to take the fridge out of the car. Some gas ones have problems if the unit is not level. They don;t get the fridge as cold in my experience (they are again thermal not compressor).

Cheers! Graham Carter Harare Zimbabwe

I had an electrolux 12/240/gas fridge in my camper and the 12v element was almost totally useless as the wattage was too low in an attempt to minimise the battery drain, but at 8A it still drained a leisure battery overnight. The 240V element was very good but of course it was a higher wattage, and if you run it on your inverter you have the losses in that to add to the battery drain so will flatten it in a very few hours.

On gas it was great, and had a tiny little flame so barely consumed any gas. The only problem is you can't run on gas on the road, it's dangerous and illegal and anyway it blows out!.

In the end I chilled the fridge on 240V before leaving home and put an ice pack in to keep it chilled on the journey, then switched to gas on arrival, problem solved. Greg

Greg uttered summat worrerz funny about:

And like any good fridge, get one where the door is the lid , that way it keeps the cold in when you open it.

Lee D

On or around Fri, 27 Apr 2007 07:42:16 +0100, Mark Solesbury enlightened us thusly:

On or around 27 Apr 2007 00:39:05 -0700, Graham Carter enlightened us thusly:

thermal one here - I gather they're good on gas, but not on electric.

What he said. Except mine (A Waeco with a Danfoss compressor) runs for a couple of days, & I just have the one battery. I've installed a Waeco 12v. socket in the rear, it has a low-voltage cutout so I've still got enough battery left to start 'er up.

And it keeps the beers ICE-COLD, the way nature intended- even after a day of rough, steep trails & odd angles. It still works at an angle of 35 degrees, try that with a gas fridge!

'98 4.0 RR

The 3 way Electrolux fridges work on the ammonia gas absorption cycle. As you say, gas and 240 volts are good. The 12v facility was only ever intended to keep a previously cooled fridge 'ticking over' when moving with an alternator turning. Have a gander an the destruction manual!

Julian.

Oh yuk.

Beer is not supposed to be cold, just cool, 55F. Real ale that is, not the gassy p**s water that usually passes for beer these days. TonyB

In message , Austin Shackles writes

They are much better in a motorhome when connected more directly to the alternator.

Seconded!

I have a Waeco CF18 which lives permanently in the back of the 90. In use, it's now connected to the secondary battery, although this was not always so. Current drain of these fridge/freezers is minimal when set to normal fridge temp of 5 degrees. I carried out a current drain/time test some years ago when I first bought the box, and was well impressed at the results! I still have my results if anyone's interested.

It will cool to 5 degrees from ambient in less than 5 minutes. Turned to it's maximum, it will maintain -20 degrees.

Neil

(Reply via NG please)