Cooler, Fridge, Yeti et al

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Why I got an arb with a compressor. Does 40+ celcius difference

[/quote]

Not to give you too much bad news , but when it's 40 C in my trailer the ARB would run 24/7 set at 0 C
While I love my 63Q ARB- their advertising is a little OverTheTop !!

I would say it does easy 50 deg F - NOT 40 deg C "over ambient"
On a cool 70 F day it uses 250 watts on a hot day it can be 600+ watts

[Glenlivet]

Buy the cheaper cooler. Want to make it twice as efficient? Wrap your ice block powered coller in an aluminized 'space' blanket. Just about doubles the lifespan of your ice block. I kid you not. I did the experiment when I found my cooler was hot to the touch and so was my friends in his cargo trailer. I wrapped mine and my ice lasted twice the time his did, same trip same everything else.

The thing about a 3 way fridge, they are power hogs on 12 volts and don't cool all that well, barely making it. Put it on 120 volts AC and they work much better. Put it on propane and they are very frugal with the fuel (flame not much more than a candle, to look at it) and stay as cold as you like. And you can run on propane on the road. What's not to like?

[Tx River Rat]

I own 2 yeti and several extremes, very little difference in length of time ice will stay in them. Yeti and the other top end coolers can be mistreated and keep on ticking.
The trick for 5 days of usage out of an extreme or yeti from my experience are cooler for drinks and separate one for food, freeze all the food you can before you put into cooler, and 24 hours before you plan to stock the cooler throw a bag of ice into it to cool it down .
100 degree heat I have seen 5 days of usage multiple times.
Ron

[Oldragbaggers]

I have used many brands of coolers, Igloo, Coleman, Rubbermaid, some that claim to be Marine, some Extreme, all claim to hold ice longer than the other. But truly, the Colemans and so forth never hold ice more than a couple of days in really hot weather, and usually by the end of day one your stuff is already floating in water. (Although I have since overcome this particular problem. I now freeze gallon jugs of water and just put them in the cooler. After they melt we drink the water.)

I invested years ago in a Frigid Rigid for a boat we were living on. It honestly does hold ice for an entire week. But it is way too big for the galley of the teardrop so I had hoped like anything to find one of the cheaper coolers that would work well enough to be our sole cooler in the tear. I didn't really want to spend $300+ for a Yeti, since I already owned one expensive cooler. Well, after a number of trips and way too many daily trips to buy ice we just decided it wasn't worth it. We now haul the Frigid Rigid in the truck. It's heavy, and a pain to lift in and out, but it's worth it in the money we save in ice. And we have had this thing for over 15 years and it is still like new. Unless we drop it off a 10 story building I'm sure it will outlast us. We will likely never have to buy another cooler. You really do get what you pay for and if you spend the money up front for a cooler that will last a long time and hold ice a long time it will pay for itself eventually, plus save you a ton of aggravation and wasted or warm food and gas to run and get yet another bag of ice.

[Dave1234]

I have kids, so we go though milk and oj like crazy. So I rinse them out, freeze them. I will load all my cold stuff in the cooler of choice, take a couple frozen ones and put them at the bottom (for drinking water). Take 2-3 others and beat the hell out of them with a hammer, split the gallon jugs open and dump the ice chunks out over the rest of the items. Keeps cold for a couple days, still has some ice chunks in it. I use a igloo cube cooler. and I am not paying 3$-7$ for bag ice.

[jonw]

Just returned from a month-long coast-to-coast trip with a new Indel-B 40l refrigerator (Truckfridge branded):


from: http://www.equipt1.com/i/fridges/indel-b

Worked great: set it to 34 and everything was cold without turning to ice. Expensive but highly recommended.

[Rainier70]

Are any of these fridges (Waeco, Indel B, etc) being run exclusively on batteries and solar? How big of batteries? How much solar?

I have really good results using a smaller soft cooler inside my Coleman Xtreme. Starting with two and half gallons of "home" ice. It lasted 6 days in 80 to 100 degree weather. I came home with about quart sized chunks of ice left in the gallon jugs. More details are here: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=55219&start=150

[bdosborn]

Are any of these fridges (Waeco, Indel B, etc) being run exclusively on batteries and solar? How big of batteries? How much solar?

My Waeco uses around 0.5 amp-hr in 70F weather. Energy usage goes up with the temperature. An 80 watt solar panel and a single group 27 deep cycle battery can handle the fridge, provided it sunny most of the time. Add a day or two of cloudy weather and you'll want golf cart batteries and a couple hundred watts of panel. The Waeco is full of beer right now and out in the garage, we use it at home too.





Bruce

[jonw]

I've only run my Indel-B on 120V when in the house before the trip, cooling everything down. It stayed plugged into my car's non-switched rear power outlet the entire month when travelling.

It has a 3 setting switch where it will turn itself off before draining your battery to the point where you can't start your car. On days were I was driving (most of the time) the fridge never turned off overnight and the car battery was recharged the next day by the alternator and the engine running. When I stayed in one place for several days I'd use a solar panel to recharge the car battery during the day. I never took it out of the car nor hooked it up to my teardrop battery, or plugged it into AC on nights when I had shore power - it just seemed easier to leave it in the car all the time...

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Bruce

Was it exactly 70 deg F - for the entire 24 hours?
Because I would assume less run time at night - more and longer during the days ?
What temp was fridge set at ?

My 63Q. ARB set at 27 F uses about 25 AH per day at 70 and up to 50 AH when it gets over 80F
It runs fine on a 250 watt panel & including a Moringstar 300 inverter on idle - to a 225 AH battery.

OTTCT

[bdosborn]

Waeco test page

Jon,

I'll leave mine plugged in to just the truck if I know I'm moving the next day. I've not had any issues if it's just for overnight. It looks like your fridge is a Waeco/Dometic just like mine. We had to use an ice chest last month for the first time in 3 years or so. What a drag to have to go back to ice.
Bruce

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Bruce

I did the home made silver bubble wrap, BUT also put a 1" foam board under the fridge....between the bubble wrap & fridge
my unscientific guess is 5-10% energy savings

Cheers

OTTCT

[Rainier70]

Great. Sounds like they are a doable cooler for battery and solar. One of those "wants" for down the road.

Sorry. Didn't mean to sidetrack the original post topic.

[Verna]

I've been running my ARB 50 qt for almost a week and a half. I 've run it from the 100ah AGM battery in the teardrop with no shore power, from the battery with shore power, and right now with an electrical cord from the shore power pedestal. I have it set for 27* and it is within two degrees every time I check it. I did purchase the canvas covered Reflectex cover and it sure seems to run less than last summer. I have a heavy fleece blanket and two 2" foam pads on the top of it. I've been in two 98* and two 90* days and it's still working wonderfully. Thanks, Bruce, for the breakdown on ah's in the heat. I may be boondocking next week and that's nice to know.

[CanuckShooter]

I gave up on the commercial coolers and just built my own with 2" styrofoam...much like a tiny foamie....truth is the home made one 2x2x4feet would still have ice after ten days in august heat. Like others we just freeze milk jugs and such and use them for the cooling.