Thread: Cheap Fridges - info wanted

I bought the 55 litre version of what you have linked last week and used it on the weekend.

It worked exceptionally well - very quiet and didn't use much power. On the weekend I ran it in a almost dead normal car battery (will not hold voltage under load) and a 17ah portable unit - both had plenty of power left after the weekend - including the 6 hours that my truck was on the back of a tilt tray and the fridge was still running Ok on the dead battery. When running with the engine running I ran it on max freeze and then when stopped set the temp at 1c. It almost froze my beers after 2 hours.

Construction is Ok (not great) and the cover is not insulated.

Considering the same size engel is around $1500 (or nearly $2000 for a 80l) I consider them to be good value. Power usage seems to be quite low in real life - on paper the same usage as an engel or waeco.

Garry

Thanks Garry. This is what im looking for. I cant bring myself to spend over $1k on a fridge when a normal house fridge is that money!

Ill look into it some more.

Cheers,

stooge i have a 3 way fridge i bought some years back for only a few hundred $$ and i remember that working very well as a freezer. especially on the gas and found that if stuff was frozen when i put it in and i took it off the car battery and put on gas overnight at camp stuff stayed frozen. taht was up on the mainland so should work better down here being a bit cooler.
i still have it burried out the back if you want to give it a go and see if it suits what you are after and if it does for around $80 or so you can keep it.

I bought one of those 40L compressor fridges(Mobicool/by waeco) at Anaconda for $350 and having no problems so far.

Matt

I've had one for around 18mths now, got it from Springers 12 Volt shop at Lawnton for around the $700 mark - 55 litres I think.
It has been on an extended (week and a half) trip to Carnarvon Gorge, full of frozen stuff for a family of four, and since then has been in the back of the Deafener running non-stop keeping water botlles and/or beer cold at 0 deg.
I run it from a 90Ah battery which is charged from a dual battery regulator and a solar panel on the roof (80W panel).
Some weeks, the car sits for up to five days without getting a good run, so it's just being topped up by the panel.
I've never had a problem with it, even in the middle of summer in a hot, closed-up vehicle.
I figure that if I get five years or more from it, then I'm doing OK.
They seem to have a very thick wall, around twice the thickness of the Waeco, and they do work well as an esky when they're removed from power for a couple of hours.

The comments on this thread were similar to those that convinced me to go the cheapy. Those people who owned them were very happy with their performance - the only negative comments were from people who had engels and waecos and they had no experience with the cheapies.

I think they are worth the punt - the only question mark was not how well they cool but what power usage was like - my one trip away shows it is good.

Garry

Thanks all, this is what I suspected. Certainly looking at these types for sure.

Tas130 - I sent you a PM so we can hook up, pref before Sunday if that suits.

I just brought a 60 litre Evakool Travelmate fridge with an insulated cover and 240 volt adator for $699. They also have specials on a 45 litre unit for $599.

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I must admit I didn't do much research on these units but it looked like a reasonable thing for the price compared to the usual favourites at near double the price.

cheers,
Terry