Lower budget fridge? Iceco?

[67cj5]

Is it energy efficient?

They have a rep for being thirsty no good for off-grid solar use, but that might just be some models.

Also some are just relabeled from other makers, e. g. Whynter iirc?

I have owned 2 of them and plug them in to the AC and they only work on the High Power setting which is a pain, I have seen them Suck up 109w while running, and if it is on the High Setting on 12v DC they will do the same, I hooked up both of them one at a time and set the temp to -22*c / -7.4*f and it went from 19*C down to -22*c in just over an Hour but seeing the running watts I hooked up a big Charger to compensate what the fridge was using. It takes a lot of power to run the bigger ones.

On the Auto Setting in an Ambient temp of 20*c /68*f it chewed between 7 and 9 Ah more than the ARB 50Qt did In a 24 hour period.

On the Low setting in the same Ambient temp it chewed between 1.7 to 3.5 more Ah than the ARB 50Qt does, again in a 24 hour period Remembering that the ARB's always run in Auto mode where they self adjust constantly to suit the conditions.

So to Answer your question On the low setting the differance is minimal compared to other brands, The most impressive thing is the Temp Stability that was a surprize, and I am not talking about the Digital readout I am talking of running up to 4 sensors in it at any one time. On 12v DC set to Low is the best way to run it it still cools down fast and chews very little power

The Other amazining feature is how Quiet it is, In the House from 10ft away you can not hear it which made it very hard to log it's on and off cycles, So I have the little Snomaster mounted on one side of the Bed in my Van and the little 18L Dometic on the Floor.

Out of all the SnoMasters the Liesure Series LS35 is the one to buy, and it only weighs 19kgs so it's easy to carry and the price is a lot less than their other models and it uses the same 66Watt SnoMaster Compressor so it's a Rocketship when it comes to Cooling, And although it is not pretty like their others but it is very impressive just the same.

The big one I bought was way OTT. and a real Guts when it came to power draw and you would need an impressive power supply to run one all the time.

 

[dylans]

The first issue was having multiple numbers on the LED readout missing, even though it started out with just one or two, it is now ALL the odd numbered digits ( 1, 3, 5, etc all the way up to 50) and some even numbers also.

The second issue is the temperature variance between the internal temperatures (using both a static refrigerator temperature gauge, and a Raytek infrared reading thermometer), and the set temperature on the LED control. Regardless of the set temperature, the internal temperature is always 7-10 degrees above that. I have run the fridge full of items, and taken temperature in every section of the fridge, on all the items in the fridge, and it is consistently "off" from the set temperature. Plus it will NOT go down to 0 degrees (it remained at 10 degrees on the items in the fridge).

RVBprecision.com's article even stated a reference to this same issue: "(A word on INDICATED DEGREES…….They don’t jive with my remote thermometer. Not sure which one is correct. The remote unit reads about 5-6 degrees higher than the VL45’s readout. I’ll need to figure out which one is lying and report back.)". I couldn't find his followup on this issue in that same article.

Customer service is almost impossible to reach by phone, and they prefer texts and emails. I have dozens of unhelpful replies from them, and its always "we are working on it". I have done videos and taken photos of all of these issues and sent those to them without any further solutions. They even said at one point that the control module board may need to be replaced, and yet never followed up with sending me that part. And yes, I have been completely courteous with them on every communication I've had.

I can address the missing temp number thing. I saw this too and reached out to iceco. They responded super fast and explained that the temp control logic is based off of Celsius so when you change it to Fahrenheit, it’s calculated and rounded to the nearest whole number for the display.

They gave me the calculation used in the fridge, F = (320 + 18C) / 10.

So far the fridge is great. I’ve had it plugged in AC in my 78 degree house. I added a Govee Bluetooth temp gauge to the inside of the lid for fun. Set at 32 and half full of water bottles it reads 4 degrees F higher than the indicated temp on the fridge display. Makes sense to me since the top is the warmest of any fridge. The temp only swings a degree or two consistently for a couple days now.

Waiting on the arb wiring kit and matching plug to do the install into me 4Runner.