Lowest priced quality fridge nowadays...

[BIGdaddy]

I have a chance @ a edgestar fridge for very little $...

I was wondering though, what would a big brand fridge sized for a jeep cherokee run me these days?


I'm lazy and don't want to search. Anyone have links?

What I'm looking around for

-Engel, ARB, etc...
-Low, low power draw
-Good insulation
-Maybe comes with fridge slide and travel bag? (or at least would fit a commercially available version)
-Best lid configuration for a hatch (as opposed to swing door) vehicle. It'd sure be nice to be able to open it without sliding it, but as long as I can do it eitherway, I'm good

Trying to budget for this piece of equipment for a possible King's canyon trip in June. I'd say that $600.00 would be a comfortable price to pay for us "right now", but if I get more @ say $700.00 I'd be fine saving a bit more. Thanks!


p.s. can I run a fridge full time in my rig? Would I want to plug it into a battery tender at night?

 

[CA-RJ]

I wouldn't run a fridge on a standard battery. They don't like to be discharged a bunch. I run my Edgestar 43 qt. and a Sears Die Hard in my 4Runner and it works great! I'd let you borrow our fridge for a test run if you promised to be nice to it.

 

[idrivejeep]

For about $600 with the cover I picked up the Dometic (Waeco) CF-40 at adventurerv.net about two weeks ago. It comes with both 120v and 12v cables and uses the Danfoss compressor. When I first turned it on, it cooled the interior from 75º to 37º in about 30 minutes. Then just runs 7 mins every hour.

Even though I run dual batteries, I ran it off the main battery while I was at work (8-9 hours) with the vehicle parked in the full sun. The interior temp was well maintained, even though it lowered the overall voltage of the battery, it was not enough to trigger the low voltage cut-off switch.

 

[BIGdaddy]

For about $600 with the cover I picked up the Dometic (Waeco) CF-40 at adventurerv.net about two weeks ago. It comes with both 120v and 12v cables and uses the Danfoss compressor. When I first turned it on, it cooled the interior from 75º to 37º in about 30 minutes. Then just runs 7 mins every hour.

Even though I run dual batteries, I ran it off the main battery while I was at work (8-9 hours) with the vehicle parked in the full sun. The interior temp was well maintained, even though it lowered the overall voltage of the battery, it was not enough to trigger the low voltage cut-off switch.

Thanks for the recommendation!

Is this the one?

http://www.adventurerv.net/dometic-coolfreeze-portable-refrigerator-freezers-cf40-p-1226.html

 

[benedmonson]

I have a chance @ a edgestar fridge for very little $...

I was wondering though, what would a big brand fridge sized for a jeep cherokee run me these days?


I'm lazy and don't want to search. Anyone have links?

What I'm looking around for

-Engel, ARB, etc...
-Low, low power draw
-Good insulation
-Maybe comes with fridge slide and travel bag? (or at least would fit a commercially available version)
-Best lid configuration for a hatch (as opposed to swing door) vehicle. It'd sure be nice to be able to open it without sliding it, but as long as I can do it eitherway, I'm good

Trying to budget for this piece of equipment for a possible King's canyon trip in June. I'd say that $600.00 would be a comfortable price to pay for us "right now", but if I get more @ say $700.00 I'd be fine saving a bit more. Thanks!


p.s. can I run a fridge full time in my rig? Would I want to plug it into a battery tender at night?

Brian,
Good luck with your fridge search! Just wanted to throw our new budget minded fridge into your thoughts. It is the Indel B Travel Box 51 that is the brain child of National Luna in South Africa and an old fridge company in Italy. I personally use our National Luna 50L Split Fridge Freeze because it has lots of insulation and a very low power draw plus it comes with both a fridge and freezer compartment. This allows my wife and I to make 4 trays of ice daily. BUT, I had been using our new Indel B 51 quite a lot before we left for our trip down here to central america and Mexico and I must say that I'm very impressed! Especially for the price point of $700. With this you also get the Equipt Expedition Outfitters World Class Service at no extra charge!!:sombrero:
Here is the link to our website: http://www.equipt1.com/companies/Travel Box Fridges/product-indel-b/522519-travel-box-51

Here is the trip we are on now: http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...Equipt-s-quot-Central-America-Expedition-quot We had all intentions of bringing the budget minded Indel B with us as we are that confident in its reliability, but it wouldn't fit either one of our pre-made fridge boxes.

If you have any questions please shoot me a message or call Paul May at our home office in Salt Lake City toll free 866-703-1026. We would love to hear from you and help in any way that we can.

 

[BIGdaddy]

Brian,
Good luck with your fridge search! Just wanted to throw our new budget minded fridge into your thoughts. It is the Indel B Travel Box 51 that is the brain child of National Luna in South Africa and an old fridge company in Italy. I personally use our National Luna 50L Split Fridge Freeze because it has lots of insulation and a very low power draw plus it comes with both a fridge and freezer compartment. This allows my wife and I to make 4 trays of ice daily. BUT, I had been using our new Indel B 51 quite a lot before we left for our trip down here to central america and Mexico and I must say that I'm very impressed! Especially for the price point of $700. With this you also get the Equipt Expedition Outfitters World Class Service at no extra charge!!:sombrero:
Here is the link to our website: http://www.equipt1.com/companies/Travel Box Fridges/product-indel-b/522519-travel-box-51

Here is the trip we are on now: http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...Equipt-s-quot-Central-America-Expedition-quot We had all intentions of bringing the budget minded Indel B with us as we are that confident in its reliability, but it wouldn't fit either one of our pre-made fridge boxes.

If you have any questions please shoot me a message or call Paul May at our home office in Salt Lake City toll free 866-703-1026. We would love to hear from you and help in any way that we can.

Thanks Ben, your site is a good education in and of itself. I had no idea that sub $1000.00 fridges were now "budget-minded"..haha ...

$2000.00 for that beautiful national Luna dual-door was a bit of a shock, but man, I REAAALLY like that one. I love the low amp-draw, as indicated by G.jackson's test write-up. (It's probably out of our realistic budget, but then again...)

One question (and this is for anyone), for week to multi-week trips with separate dry goods storage, are most people going with the 40-50L size for cold food items like soy milk, cheese, etc? I'll likely have a chance to resupply, I just don't want to over/under buy as far as size goes...

 

[HARDTRAILZ]

That dometic seems reasonable.

 

[idrivejeep]

That's the one.

Thanks for the recommendation!

Is this the one?

http://www.adventurerv.net/dometic-coolfreeze-portable-refrigerator-freezers-cf40-p-1226.html

 

[benedmonson]

Thanks Ben, your site is a good education in and of itself. I had no idea that sub $1000.00 fridges were now "budget-minded"..haha ...

$2000.00 for that beautiful national Luna dual-door was a bit of a shock, but man, I REAAALLY like that one. I love the low amp-draw, as indicated by G.jackson's test write-up. (It's probably out of our realistic budget, but then again...)

One question (and this is for anyone), for week to multi-week trips with separate dry goods storage, are most people going with the 40-50L size for cold food items like soy milk, cheese, etc? I'll likely have a chance to resupply, I just don't want to over/under buy as far as size goes...

Brian,
Here is the link to the fridge that Beverly and I carry on the road approx. 200 days per year: http://www.equipt1.com/companies/Weekender/product-nl/118124-50l-split-stainless-steel It is also the one that Graham wrote about and won the recent OJ Fridge Comparison. It only costs $1500.00!
As to answer your question about what size of fridge to get based on your needs we use the 50L Split as I said which has a 40L Fridge Space and a 10L Freezer on board. So we basically get by with a 40L Fridge for two people who resupply about every 8-10 days. On our trips we use real milk, lots of beer, cheese, meat and another thing that needs to be cooled by the fridge. We do have a separate dry box which is made out of one of our Alu-Boxes that we sale. To me a 50L fridge is way plenty of space to have and use for two people. For those with larger families and less re-supply points then we make the 65, 74, 90 and 120 liter fridges.

As to my use of "Budget Minded" I should have said in comparison to our National Luna Fridges

 

[BIGdaddy]

That dometic seems reasonable.

That was my first thought, too. I'm going to do a bit of research on that one. I like that these fridges open up to the rear of the vehicle, too.

I'm very likely to put tall/taller things next to the fridge, but have no plans to put things on top of it. Makes access quite a bit more feasable.

 

[BIGdaddy]

I wouldn't run a fridge on a standard battery. They don't like to be discharged a bunch. I run my Edgestar 43 qt. and a Sears Die Hard in my 4Runner and it works great! I'd let you borrow our fridge for a test run if you promised to be nice to it.

It's my dad's fridge, so I'm pretty familiar with it. Thanks though!

 

[CA-RJ]

Brian, we are finding that our 43 qt. is big enough for about 3 days worth of food. That includes milk, half n half, oj, a few sodas, condiments, some sort of meet marinating, fresh veggies, ect. With your family of 5, I would want at least one size larger than what we have now. Pretty much expect that you will lose about half of your rear cargo area with the fridge.

 

[BIGdaddy]

Brian, we are finding that our 43 qt. is big enough for about 3 days worth of food. That includes milk, half n half, oj, a few sodas, condiments, some sort of meet marinating, fresh veggies, ect. With your family of 5, I would want at least one size larger than what we have now. Pretty much expect that you will lose about half of your rear cargo area with the fridge.

Thanks for capacity references...

Also, the cargo area is only going to be for dry goods and the fridge, so 1/2 is fine...(We love our trailer. Water, fuel, firewood, sleeping gear, and even camp furniture are simply swallowed up.)

I'll probably have exactly the same setup as Steve F. minus the stack of stuff above the drawer and fridge...

I'm motivated by the fact that we tend to camp in bear country and simply have to have all our food inside our vehicle in sealed containers or in bear-proof storage hung from a tree (super lame, unless you're backcountry backpacking, BTDT)

 

[trooper II]

ARB Freezer

If your willing to look at a used one there is one for sale on Denver craiglist. Not mine but looks really nice. 47 litre model

 

[ExpoMike]

Hey Brian, I'll throw in my .02 worth. Having had a Cherokee and the Edgestar fridge, we found it supported our needs for a 3-4 day trip but we really didn't pack a lot of things like stakes and such. Mainly drinks, lunch meat, cheeses, etc. Much of our food was dry/canned.

One thing I will warn you off, that could make a difference is, the hight/door opening. Without a slide out (which I never ended up building), we could NOT open the top door all the way to pull the inner baskets out. It was enough to get food/drinks out of but if you wanted to have the fridge in the vehicle and the baskets loaded up prior to putting in the fridge, it wouldn't happen. You had to pull the fridge out. Surprisingly the cargo area of a Cherokee is not nearly as tall as most other SUV's out there. That was definitely one downside of the Cherokee.

Again, the problem of not being able to full open a lid might not be a big deal for you guys but it is something I think you will have a problem with, with all fridges on the market. This is where a slide out really comes in useful. If you get a chance to place a unit in the back to check it out, that might give you a better idea of the limits of the lid opening.

Good luck.