Mobicool/Waeco A40 3-way Fridge?

[gasman]

ps. as to the bear issue . where we camp is pretty remote northern ontario. not all that far from algonquin park .. i have had moose in my camp several times, tons of racoons and other critters, almost always see bear tracks, i know they are there but they seem to shy away i think, but the couple of times i have had bears right outside my tent. were in busy provincial campgrounds,,,, they become acustomed to the garbage /free meals,, one time at arrowhead with the wife and kids .. we had a bear sniffin and scratchin about 2 feet from my head.. i thought my wife was gonna scream.. i just told her it was a coon.. i would say i havnt been in a real campground in at leaast 12 years. and have no desire to do so again .. the only reason we stayed at ''campgrounds '' cuz the ex wife had to have real washrooms and showers,

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Gasman, I thought I stated it, but I would only run on propane when the slide it pulled out of the trailer. You still think that's a problem?

 

[gasman]

naw you should be ok as long as its outside.. be safe and buy a co detector though

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Yeah, I'm going to put a smoke detector on the cieling of the kids area. Should the CO detector go in the same space, or in the "basement" of the trailer? The CO has to be mounted low right? What's the third gas....

After dealing with more "grocery soup" in the cooler last weekend, I'm SO ready to do away ice.

 

[gasman]

it depends on the temperature but CO is slightly lighter than air.. i would put in there with the kids.. it shouldnt matter too much if its high or low,,. my fridge is plugged in and cooling down now we are heading north thursday morning .. what are my chances of getting pulled over driving an OD Jeep cherokee pulling a military trailer, with this summit thing going on.. we are turning off the highway just before huntsville... could be an interesting trip.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

They might think you are a militant! Good luck!

A, LP is the 3rd gas detector I've seen. Since I have decided to store the propane outside and only run the propane devices when the trailer is opened up, I figure I don't need this. Looks like the CO detectors are meant to mount down low? That's the problem with putting it in my kid's area. Due to the nature of the design, it doesn't really work out very well like that. But, since the space is so shallow, I guess maybe I could just put it on the ceiling and it will work fine?

 

[gasman]

They might think you are a militant! Good luck!

A, LP is the 3rd gas detector I've seen. Since I have decided to store the propane outside and only run the propane devices when the trailer is opened up, I figure I don't need this. Looks like the CO detectors are meant to mount down low? That's the problem with putting it in my kid's area. Due to the nature of the design, it doesn't really work out very well like that. But, since the space is so shallow, I guess maybe I could just put it on the ceiling and it will work fine?

rob you should be fine anywhere in the trailer.. anything is better than nothing right? .. my thought is these are made for in the house basically.. big rooms,, the trailer is way smaller in comparison so i dont think you will have any issues .. but sometimes mounting is an issue.. read the instructions they are all different .. some gotta be horizontal , some vertical , some dont work upside down ,

 

[jasondavidmann]

my suggestion would be to find another solution at this time, what i will be doing is to leave the cooler outside away from the trailer. i will secure the lid with a couple of ratchet staps overnight..

Thanks for the advice, I may try it in the vehicle with one of the windows cracked (maybe two for some cross flow), I'll put a meter in and see what I get for results.

I hear you about the bears and other wild life in campgrounds, my dog does a pretty good job of keeping them away. Once the dog is asleep she is out cold and I will wake up to wild life before her.

Have a good trip, maybe you used the tremors yesterday to slip by unnoticed in your suspicious vehicle? Let us know how your cooler worked when you get back.

Jason

 

[R_Lefebvre]

I was just about to pick one of these up, but I was looking at it in the store again and... 40L... what's that in Quarts? There's like 5 different quarts. UK, US (dry), US (liquid), ancient Hebrew (?!) and German. I'm just trying to compare it to the size of the 12V fridges because... man does it seem small inside and I'm just not sure it's big enough for the family.

I thought it converted to 43 US quarts, so just a little smaller than the ARB fridge, but the box said it's actually 35quarts, so that UK quarts.

 

[gasman]

trip report time.. just got home this aft. the weather sucked. thurs,friday were ok sat sun mon rained, and a light drizzle this morning.. the fishing sucked, but we had fun anyway,

now for the fridge.. at first i had it set up outside the tent but under the fly. remember my fly is 7 ft off the ground.. any way the air was still and i wasnt completely comfortable with the co underneath the fly as it could fill the tent easily.. so i had an extra tarp that i bungeed between a couple of trees and made a little lean-to..about 15 feet away,

before i left for the trip i picked up a 10# tank so i would be good for a week or more with out changing bottles. 6 days, and i had enough propane left for a few more i am sure. before i left i cooled down the fridge at home for 2 days . for the drive , of course it was plugged into the JEEP, all meat went in frozen, a big container of frozen chilli,, eggs ,butter some veggies , lettuce, some portabella mushrooms and a quart of milk.. and a couple of other things im forgetting right now.

by the second day my milk was half frozen (i was chewing my milk) my veggies, were freezing, and i was getting a good buildup of frost .. wow !! ok im impressed.

outside temperatures wernt that hot ..im guessing mid 70's low 80s at the most.. the fridge was never in direct sunlight at all, we were camped in a heavy forrest area.. when the sun did come out it would not have found my fridge anyway,
now by about the 5th day with less food in the fridge it did not seem as cold as the first few days. but still plenty cold enough that i would not worry bout keepin milk and dairy in there, i had an extra pound of bacon and it was not frozen any more (still cold enough though) .. the first few days i was very careful not to open the lid too often or for too long.. in and out as quick as i could, the last couple of days i wasnt as careful so that might be a factor as well,

at night i would ratchet strap the fridge closed and i didnt worry bout bears, i did have a big ole moose grunting at me..(not in our camp) i think we kinda suprised her as we paddled round the point , she jumped in the bush and mouthed off at us for a bit while we fished in her spot, it was really cool but we moved on and left her alone. we did have a coon in the camp one night and he did not even go near the fridge..

i forgot my thermometer at home ( yes i am an idiot ) but it was cold enough , overall i am pretty darn happy .. so far... for my type of camping this thing works. i will be back out in a couple of weeks and hopefully get a hotter w/e. to see how it works with warmer temps..

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Sounds like it worked out pretty well for you. Other than... freezing stuff kinda sucks but I guess you can turn down the gas. I've officially given up on this one and ordered an Edgestar 63qt. In the end, it just came down to volume, and I don't think the A40 was going to have enough for my needs.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Ok, so I picked up one of these last night. The Edgestar thing fell through. I filled the A40 up to see how much I could get in. 4 1L Nalgenes, 4 0.5L Nalgenes. 3 cans of soda, a plastic dozen egg container. And a whole whack LocknLock square plastic containers. Enough for tons of meats and some veggies. We think that this will suffice. Maybe not a whole week unless we were really careful. But... for sure if we went easy on the milk it would be pretty good.

Anyway, so the cooler is PACKED, right up to the top, with plastic containers filled with water from our tap, maybe 15-20 degrees or so? I put it out on the back deck on AC overnight. It's... cool, but not really cold yet. It's now running on gas in the garage with the door open to see how that works. I noticed that on AC, the aluminum heat exchanger in the box was frosted over, but now on gas, it's melting a bit I think. So not sure if the gas performance is as good as AC. We'll see what happens. Going on a 2 day trip tomorrow.

Just based on the construction, I'm rather pleased. It seems well built. Nicely finished, good quality steel outer walls. The plastic seems to be tough, lots of plasticizers. Not cheap brittle plastic.

 

[Red90]

Make sure that when on gas it is level. Check it with a level. It makes a big difference with these type of fridges.

 

[jasondavidmann]

Congratulations on your purchase, I'm sure that you will be happy with it.

I've found that the max cooling performance was best on propane. Remember that with propane you control flow, A/C you control temperature, and DC is always on at full power. Right now you probably only need max cooling but something to keep in mind once the temperature drops a little.

I took mine to the beach the other day, I brought a thermometer and this is what I found. Plugged it in at home before we left, had the inside temp down to 3*C. Hooked it up to DC on an axillary battery and left home at 11am, with the air conditioning running in the van, the cooler was still at 3*C when we got to the beach at 12:45. With the cooler in the back of the van, in the sun performance suffered. When I went for my first beverage at 2:00pm it was 40*C in the van, the cooler was 6*C. At 3:00 it was almost 50*C in the van, the cooler was 12*C. The cooler ran until 7:00pm when we got home on DC, I have not checked the remaining voltage but the low voltage alarm never went off. I should mention that the aux battery charges while driving. I am still happy with performance, I was getting a lot more than the advertised 20*C drop, and never expect the cooler to experience those temps outside at my campsite.

Jason

 

[The Adam Blaster]

Awesome thread guys, thanks for all the info!
I've been looking at options for a little while, this thread was really helpful!
Now all I have to do is collect all my Canadian Tire money...