(my first post... Hi Mom!)
Curious if anyone here has any experience with the newer portable Norcold NRF fridge/freezers?
http://www.thetford.com/HOME/PRODUCTS/NorcoldIncRefrigerators/NRF45/tabid/842/Default.aspx
Engle and ARB are out of my price range. I had been looking into Edgestar but recently found Norcold and they look like another possibility in that under $800 price range.
Any direct experience with these?
I've been playing with an NRF 45 that I bought from amazon a couple of months ago. So far, so good. The prices on the engle and ARB turned me off and I didnt like the "unfinished" bottom of the edgestar. Ultimately what made my choice easy were the dimensions. I wanted something that would fit under the tonneau cover as well as on the rear "seat" in my tacoma xtra cab. That the lid opens width-wise also makes access easier when it's on the rear seat and I'm in the front, so I consider that bonus.
I ran it for a couple of weeks in the house with the a/c adapter connected to a kill-o-watt. Average power draw came out to about 10 watts when set to 35F in a 70F room. I'd expect about the same (well less actually) draw without the a/c adapter in line. It's now in the truck connected to a 100ah agm aux battery so I'm expecting about 60 hours of runtime before it shuts itself off. Of course the ambient temps in the truck will change that a bit. Oddly, the power draw is nearly identical to that of the 7.5cf chest freezer that I converted to a beer fridge (replaced the thermostat). The chest freezer was less than $200, though! But that's different story.
The voltage sensing circuit seems a bit enthusiastic. When I first put it in the truck I didnt have the aux battery so set the control to position 2 (11.6 lv cutoff). I didnt want to risk a dead starter battery. A couple of times it shut down due to low voltage even though it had barely run at all. After I added the aux battery I noticed the same thing but measured the battery voltage at maybe 12.3. Since then I've switched the setting to position 1, it's now supposed to keep on running down to 10.7v and I havent seen a low voltage shutdown since. It's only been a couple of days with the aux battery so I'm still trying to get a feel for the battery life. I'm using a CTEK D250S and SmartPass for charging... so far that seems to be working well and I dont have to worry about running down the starter battery. The couple of times I let it run overnight (prior to the aux battery) I had no trouble starting the truck in the morning. The nights are still pretty chilly here in the New England so that probably doesnt mean much.
The fridge itself is well built, heavier than expected, and fairly quiet. I could probably sleep next to it if I had to, but it wouldnt be my first choice. It reminds me of a decent quailty plastic cooler, and that's just what it looks like. The power cord is detachable though sticks out a bit when connected. The 12v plug fits loosly into by Blue Sea 12v outlet. It works, but I'll probably replace the plug with one from Blue Sea. The ac adapter was not included. Building it in like the other brands do would have been nice. It would have made the unit weigh more and cost more, but since you're likely to buy it anyways, and carry it along anyways, the only advantage I can see for not including it is that it's one less component that's needed inside the compressor compartment so might help with the form factor.
It's the first portable fridge I've owned so I cant really compare to anything else. But, I can say that I'm happy with my purchase.
