Waeco or Engel?

[maddogrc]

what setup do you guys run to have the fridges going 24/7???

guessing a nice deep cycle with a DC charger and some solar panels?

 

[maddogrc]

also my 10 year old engel is having issues, it doesnt cool as well as it did.

eg. setting 2 would usually freeze things, now it just gets cool, hmm. also the walls of the engel cool slowly one at a time, reckon its the pump.

so yeah, choices...

engel, waeco, other...? 40L suits me well

 

[will]

The Sawafuji "Swing" compressor in the Engel is suppose to use slightly more power, and make slightly more noise, than the Danfos compressor in the Waeco.

When i bought my 40L Engle the salesman said they were noisy to which i thought was crazy having experienced a friends a few times. then when i got it home made a few jokes with the Mrs like "yeah that fridge is noisy - he hehe". but having had it running for about 8 months it has quietened down noticeably. not that it was noisy before, but now it is very quiet and can easily have it humming away on floorboards in the bedroom as i sleep. very happy with my Engle.

And if you set it to about 1.5 on the dial it won't freeze things and frozen things don't thaw out. it's the sweet spot - about -1.5 to -2 deg Celsius.

 

[Matt76]

what setup do you guys run to have the fridges going 24/7???

guessing a nice deep cycle with a DC charger and some solar panels?

I have an old Mobicool (made by Waeco) 12v fridge in the tub of my Nav which runs 24/7. I have a 120A/H AGM battery and just running around, even if I just do the 10min each way trip to work, is enough to keep the battery charged enough. I very rarely have to top it up with the battery charger. If the car is going to be left stationary for more than a few days I will put the charger on it.

When camping I just go for a drive somewhere to charge up the battery, I am usually looking for something to do anyway.

 

[maddogrc]

ahh kk, so you just let it charge off the alternator then.

just wondering as everyone seems to have a different system

 

[Matt76]

Yeah mate charged from the alternator through a vsr, simple system but works well.

 

[KraftyPg]

I don't keep mine running 24/7 (and it's not an engel) but I do run it for weeks at a time and my battery is lucky to see a 240v charge once a year now days. Mines a 170Ah, with an isolator and self resetting fuse between the two batteries and nothing more.

The only problem I've suffered due to a battery going flat in 15 years was earlier this year when I was running the fridge and several power tools off the second battery and the car spent most of the day at low revs or turned off, I forgot to put the battery on the 240v when I got home and the next day it struggled to run the fridge for 8 hours, but since the fridge was already cold running it an hour on and an hour off the thing stayed cold for the rest of the day and didn't completely flatten the battery.

 

[gadgets]

what setup do you guys run to have the fridges going 24/7???

guessing a nice deep cycle with a DC charger and some solar panels?

Tripple batteries, two 70amp deep cycles and starting battery, also my car gets driven every day,even when camping I cant seem to stay still for more than a few hours. + Before I head off for a long weekend I charge all the batteries with a charger.

 

[maddogrc]

Yeah mate charged from the alternator through a vsr, simple system but works well.

VSR? Mind blank lol

 

[Matt76]

VSR? Mind blank lol

Voltage sensitive relay, just makes sure the start battery is charged before charging the Aux.


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[maddogrc]

ohhh ok, like my redarc!

sweet as! pitty 120A/h batts dont fit in a standard battery tray... ehhhh

 

[pointblank5]

one thing no one has mentioned here... the waeco weighs a SHIRTLOAD less than the engel of the same size or even smaller.
That and the price/warranty of waeco made my decision easy!!

 

[maddogrc]

waeco isnt surrounded in a big metal box though haha.

my engel is in the back of the ute tray, no protection from the elements (well there is the transit bag), but otherwise i can have stuff in the tray roll onto it or hit it from the side, etc accidentally.

takes more abuse imho

 

[will]

And the plastic used on the lids of wacoes is different to the rest of the case and I've heard that they warp in the sun. When I bought my engle I spoke to heaps of people and quite a few had said that when they take their stock to caravan & camping & offroad shows they have to put the wacoes in the shade and a guy at one stand had to have the lids on almost all his wacoes replaced. Which wacoe did without question. I would think this has now been addressed but who knows....

 

[Al]

haven't had a problem with my waeco lid (got the 80 lt job) . Also it just makes sense to have it in the shade, for no reason but to assist ing keeping it cool. I can't see why anyone would have the fridge sitting in the sun. my waeoc has had a lot of use, i mean near 9 months 24/7 on AC at one stage and have never had any issues. In my view plastic is is better then metal.

 

[will]

Also it just makes sense to have it in the shade, for no reason but to assist ing keeping it cool. I can't see why anyone would have the fridge sitting in the sun.

absolutely Al, but i cant tell you how many fridges I've seen in trays of utes unprotected. yeah its crazy and inefficient, but it happens.

and if you put your engle in the sun the metal heats up to scorching temperatures and has to work bloody hard.

one of those things, i see my fridge as a tool that should work to justify it's existence. i dont want to be having to work for it - ala, shifting it to find shade (even if it's off.) just set and forget.

Both are bloody good fridges, otherwise everyone would just buy an Engle

 

[Old.Tony]

I ended up putting a 140litre Waeco in the caravan to replace the 3-way. Best move I'd made.

Thing sucks about 5.5 to 7.5A when it needs to cools stuff down, but it nicely auto-switches from 12V to 240VAC when it sees the house power is on. While we're towing, the Navara supplies juice to an inverter, which causes the fridge to run on 240V while the C-Tek charges up the battery.

The Engel 60L chest fridge sits in the tub and is now charged while we drive in the same manner. Engel have for years (Waeco only just started) auto-switched to 240VAC if it as present, and I do the same stunt in my tub - Engel runs from battery, but when I start my car, an inverter powers both the fridge and a battery charger.

 

[maddogrc]

making up a lil setup for my engel to fit between the tray and cab.

little mock up i did today to see if it would actually fit alright lol

 

[KraftyPg]

Have you moved the tray on that ute for that particular job or was it moved for another reason?

I don't ever remember the trays being that far back on the cruisers we used to play with and any tray we ever built for them was certainly not that far away

 

[maddogrc]

its a chopped tray from when the ute was built.

usually it sits a spare wheel carrier/2 oxy bottle + oxy reel holder setup