Reasonably Priced Portable Compressor Fridge
In July, I bought a new camping beer fridge to replace an old thermoelectric cooler that was just so-so at cooling. The best I ever saw out of it was about 24° below ambient. It was also a power hog, pulling about 75 watts running on its AC power brick. No thermostat, so that was 100% of the time. The worst thing about the thermoelectric cooler was that it could also be a warmer, and you changed its mode with a bi-directional plug rather than a protected switch. Two times over the 10 years or so that I owned it, I accidentally plugged it in wrong, and caused it to heat my beer to 24° ABOVE ambient :E
Did you know that beer will explode at that temperature? I didn’t either.
The new one is a 12-24v DC/120v AC, real compressor fridge. I’ve been very pleased with it. It’s just the right size for my use. I’ll only be using it as a drink fridge, to keep from having to open the LP fridge so much.
Here’s a link to it on Amazon.
Starting it up the first time, I took this picture after it had been running for about 45 minutes, and had dropped the temperature ~35°. There were 12 uncooled water bottles inside with a wireless temperature sensor. It was pulling ~57 watts using the AC power brick. Very quiet.
I let it run on its lowest (coldest) setting until the temperature bottomed out, which took it about 24 hrs. The wireless sensor is measuring air temp, the fridge is measuring the surface temp of the sides of the box. The compressor is running continuously at that setting, and note that the watts have dropped to just under 43.
And we have hard water :C
It’s been running in my garage keeping my beer cold for over two months now. I keep the box set on 26-27°, and the beer stays about 35°. The compressor is cycling on/off 4-6 times an hour.
The control panel auto-locks so you can’t inadvertently make changes to the settings. It also has a “battery protection” feature, that’s supposed to keep it from completely flattening the battery when it’s in DC mode. I haven’t tested that at all.
So, good fridge, reasonable price, and so far good service (knock on wood). :W
:):)
Did you know that beer will explode at that temperature? I didn’t either.
The new one is a 12-24v DC/120v AC, real compressor fridge. I’ve been very pleased with it. It’s just the right size for my use. I’ll only be using it as a drink fridge, to keep from having to open the LP fridge so much.
Here’s a link to it on Amazon.
Starting it up the first time, I took this picture after it had been running for about 45 minutes, and had dropped the temperature ~35°. There were 12 uncooled water bottles inside with a wireless temperature sensor. It was pulling ~57 watts using the AC power brick. Very quiet.
I let it run on its lowest (coldest) setting until the temperature bottomed out, which took it about 24 hrs. The wireless sensor is measuring air temp, the fridge is measuring the surface temp of the sides of the box. The compressor is running continuously at that setting, and note that the watts have dropped to just under 43.
And we have hard water :C
It’s been running in my garage keeping my beer cold for over two months now. I keep the box set on 26-27°, and the beer stays about 35°. The compressor is cycling on/off 4-6 times an hour.
The control panel auto-locks so you can’t inadvertently make changes to the settings. It also has a “battery protection” feature, that’s supposed to keep it from completely flattening the battery when it’s in DC mode. I haven’t tested that at all.
So, good fridge, reasonable price, and so far good service (knock on wood). :W
:):)
