Feelin' Cool

What use is a fancy dual battery system in your car, if you don't have anything to plug into it? Enter the new ARB 47L fridge. Picked it up on Friday afternoon, along with the transit bag.

Badger approves.


We have had our eye on the ARB fridge for the last couple of months. Previously, we had been set on one of the 50L Waeco fridges, and almost bought one of them on a couple of occasions. They're cheaper, and since they're made out of plastic they won't rust or get dented. But earlier this year ARB bought out their brand new fridge, and it's been getting rave reviews ever since.

When we first went shopping a couple of months ago, we compared the Waeco to the ARB directly, to see if the extra cost of the ARB was worth it. We obviously believe it was. For us, there were a lot of little things that the ARB unit had that would make your life a lot easier, and result in a stronger, sturdier unit that will hopefully last us a lifetime. For us, the main advantages of the ARB were:

• The flush-mounted condensor panel inside. The actual "cool plate" inside the fridge is moulded into the interior walls. This means nothing can get behind it - so it's really easy to clean out. We had the devil's delight with Grant & Sam's fridge when we went up to Cooktown earlier in the year, after an errant avocado got loose early in the trip, and was pounded to mush and got everywhere - including behind the condensor panel. Luckily we had access to a tap and could simply wash the whole thing out. Which brings us to...
• An integrated drain bung in the base. I can't believe that every fridge doesn't have one of these. After all - every esky does! In the above example, once we washed everything out we needed to tip the fridge upside down to drain it - hardly beneficial to the fridge itself, especially since it had just been running, and we needed it to be running again very soon. Having the drain bung in the base will make cleaning it up a breeze.
• An easily-removed lid. You can remove the lid on the Waeco, but it's a pain in the butt. Couple that with the 3mm diameter hinge pins and thin retaining strap, and it's a recipe for disaster around kids. The ARB's hinged are very substantial - at least an inch in diameter if not more. And they're metal, so they shouldn't wear out. But the party trick is that if you crack the lid open, you can wiggle it side to side as you pull it forward, and is disconnects from it's hinges and comes away in your hand. VERY handy if you need to get into the fridge, but have limited space about it and can't open the lid up very far - like, for instance, if the fridge was in the back of a car.
  
• Heavy-duty lid. I've seen trucks parked on the Waeco's lid in their ads, but when I sat on it, it bowed in quite considerably. The ARB's doesn't move. Nuff said.
• Internal LED Light, reversable internal basket, recessed control panel (so it can't be accidentally knocked) on the front (where you can get at it easily if it's in the back of a car), strong steel handles front and back, low battery cut off, power-saving mode on the compressor...

You get the idea. It's not one or two big things where it was better than the Waeco, but just everywhere you looked, there was something that had been very well thought out that made you go "ahhh - that's handy!"". I'm sure if we had previously bought the Waeco, we'd be very happy with it. But I'm even happier now we've got this one!

After we unpacked it, we plugged it on on 240v to cool it down and test it out. It was dead silent as it ran, and dropped down from the ambient temp of around 28 degrees to 0 in about half an hour. I was pretty impressed with that!


It's definately bigger than I expected. I thought it would take up considerably less room than our big icebox, but it turns out that it's almost the same size. The fridge is narrower, but it's also longer and taller. Despite having a smaller internal capacity than the icebox, we should end up with more space inside, due to the fact that we won't need to carry any ice in there. Also, since we have the ability to cool things down, we can take cans of soft drink with us hot, and cool them down when we're camping, instead of needing to have everything cooled down before we leave.


With the fridge down to temp, we moved it out into the back of the car, and connected it to the 12v power. We then shut the car up and left it run over night. The next morning the fridge was still showing 4 degrees (what we had it set to), both batteries were still connected, and the voltage was showing just a smidge under 13v. Those last two tell me that the fridge used very little power at all overnight. Granted, we weren't opening it all the time to get drinks or food, and the car was parked in the shade in our carport, so the power usage will increase when the car is parked in the sun and we're continually letting the cold air out. But it's still a pretty good base line!

The only thing that I'm upset about is the transit bag. It sticks onto the fridge with self-adhesive velcro strips. Most of the strips stuck on fine, but some of them wouldn't stick. By the next morning, pretty much all the self-adhesive had lifted, and the bag wasn't secured onto the fridge any more.


It's only got worse since then. So I might need to call ARB and ask them what we can do about this. The bag section around the fridge itself isn't so bad - it stays in position pretty well just with the fridge holding it there, but the lid piece just falls off when the adhesive lets go. And given that I would think the spot it needs extra insulation the most is on the lid... The transit bag wasn't cheap, so I want to ensure that it's fixed.

If you're wondering about the transit bag, it's made out of canvas, but with a thin insulation layer underneath. So not only does it serve to protect the fridge from scratches and dents, but it also helps the fridge to work, and insulates it better. Hopefully this will result in a longer run time on our Aux battery!

Can't wait to try it out in a few weeks!!!