Maybe caving in and buying a Waeco CR 50

[ninja.turtle007]

This morning at 7am the fridge low voltage disconnect had activated. The frindge ran for 36 to 47 hours. So I think I will be installing 1 more battery.

[jed the spread]

I have been living in my van for the last 7 days now because I am working away and driving half an hour a day and driven from the south coast to London and back again once. My fridge/sterling set up has been on the whole time and has never dropped below 12.3v. It would last for ever at that rate.

Save a fortune in gas

Jed

[ninja.turtle007]

Well, it's in and running nicely.

B&Q PVC trim and a sample pot of paint for the draw front. The paint colour isn't as good as I had hoped for but it'll do for now. I just need to put a couple of coats of Matt floor lacquer over it for protection.

[jed the spread]

Looking good

Jed

[jes*b]

Nice work gents. Informative.

[v-lux]

This morning at 7am the fridge low voltage disconnect had activated. The frindge ran for 36 to 47 hours. So I think I will be installing 1 more battery.

Tom, what size batteries do you have in there currently?

I don't have any first hand experience with Waeco fridges but being a compressor fridge i would expect its power consumption would enable it to run for longer really.

I have 315AH and if i had only my fridge running i would expect it to last beyond 7 days...? The last test i did i was using, fridge continuous, heater occasionally, stereo occasionally, lights daily, phone charging daily. On the seventh day my volt meter was showing 12.00V, at that point i plugged into electric overnight to charge it back full again.

You got a volt meter on your setup? do you know for sure that you are getting full voltage at the batteries etc?

[oorwullie]

i've ordered this :

http://waeco.com/za/3606_424.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

with:

http://waeco.com/za/3606_424.php?artOrigID=139&sprID=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

tis half the price of a new fridge, you throw out the old gubbins and install this in the existing fridge. comes with 2 metres of tubing so ye can mount the compressor anywhere almost in the van.

i paid €365 to a french company incl. delivery and with no VAT.

i anticipate about maybe £35 in taxes payable to the swiss post when it arrives.

[aisha]

That looks pretty interesting, as I think the Waeco will look rubbish in a brown interior westy! (Personally speaking - but happy to be proven wrong)
Might be worth replacing the rubber seal on the fridge while you're at it - if it has hardened it could be letting heat in

[oorwullie]

That looks pretty interesting, as I think the Waeco will look rubbish in a brown interior westy! (Personally speaking - but happy to be proven wrong)
Might be worth replacing the rubber seal on the fridge while you're at it - if it has hardened it could be letting heat in

my westie is a berlin bay so it's not really viable to replace the chest type unit complete.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-a5oB ... CN2375.JPG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-MUad ... CN2373.JPG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

i'm maybe going to look at a syncro westfalia for the winter tho'.

[oorwullie]

my parcel arrived today.







total of £41 taxes and charges to pay.

i was under the impression that the tubing was attached with a screw fitting to the evaporator, not true so i'll probably need to chop a slightly bigger hole in my fridge to get the 2 connections through it...........

and what i said about ye can fit the compressor almost anywhere in the bus with it's 2 metres of tubing is also a no goer, the thermostat sensor wire is only about 60 cm's long. it comes from the temperature switch knob and needs to be clamped on to the silver plate on the back of evaporator.

(E D I T: i'm talking bollox again, the sensor only goes from the evaporator to the thermostat switch, 60cm is more than enough!)

here's a speshul offer on it in germanium for €348.90 :

http://www.kuehlbox-profi.de/Waeco-CU-5 ... plettpaket" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[oorwullie]

this is in and running since lunchtime today, so far so good.

i'm off to the med the morn, we'll see how long the battery lasts.

[oorwullie]

for your information the fridge ran on the 66 Ah battery till the following sunday early morning when the missus woke me up shrieking "it's on fire!"

the red blinking light indicates voltage at 10.7...............

so that's 8 and 3 quarter days. sound cool enuff?

i hooked up the 110 Ah battery i bought new that week to take with and it's been running on that since then, ie 8 days now. i reckon it'll last till saturday.

with a battery wired up to charge when driving i'd think the possibilities are infinite.

i THINK that the ventilator fan is slightly louder now than it was the first 2 days but still not disturbung. there are cheap computer fans to be had that run virtually silently.

i met this french couple with a 1600CT Aircooled injin, they were planning on towing the boat back to near paris............

good luck!

[Theolegit]

Wow sounds interesting have you any pics of it installed?

[ninja.turtle007]

This morning at 7am the fridge low voltage disconnect had activated. The frindge ran for 36 to 47 hours. So I think I will be installing 1 more battery.

Tom, what size batteries do you have in there currently?

I don't have any first hand experience with Waeco fridges but being a compressor fridge i would expect its power consumption would enable it to run for longer really.

I have 315AH and if i had only my fridge running i would expect it to last beyond 7 days...? The last test i did i was using, fridge continuous, heater occasionally, stereo occasionally, lights daily, phone charging daily. On the seventh day my volt meter was showing 12.00V, at that point i plugged into electric overnight to charge it back full again.

You got a volt meter on your setup? do you know for sure that you are getting full voltage at the batteries etc?

After chatting with you at the weekend I decided to test everything.

I checked for drains and amps drawn by the fridge. Less than 0.1a drain on the whole setup and the fridge pulls 3.5A when running. I checked the specs and at an ambient temp of 25C, it should draw an average of 1.4 amps per hour. With the 2x 100A/H batteries I would expect 72 hours without discharging below a safe level.

I have removed both batteries and charged them. After 24hours the batteries showed 12.85V.

I wired each battery to a headlight bulb which draws 7.5A after 2 hours battery 1 is reading 11.82V and battery 2 is reading 11.86V. I was expecting 1 duff battery but it would seem both are.

These are Poweline 100ah batteries from Tayna. After speaking to techinical they have asked me to send them back for testing.

It just seems bizarre that they both performed so poorly or is it that they are just a rubbish product?

[oorwullie]

I checked for drains and amps drawn by the fridge. Less than 0.1a drain on the whole setup and the fridge pulls 3.5A when running. I checked the specs and at an ambient temp of 25C, it should draw an average of 1.4 amps per hour. With the 2x 100A/H batteries I would expect 72 hours without discharging below a safe level.

i assume you do understand that the compressor doesn't run constantly but only for about a total of 6 minutes in an hour? i roughly calculate that with all those amps you have on board the fridge should run for a month before the voltage drops to cutoff level!