ARB fridge freezer review

[sternwake]

HOw much frost builds up is directly related to humidity, and how often it is opened.

Though there remains the possibility of a bad seal, letting in humidity, which will also cause it to suck more battery juice.

Is the noise you hear the fan or the compressor? My Norcold, which had the Engel's same sawafuji compressor was at least 60% louder and could vibrate my whole van.

While i found my extra insulated uright Vitrifrigo fridge used slightly less juice than my friends ARB with the insulating cover, it was not by much.

I am sorry you have had issues with this brand and are not happy with its performance.

On upright fridges, they say to do a door seal test by closing the door on a dollar bill, and see how easily one can pull it out.

Not really sure what one could do to improve the seals on that fridge, but I know my door seals are quite poor

[Blanch]

Dollar bill slips right through, no resistance at all.

I’m not saying it is a terrible product, just that I expected better for the price.

The fan is loud, the light is bright. I wouldn’t want to be sleeping next to it. Fortunately I have a large TT so it isn’t near my bed.

I’ll manage with it. I would not recommend it to anyone though.


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[S Cello]

The light on my dometic, the one that shows the temperature is quite bright. I keep a large down filled extra bed pillow on top of the fridge for insulation. I let the pillow case drape over the temp reading so I can sleep at night next to it. Dometic not too noisy. It took 2 months to build up 3/4 inch of frost. the seal isn't great, but is adequate.

[Snikwahjm]

I keep a spare cooler bag folded flat - just fits - on top of the Engel. The bag does get cold. The battery never seems to go dead so IDK. I do worry about rainy days.

[tx2sturgis]

160 watts of solar is not really enough for a fridge and all the other stuff. Plus, when there is a frost layer of an inch or so, they will use more power.

I'm hoping/guessing/predicting that it will probably do a better job in the desert this winter, with your portable panels tracking the sun, and a lot less humidity.

Fingers crossed!

[MN C Van]

Mine (IndelB) has the same complaints ('cept frost, not a freezer)

Noise- All you have to do is touch it, even just slightly and the compressor goes quiet.
Like S Cello, I hang something over the light

Do you have space around the fridge? If so, see my post on inserting it into a homebuilt insulator box- It will help with power consumption and noise. If you can, it might be a simple and inexpensive way to solve the problem, and it's actually kinda fun cutting up the Styrofoam and gluing it all together.

And, of course, we would be happier with some other thing, in some other place- That's human nature.

I will say I'm impressed that I can have cold food in a van for basically free!
I overlook the negatives because even a few years ago I never would've conceived that I could do something like this, it's still kinda wow! to me.

[sternwake]

Bad sealing Lid could perhaps be mitigated easily with something like this:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Frost-King-3.../202262324

I agree 100% that such an expensive product should not require any additional consumer improvement, but we are in the max profit era, and extra quality control eats into profits, and those scumbags snorting cavair inbetween lines of coke don't care as the bean counters and marketer are well paid to insure max profit.

I've been planning on adding a second set of door seals inside the originals on My VF upright fridge.

A loud fan is also not that hard to deal with. i ripped out the 120mm fan provided with my Vitrifrigo on day 2 of ownership with one which consumes 65% less energy yet has a higher static pressure rating.

I cannot hear the fan anymore and the duty cycle is shorter.

https://www.amazon.com/Noctua-NF-A12x15-...B071W6HJP6

The linked fan is the second fan I have attached to my Condenser, it is not as electrically efficient as this original one I installed:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00650P2ZC/ref...B00650P2ZC

However it is said to outperform the latter fan, 2 of the latter fans in a push pull scenario.

it is quieter than the latter fan, I can't say I've noticed better performance, but I did not try to measure duty cycles before and after either.

Anyway, some spit and polish goes a long way on many products in this day and age. Sad that an 800$ fridge should need it.

Regarding the lights being too bright, I used some cutoff pieces of window tint left over from tinting my windows, and layered them over my voltmeters on my dashboard until they were not too bright at night. Better too bright than too dim, as the former can be mitigated pretty easily.

Keep the intake and exhaust vents clear of any obstructions. The danfoss/secop compressor controller can power upto 0.5 amps worth of fans turning them on and off with teh compressor.
The Noctua NF-F12 draws only 0.05 amps. it could power 10 of them.

The 120mm fan which came with my Vitrifrigo claimed to draw 0.24 amps, but that was the start up surge, it drew 0.12 amps and was louder than the compressor. The Noctua NF-f12 was barely audible at 0.05a and the a12x15 at 0.09a is indeed inaudible.

I used the VF provided 120 fan in my intake fan shroud for a while, It lasted 7 months before failing. Sleeved bearing POS!
It was not run 24/7 for those 7 months either.

I do not know how easy/difficult it is to install a different fan on the condenser of the ARB, but wiring it up is easy, and one can always return the original fan easily if the warranty is required.

[TWIH]

Sad that your 160 watts may not cut it power wise. I know that you are up in the PNW and that means perhaps a doubling of wattage needed in the winter but sheesh, I was hoping that 100 watts could handle a fridg here in NC, maybe not... 

We seem to have enough overcast cloud conditions that 100 watt power production may not keep up with that kind of draw here either.

Its all an oil industry conspiracy, they are cloud seeding right over me. Heck they even made 2 hurricanes in less than a month just to make me miserable!