$400-500 Edgestar 12/120V replacement fridge

[jessef]

I've been hunting high and low for the past year for a replacement fridge in our Delica.

At first I was going to go with an Engle or ARB 45L but then the price put me off. Just couldn't justify it.

I came across this fridge on expedition portal and spoke with a few people who have used them overlanding. Feedback was good and it's considered a great bang for the buck to have a permanent fridge that doesn't suck much juice and keeps everything cool or frozen.

I bought mine at livingdirect.com which is a sister co. of compactappliance.com

$420 USD shipped.

They are made in Texas (Edgestar) and here's the link :

http://www.edgestar.com/products/fridgefreeze/fp430.asp


Both have outstanding customer service and warranty.

Here's my little review since we just came back from a short trip with lots of offroading, highway miles logged at temps below freezing and above 40 celcius.

Took a week off and went for a road trip with the lady.

Temps ranged from 30 to 104 *F.

Up here in the Pacific northwest, we get it all.

We went from Vancouver, BC to Kelowna to Banff, AB at -5 and snow and crossed over to the Fraser canyon off 100 mile house where it hit a steady 40. Yes, that's celcius.

During the whole trip, the Edgestar (45 version) worked great. Set it to 35F and it hovered between 36-37F the whole time. Bought some fresh pie and wine and loved the idea of just tossing it into the fridge as we went along.

We did some nice offroading where I had to air down to 10psi to make the climb and that thing was bouncing everywhere. Never stopped working.

Three thumbs up.


After using it for a week, I know that we will never sell it unless to go to a larger model. It is probably one of the most useful pieces of equipment we've bought as an accessory.


Thread that started it all :

Cheap Fridge <$400 shipped

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/s ... hp?t=23350



Our trip :

[flyfishn]

Great pics again. Does the fridge not kill your battery overnight?

[jessef]

It doesn't run 24/7.

I think the compressor turned on/off about 5-6 times all day.

An average battery is about 60ah. This fridge would consume about 20ah's per day so three days.

It varies on how much food you have in there. How many times you open it. How hot/cold the outside ambient temps are, etc...

But it's 100 times more efficient than the coleman and thermo-electric coolers. Those don't really act like a fridge. They keep things cool but not ice cold.

This fridge is a real fridge. Just portable.

It can freeze or just use as a normal fridge. I like the top opening. It's supposed to be more efficient than a vertical door fridge. Doesn't loose as much cool air when you open/close it.

We like it and it pretty much paid itself off on our whole trip. We bought our food before we left and kept it all in the fridge the whole time.

Nothing gets wet/soggy. You don't have to toss out any food. There's drain plugs and the baskets come out.

It's just really convenient once you have one.

The only thing you have to figure out is how to justify the initial cost. But once you buy it, no more ice/soggy food. Even in 40 celcius. Pulling out an ice cold drink in the desert was priceless.

[JMK]

Wow, that is a lot fancier than my $80.00 Wal-Mart bar fridge (which is still a lot better than the Coleman style electric coolers BTW). That one also will kill my dual spiral cell bat's in three days if you let it.

Do these things also show up on eBay?

I see one of your pic's on Hgwy 93N you're just down the road from Tyler at Rampart Creek Hostel, hope you got the opportunity and stopped by and visited him. The lot where you took the pic with the snow coach is the parking lot where we camp in the winter in the Deli when we're up there making turns (Cheap Fridge lower left under even cheaper microwave).