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View of the Glacier 1.1 cu/ft fridge, juice bottle added for scale |
Upon discovery of this unit, I did what any good vandweller would do, I immediately looked for reviews. Unfortunately, they were few and far between, with literally less than 5 that i could find between various stores and amazon. Even the mighty youtube failed me, only turning up product promos from retailers.
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The handle is extremely rugged, the latch not so much. It seals tight though. |
The fridge arrived well packaged, with no notable damage or issues. The unit comes with both the cigarette style DC cord (never plug this into the actual car lighter, however) and an AC house plug/option as well. Also included were a rather sparse but effective manual and not much else.
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Upper Compartment of the Glacier fridge,lots of room. |
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The lower compartment for colder items, tall items too if you remove basket |
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Digital temperature display, power and setting buttons |
So how did it run in the van? Well, unfortunately I wouldn't be able to find out right away. My house batteries were about 2 years old, and in my naivety I damaged them pretty well. I thought they still should have enough power to supply the fridge, and I believe they could run it, if not for one of the first quirks of the fridge that I discovered.
WARNING: Technobabble Incoming!
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Not the best out there, but its 90AH and will do the job for cheap. |
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Filling the fridge with low risk test food. |
It was a hot the following day. As the day went on and temperatures steadily rose to 90, things began to go wrong. I looked to find the fridge was clear into the 50s. For a compressor run fridge, this was totally unacceptable. I checked the battery state, but it was well charged due to the sun.
The fridge just wasn't seeming to run enough to reach the temperature it was set at. I noticed the fridge had a 'turbo button', never explained, so I engaged that. After a while, the temperature began to drop as the compressor kicked on to bring it down near my requested setting. I am not sure what the purpose of the turbo button is, but shouldn't the fridge do this all the time anyway?
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Fridge in hot van, struggling to get down to temperature. |
And so it went throughout the day, I would adjust it down far below my desired temp, it would drop some, and though it wouldn't skyrocket to 50+ like before, it seemed to really struggle to maintain temperature. I can understand a few degrees, I am pretty sure all fridges do this, but this was 7-10 degree differences, which could result in food spoilage.
Conclusion:
Though I believe you can get the job done with this fridge, at quite a bit of savings, it will require too much tending for my tastes. In an environment like a van, and with me leaving it unattended regularly, that's a risk I can't justify. Couple that with its very demanding low voltage cut off issues (what if my battery degrades over time, as they inevitably do?), I decided to return the Glacier.
UPDATE 8/19/15: I do believe part of the problems i encountered here could be solved by running solid wire (no butt connections) straight from battery to plug/fridge. I ran my 12v receptacle through my fuse box, and it has thinner wire that came with it, that I butted in line with the thicker wire I used. I discovered this after installing another fridge.
Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out my youtube review video as well where I discuss some of these issues and give you an in action view of the fridge.
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