Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Principles of Overlanding 12V Fridges: Choosing the Right Size and Power for Real-World Travel

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Principles of Overlanding 12V Fridges: Choosing the Right Size and Power for Real-World Travel · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Scott Brady, and I'm here with my illustrious co host
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Matt Scott, and we're going to talk about the principles
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: of overlanding twelve olt fridges, because we all know we've
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: talked a little bit about fridges in the past, but
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: everybody knows that that's like it is a true luxury item.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Fridge good, fridge good, fridge good, Yes, exactly. But what
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: we're gonna there's a lot to talk about because we
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: find that people tend to get too big of a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: fridge then they need, they tend to spend a lot
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of money on features maybe that they don't need. So
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: there's from our experience that of course for me, it's
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: always the mistakes that I've made, that I've learned some
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: lessons that I can share on a podcast today. But
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: we want to talk about what's the use case for
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the fridges, Why you should consider a fridge as opposed
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: to like an ice cooler and other things like that.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: So I think we kind of start off with the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: use case of the fridge is that you like to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: travel remotely, you don't tend to stay in accommodations, which
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: means you need to bring food with you so you're
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: when you're camping, you can make dinner.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Food is essential for living.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's right.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I'm going to talk like the guy in the F
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: one Drive to survive. If you don't have food, you
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: will starve. No, Okay, seriously, fridges?
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Should I be watching this F one thing? By the way?
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Is it any good? Yeah? It's pretty Is that the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: one on Apple?
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: I mean yeah, it's just like you know, it's like
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: a it's like the previous season, gotcha kind of like
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: it's a good catch up on F one. But fridges. So,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: fridges they're better than coolers. Why because you don't have
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: to have ice. Yeah, a lot of the places that
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: we go, well there's not an ice machine, like in
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the middle of I don't know, the Sahara.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think that a cooler box or
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: a ice cooler. It probably works great if you're just
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: going out for a weekend a couple times a year
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and that's that's kind of your the time you have
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: to go traveling. I think it's fine for a day
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: or two.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, especially with these like these roto molded coolers
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: and they're basically all the same. The Yetti's the canyons
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: are tick, which is like they we are going to
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: test those next Yeah, that that'll be interesting.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Curious.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I think I don't want to like who the cooler.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: They have some great use cases, I just find I mean,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: like most of the time it's kind of a pain,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Like you've got to you have to kind of orient
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: everything in the cooler, you got to precool it, like,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: and then you have to run into the gas station
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: to get ice be cause there's no.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Way they like in door ice thinker at your.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: House is going to create enough ice for it. So
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I mean, I've just never really looked back.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: I guess when it comes to fridges.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: And I think you also end up with those situations
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: where you know, like a bunch of the food gets
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: ruined because it gets wet, yeah, or they're very heavy
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: too well.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: And then also like when you're off road, as soon
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: as you're gett any kind of like like ice melt
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: and you're moving size, you know, you try and put
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: like the dry things on top of the bread or whatever.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: It just doesn't work out. Fridges aren't really anything new.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: These twelve Olt fridges have been around for thirty forty years.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: I have an angle that has been running NonStop for
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: like fifteen years. They just they're pretty reliable. I think
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: that the biggest downside to a fridge is weight, you know.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I mean they're getting lighter, I guess, but it's the
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: power consumption, which with lithium has gotten a lot easier.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: You know, when I started doing this, it was everything
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: you could do to keep the fridge from running, you know,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: basically running overnight. And now we're talking fridge, starlink, drone,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: back charging inverters, espresso machine, like all of the crap
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: people put in the back of It's a coma. It's
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: so true. Yeah, it's gotten it's gotten easier.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Like we used to, like if we got to the
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: group thirty one. Remember if you made it to the
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: group thirty one a GM, then like you could you
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: could do like a whole twenty four hours in camp
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: before you needed to.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Charge what eighty amp hours and then.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Eighty to one hundred, but you've only got fifty depth
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: of draw, so you end up with like maybe fifty
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: or sixty amps of usable.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: I just think it's a really nice it's a nicer
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: way to travel. I remember the first time I saw fridge.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I was in Moab. I was like, saw fridge, but
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: really was impressed by one. I was in Moab and
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: a buddy of mine, you know, we're on like Hell's
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Revenge or something, and it's super hot and he's just
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: having an ice cream cone.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: And that is so true, man, that is I think
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: it was probably the exact same thing for me. Someone
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: had and they had ice cream somewhere big flex. Yeah
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: it was not even ice cream right now, Like that's
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: so funny.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: A drumstick.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but fridge is the nice thing about fridges too,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: is that you can move it to your next project
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: via They really are reliable, especially if you get a
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: great one like the Angles run forever, which, by the way,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: we should talk about that a little bit in this podcast.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: You know, the Angle fridges use a refrigerant that is
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: becoming problematic around the import so you, yeah, like the
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: future of Angle like hopefully they I'm sure they will
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: figure something out, but at the moment, like, if you
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: can find one, you better snap it up because the
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: inventory coming in is becoming more and more scarce. And
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: they're such a great fridge. They're really really simple. I
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: keep going through this.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Thing, and you know, my journey of Overla anywhere, it's
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: wants simpler and simple and simpler and simpler, because the
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: more complicated or here's here's another f one thing, the
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: more complicated something is, the more likely it is to break.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: All of these. Like he's like Captain Obvious on the show.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah no, but really I think I think that fridge
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: is the ridge itself isn't complex. It's what everybody does
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: to the fridge. They get their forty pound fridge, but
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: then they for a while we were like we were
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: importing these fridge drop slides, and it's like the fridge
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: was forty pounds on the drop slide with like one
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: hundred and ten pounds and like you'd have to like
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: put a spring spacer on one side so it wasn't
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: leaning over too itnch. You know, like you can't optimize everything.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: I think that's why we Bill have kind of gone
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: to just small fridges. Yep, we both have an affinity
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: for this little twenty five liter to medic Yeah.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: CFX three twenty five were CFX five twenty five. It's
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: what I used all the way across East Africa and
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: it's it's enough. It's shocking. It's that Parkinson's law is
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: that you're gonna fill up to the available space. I mean,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the law is actually about bureaucracy, but it applies equally
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to a fridge. You're gonna fill up the available space.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: So if you have a twenty five lider, magically the
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: twenty five is just fine. Now, of course we're talking
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: about for two people. To you and Laura, it's me
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and Tavia. You know, it's like there's you don't I
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: don't have a bunch of kids or whatever. But if
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: you did have a family of four, so maybe we
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: talk about that real quick. Let's talk about fridge size.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: If it's one or two people, really try to get
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: into that twenty five to thirty five liter range, like,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: work really hard to do that, and you'll be shocked
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: how easily it works. If you've got parents and one
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: kid or two kid, try to get into that forty
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: five to fifty five liter range. You know, maybe if
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: you're going out for a long period of time and
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: you're really doing a lot of elaborate cooking or whatever,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: you push up into the sixty liter. But you've really
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: got to be in that situation where you're either going
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: to be remote for a week or more, or you
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: got a ton of people, or you get extra vehicles
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: that you ever need anything bigger. And a lot of
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: people buy eighty liter fridges and they get so heavy though,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: they get so heavy.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Well they do even just like a couple day trip,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: and then it's always the beer and get the beer
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: and or the soda pops or whatever, and they say, oh,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I'm going to need a case of right, it doesn't
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: all have to go in the fridge. At the time,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: that was like the exactly the big eye opening thing
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: for me when I got this twenty five liter was that, oh, well,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: the beer. Okay, I'm just gonna keep saying beer. The
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: beer can be in your drawer in the back of
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: the truck or whatever, and you only need a couple
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: each night, yep, I mean depending.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: On who you're with. Yeah, but maybe you've wrecked my own,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: but maybe you feed six or something like that in
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: there during the day, but you don't need to have
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: twenty four cans of beer.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: And that was something interesting that we'll get into later
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: with the kind of comprehensive fridge test that you're doing
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: for Overlain journals figuring out how long it takes these
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: fridges to cool things down, because that's a really big,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: a really big thing too, and we're.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Going to talk about that because there's it's almost like
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: like how fast you're nine to eleven is? Zero to
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: sixty is actually a really it's a very cool number
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: and it's something that you can experience and.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: It's completely irrelevant, though I'm going to get beat by
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: a sixteen year old to model why.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: And that's the reality is is that, yes, a a
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: fridge that cools very quickly is an advantage if you're like, Okay,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I leave on a Friday afternoon, I'm going to go
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: to the grocery store. A lot of this stuff isn't cold,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: and I want to make it food safe, so I
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: want to get cooled down really quickly. But if you're
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: taking cold food out of your fridge or fridge that's
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: or food that's already cold from the grocery store and
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: you're putting it in there, then the speed at which
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: it cools is not as important. What is important is
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: the amount of electrical power that it draws to maintain
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: that temperature. That's a little bit more important. And then
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: another performance indicator that we test for is how long
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: it takes for the food to go from let's call
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: it four degrees centegrate, or let's call it forty degrees
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: approximately fahrenheit up to about fifty degrees fahrenheit, or let's
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: call it ten degrees centegrate, because that's where you start
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: running into food safety issues. So a lot of people
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: they'll shut their fridge off overnight because they don't have
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: a dual battery system or they have a limited amount
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: of power. So if the fridge can make it overnight
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and keep it in that food safe zone, that's actually
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: a real advantage. And it allows you to go into
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: a movie for a couple hours with your fridge off
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: and you're not worrying about when you come out, is
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: the food all going to be still food safe. So
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: we came at it the test. We came at it
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: from the perspective of food safety, which I haven't seen
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: people really do in these tests. And the other factor
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: that was really interesting around food safety, and it's something
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: that I really wanted to talk about in this podcast,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: is a lot of these new crop of fridges, they
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: are trying to game their stats by providing a temperature
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: on the display that either very much reflects just a
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: wall temperature, but it has not been calibrated for the
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: food temperature. So, for example, this Travoca fridge, which I
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: really like it, but it looks good. Yeah, it's cool
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and it's cheap, and it comes that you can get
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: into a cool little set with a solar panel and
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: a power portable power pack and everything else. But it
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: had an over a thirty degree variance between the actual
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: food temperature, which we test with a probe that's plus
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: or minus, you know, one tenth of a centigrade in accuracy.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: These are commercial grade temperature data loggers that we use
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: for the tests, and there was almost a thirty degree
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: variance between what the fridge thought the temperature was in
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: the inside and what the food was on the inside.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: In this case, it was a thermal load that consisted
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of thirty nine cans of liquid death. Because Matt and
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I consume liquid death at even Polo taps into the inventory.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: We are suckers for marketing. Also that that Dead Billionaire.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: It's like ten calories and it tastes like more.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I've had that.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: It's my favorite. It's a Yeah, it's like a Arnold Palmer.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, so which is funny about the dead billionaire thing.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: But anyways, they're pretty clever. So yeah, I'm a sucker
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: for their marketing. But that's what we use for the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: thermal load. So there's a huge delta. Like whereas for example,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: the National Luna had one of the best accuracies, so
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: they National Luna is adjusting, they're compensating for what they
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: know is likely the food temperature compared to what the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: wall temperature is of the fridge. So we're seeing that
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: more and more with some of these newer fridges, is
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: that there's a huge delta between that two those two
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and fortunately you can you can actually buy a really
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: cheap temperature probe that is on a wire that you
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: stick on the inside and put it in the middle
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: of your food.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Because the problem I have with the earth roamer is
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: it's a lot of these kind of campers will have
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: this issue is you have to exhaust all of this
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: heat that's coming out. But then you know, if you
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: park to where the side of the fridge is the
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: side of the sun, oh, it actually starts to struggle
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: and then it's not a chess fridge, which is another
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: really big thing. We should talk about a drawer style, well,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: I guess a chest fridge that or drawer fridge versus
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: what would we call just a pod like what's in
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: the earth Roamer. Uh, yeah, those are They look a
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: lot like your fridge in your home. Yeah, where you've
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: got a door that opens, and the door opening fridges,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: all of that cold air just dumps out.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: When we were at the big thing last year, you know,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: had some buddies with me. They didn't have fridges, so
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: they were using the earth Roamer fridge for beer. Well,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: every time you open that, you know, all the cold
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: air drops out. Well, you have somebody going in and
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: out all the time. It was really struggling to keep
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: up because large fridge. And it's another thing with these
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: big fridges, right, the compressors are basically there's like a
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: like a sea Cop thirty five or dan Foss thirty
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: five and then there's a fifty right you know, So yes,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: there's a performance difference between the two. But these smaller fridges,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: I have found that they just keep a more consistent
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: temperature in the real world because there's just less stuff
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: to cool down as compared to the size of the compressor.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: But it can really take a while for some of
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: these fridges to like if you load typical thing for
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: me is you roll out to wherever you're going and
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: you need to get your drinks, your food and everything,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: and you throw it all in there. The liquid takes
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: forever to cool down. So the liquid cools down and
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: it raises the temperature so much because it's been sitting
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: on the shelf at sixty five, sixty eight, seventy degrees.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: But you just put a huge thermal mass at seventy
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: degrees inside of this cooler, right, and it like I've
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: actually lost meat and other things. Now, once everything gets
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: cold in these big fridges.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Then the thermal load is helping you. The other works.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: It works in your favor. But if you kind of
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: always have your body just mysteriously throws a case of
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: beer in there, all of the steaks and stuff were
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: lost because of that, you'd be a little careful.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that totally happens. And as we know, you open
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: up the fridge door and because cold air is more dense,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: it's just going to go downward and it's just going
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: to come out of the fridge. So you typically want
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to try to use a chest style fridge or a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: drawer style fridge. Now you had the drawer style fridge
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: in your I'm not going to use the word.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll trigger my grenadier itis. It's triggered already. Moving on.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: But the fridge was really cool to st a fridge fridge.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Focus on the fridge, fridge, the car, not the million
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: things that you loved yours. This drawer style fridge I
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: absolutely loved. And here's the thing is obviously that cold
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: is coming down. Well, the actual cooling plate for the
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: fridge that's connected, I guess it would be the condenser.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: It's at the very top, right above everything, so cools
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: everything from top to bottom. And it's clever, super efficient, clever.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: I didn't go crazy.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: How many leaders was that?
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Always like twenty five? That's perfect, Yeah, that's perfect. I
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: have one in a box, thirty five. They make a
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: twenty five and thirty. I think I've got the twenty
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: five in a box out back. I want to put
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: that in there. I think that more people actually should
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: do that style of fridge. And here's my soapboxes. You
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: think at the back of a vehicle, arguably the most
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: important thing that you should be storing are the things
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: that you're you need to kind of live with, which
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: is you know, food and beverage, drinks, all that kind
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: of stuff. So with these drawer style fridges like mine,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: like Goose Gear does them for a lot of different
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: vehicles where there'll be a drawer on one side and
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: the fridge on the other, and then you have a
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: completely flat load surface where typically you have your drawer.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: You either have a drawer system or you have to
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: have a fridge slide to kind of get it out
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: to access everything, and it's either just ends up being
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: too high. Like we're both pretty tall, yeah, but even
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: on a Grenadier still Grenadier, you put a tall drawer
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: system and then you put a you know a National
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Luna or sleeping on there. I mean the top is
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: probably going to be about five and a half six feet,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: so you're really looking in there. That's when you end
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: up with these drop slides or tilt slides, and they're
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: just they have to be heavy because they have to
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: support the weight off road. It's not a dig to
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: the item where you can get around all of that
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: with these drawer style.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Yours was so so sano. It was this tiny little
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: battery that ran it. It was so good.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: You know, I had one hundred hour battery and I
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: could basically believe that's not time. I mean, it was
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: probably space was tiny. It was a Renergy thing, and
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: I have found reenergy just to be great. I've used
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: them in almost all my vehicles because they're like, I
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: don't know, I think I paid two hundred bucks for
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: two hundred bucks for this battery, and like the closest
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: name brand battery from Australia was like seventeen hundred dollars. Yeah,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: they're both using cells that are pretty similar. Anyways, I'm
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: not going into that. It would just run. I had
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: a small solar panel on the vehicle in the hood.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: I think it was ninety watts as when those hood
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: I need to get one of those. Yeah, it was cool,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: but I'm pretty sure the next owner is gonna be
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: peeling off paint with it. They get so hot sure
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: on both sides that it just bakes it. Anyway, it
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: just would sit there and run, Like I did one
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: trip where I left at the airport and I'm like, Okay,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: I don't have anything scientific on this, but let's just
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: see if sitting at the top floor, you know at
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: a parking garage where it's getting sun if it'll just
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: keep running, and it did. I mean it was there
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: for several days.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Oh wow. Interesting.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: So it just was able to get enough in during
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: the day into the battery super efficient and there wasn't
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: a huge amount in there. But I love these drawer
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: stall fridges. Metic makes them. Angle make some, but I
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: don't know what's going on with that. You know, there's
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: a million of these Ali.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Baba National Luna makes them, but they don't bring them
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: in so maybe you'd have to get a hold of equipped.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: And they do that for medical transport stuff, so they
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: make them for sure. But there's a lot of an argument,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: I think. So there's a lot of an argument for
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: that because then you have this flow floor that you
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: can use to sleep inside the vehicle. It's super easy
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: to get to if you're if you yourself or your
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: partner's height challenge, it's really easy to get access to
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: the food. And again they're smaller, so it encourages encourages
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: you not to overload and overpack them.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I would really encourage people just
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: like try and get away with the smallest fridge that
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: you can.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, why they.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Just they end up taking up a lot of space,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: and vehicles don't Like an suv wagon, there's there's not
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: really a lot of space in the back of them.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: When you when you then have something that's twenty four
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: inches wide and thirty six inches or forty inches thirty
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: inches wide, it's it quickly becomes a lot of your
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: space and then you you know, you're just very locked in.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Like you see these like like the jeeps are the
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: worst because the tailgate is so small as compared to
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: the vehicle because they still Thinkeople are in like Malibu
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Barbie and they take the tops off, which no one
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: has done in thirty seven years. So you end up
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: with this stupid roll cage on one side. And then
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: people will put a even a small fridge and then
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: there's room for like the proverbial ham sandwich next to it.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: It takes up a lot of space in there, and.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Then it's tall feet in the air. Because you're on
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: thirty sevens, you have to do a drawer system or whatever.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: But you know, if you just did a small fridge
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: the twenty five liter, yeah, that'd be funny. Different thing.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: There's so much shorter, Yeah, I don't know one of
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: the refrigerated. One of the ones that we tested that
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: I really liked and it did it was average on
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: performance in some cases a little bit less than average
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: on performance was the ice co I love the way
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: it looks, and it looks like a Zargis case or
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: an Alu box.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, credit to them. I've never seen
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: any other fridge do that, so it's an original design.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: They are made in China, but we've tested these things
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: pretty hard, and it does have a little bit of
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: that delta issue between display temperature and food temperature that
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you have to keep that in mind. But what I
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: love about it is it's thirty five liters, but it's
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: dual zone and it's switching so like it's not just
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: like that they use like where the plates are in
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: the fridge to have one zone colder than the other,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: which most of them do it that way. This actually
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: is like the National Luna where it switches between the
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: two zones and will cool the freezer zone if it
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: needs to, or cool the fridge zone if it needs to,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: or you can set them both to fridge or both
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: to freezer. And it's super lightweight. It weighs just over
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: thirty pounds. So if you're if you're if you're payload
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: sensitive and like, I don't know, it's just a handsome fridge.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Like they just nailed it. They did a bridge out.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: They're just not that. No, it's tall, it's that and
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: that's that's height can be an advantage. Like I really
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: like the National Lunas are quite narrow and then very tall.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: It's they're very space efficient that way in terms of footprint.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Same with the demetics, the same kind of thing. But
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: this has about the same footprint as like a forty
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: five or fifty five leader National Luna. But it's just
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: you obviously don't have the height. So if you're you know,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: if you're bringing full bottles of Voove click out into
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: the back country, it might be a struggle for you. Yeah. True.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: But otherwise I think they're cool. And they do a
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: twenty five leader too.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Not in the same style, not in.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: The dual compartment, but a single zone. Oh do they
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: apol twenty five?
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Okay? Cool, that's the one that I have. You get
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: your eyes on, my eyes on. I think that ice
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Co is doing some really interesting things. The other one
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: in the test that I thought was really interesting, and
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: we talked about it a little bit in our New
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Technology to Overlanding podcasts. But that's the Eco Flow, which
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: has a built in battery two hundred and ninety watt hour,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: so I think it if I remember, it came in
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: at the forty thirty to forty amp Hower range, but
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: a little lithium battery that slides into the side of
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: it and it can run for a day or a
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: couple of days, depending on the temperature, the ambient temperature.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: But it's got its own built in battery and you
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: plug it in when you're driving. During the day, it
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: charges up the inside battery and overnight, when the powers
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: turned off to the outlet, it runs off the inside battery.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: It sounded like the performance on that one was okay,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: it was average amp Yeah, but the technology of that
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: really excites me. As I was talking before, I mean,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: you go back fifteen years ago and it was everything
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: you could do to a vehicle to get a fridge
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: to run overnight, yep. Now to have something that has
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: zero modifications, because I have found the least or sorry
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: how do I say this, the vehicle modifications that are
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: the most likely to fail when you're traveling, are your
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: aftermarket electronics? I agree, Yeah, I have through my own wiring,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: through somebody else's wiring. That is the thing that has
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: always been like the sticking point, the one wire is
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: run a little too long, or one terminal isn't tight
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: enough and just boom, all your food's gone. So to
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: not have to deal with any of those modifications, think
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: about it. Grenadier ecoflow fridge go yep, you know you don't,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: or pretty much any vehicle these days. I think that
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: that technology removes the biggest pain point. I don't see
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: how long term unless you have a dedicated camper build
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: and you're geeking out on this big electrical system and
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: all of this kind of stuff, like why would you
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: want to do that when you can just have the
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: fridge that also has one hundred blot USBC PW like
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: it'll run your starlink, it'll charge for solar batteries are
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: only batteries aren't getting bigger, They're getting smaller, more and
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: more energy dense. So I don't see how like a
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: like a demetic for example, couldn't respond to that.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and hopefully they will because there's a lot that
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: I liked about that Eco Flow. It had the very
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: best app in the test by a wide margin, and
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you could even connect it to Wi Fi. So here's
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: a great example. You've got the vehicle, it's storted at
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: a campground, you connect it to the Wi Fi the campground,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: you're out playing for the day, and you would get
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: a notification, a warning that your fridge is getting warm.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Something happened, So you don't lose hundreds of dollars potentially
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: of food, especially if you've got some nice Tomahawks in
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: there or something like that. So I liked the fact
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: that it was Wi Fi and Bluetooth, and it also
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: had a lot of good features to it. I really
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: like the built in battery. The construction quality was good.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: This is for me, the first fridge that is at
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the level of quality that I've seen from other manufacturers
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: made in China. So Ecoflow is really pushing and they
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: make great quality stuff. I use their horrible power packs
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: in my camper because they're great. Yeah, they work really good,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and I do think it's worth to clarify made in
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: China isn't necessarily a bad thing. You hear me say
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: ali baba. When I say ali baba, I'm not knocking
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: on China. I'm knocking off of, you know, knocking on
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: these brands that just literally go to Ali Baba and
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: then they white label existing sheep products and sell them
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: to you at one hundred two percent markup. This isn't
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: one of those. Yeah, our iPhones are made in China. Yeah,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: you can.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: China has some of the best manufacturing in the world.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: It's an ethical choice if you want to buy American
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Maid or something like that. But there's good stuff there.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Most of these compressors are going to be of even
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: if I'm sure the National Luna compressor is made in China,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: it is now yeah, and it is assembled in South Africa.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: It used to be dan Poss and now you can
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: spec a dan Foss from National Luna, which is nice.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: The one that I thought was interesting was the Goal
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: zero uses an LG compressor, but it was again an
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: average performer. It was also an odd size, but it
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: was a great value. It was seven hundred bucks with
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: a cover like an insult of cover. It works within
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: the Goal zero ecosystem. It had a plug in port
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: on both sides of the fridge, which I thought was
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: really clever because it always seems like the plug is
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: in the wrong spot. Sometimes most of them put it
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: at the back, you know. The other thing I liked
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: about the Eco Flow was that the lid opened either
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: direction and it you could remove it completely with super
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: simple like it didn't require modifying it. The National Luna
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: you can change the lid orientation, but you have to
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: it takes a little bit of work. You got to
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: unscrew some brackets and put them in a different location
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: on the lid. The Demetic has a fixed lid position,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: and it's probably the worst lid in the test. It's
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit it feels very it is plastic like.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Even getting it to latch properly feels a little a
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: little fragile. So people have had some trouble with that.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: But the Dometic overall, so just to dig into the conclusions,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the Demetic is the best value in fridges today by
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: a wide margin because it performed within a small percentage
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: on cool down and efficiency to the one that won
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: the test, which we'll talk about in a couple of minutes.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: But it's half the price. So like you can find
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: a twenty five liter for like six ninety nine to
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: low seven hundreds. That's a smoking deal on a Dometic fridge,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: which is a high quality brand, lots of good support.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: You know, you'll be able to get warranty claims serviced
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: from it. And I've used them really hard and I've
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: never had a failure of Demetic, So the Dometics are great.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: And then you know, the National Luna is another great performer,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: but it uses a lot more power to do so
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: like it it like in its turbo mode, like it
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: is crank and like you can get spikes up to
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: eight amps and it's kind of running at around five amps,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: whereas the ARB was running in the low threes.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: The National Luna, though, when I add those they just
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: they cool down pretty quickly.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: It's super fast. So one of the fastest cool.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Vamp hours isn't necessarily super relevant when you're going down
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: the road. So you know, again think of that use
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: case of pulling to the you know, the the grocery
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: store before you get on the trail, and well, you've
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: got I'm going to stand limited energy until you shut
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: the car off, so you want it to cool down
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: as quickly as possible.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: That's a really good point.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: You can turn off the turbo mode because that's the
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: problem I have, like with the Vitro Frigo and the
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: earth Romer. Now that's more of a marine yacht fridge,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: so it's it's not really meant for this, but it's
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: applicable because I mean again, they're all basically just a
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: compressor and then a company builds the shell sure for
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: the compressor to plug into. There are advanta I think
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: to the National Luna for that extreme duty kind of scenario.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Not a week goes by that someone doesn't reach out
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: to ask how they can help support the podcast. We
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: are supported entirely by Overland Journal the magazine. So when
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: you become a subscriber to the Overland Journal print magazine,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: you get this beautiful book that comes in five times
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: a year. It also gives you access to our digital
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: archive and it's well over one hundred pages of gorgeous
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: images and detailed testing and adventures from around the globe.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: So if you go to Overland Journal dot com and
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: you subscribe to the magazine, use the code Overland Podcast
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and that'll get you twenty percent off. It's only available
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: to our podcast listeners. We don't advertise it anywhere else,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: and then you help us to maintain that independent employee
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: owned journalism that we have been famous for, so it
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: allows us to conduct those tests without any advertorial Another
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: way you can help out too, I produced a book
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: last year with Simon and Schuster called Overlanding one oh one.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: You can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: or even your local bookstore, and that encompasses my decades
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: of travel around the world, all my mistakes and failures,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: and the lessons that I've learned in traveling around the globe.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Many of those that you hear on the podcast have
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: been distilled down into print form with great lists and
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: beautiful imagery, So you can find that at your local bookstore.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Overlanding one oh one, And thank you all for listening
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and for supporting us so much throughout these years. You
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: make a really good point, So that should be the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: use case that people need to be mindful of if
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: they have a national Luna, go to the store, get
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: your food, and drive until it cools down. Like make
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: sure that you time your trip in that way, because
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: you could get up into the twenty to twenty three
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: amp hour consumption. So like, what you don't want to
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: do is be like, hey, we're going to go to
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: the grocery store and then we're going to go like
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: drive over to the Crank campground three minutes away and
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: you're gonna burn through a ton of power. So Nationaluna
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: is high on power consumption, but it's also super fast.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: It has incredible build quality. I mean they always look great,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: they're timeless, they feel expedition great. Everything's seals are tight
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: and the latches are work really well. And you know,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: they did have a batch of fridges that was giving
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: them some trouble, but they fixed all of that stuff.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I did have some issues with the National Luna on
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: the trip down the West coast of Africa, but before that,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: and that was affected by that small batch of fridges
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: that was where there was a component that was compromised.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: But before that, I've never had an issue with a
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: National Luna. Like they're super bomber and it's one of
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: my personally, one of my favorite fridges.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: I like them aesthetically. My favorite fridge is still the angle.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: It just works. You know, my wife is like the
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: most person I know, she doesn't care about vanity. She
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: just wants something that works. And she always if we're
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: doing a knot or grab the angle. Yeah, you know,
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: we have. We have like several. It has a little
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: real stat little turn knob.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: It's so awesome.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: It's just super simple.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm hoping that they get that sorted out because
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: that would be a sad day.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: This is a different compressor too. It's a swing motor
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: that's made in Japan.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't care about it can work up like
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: a thirty degree side slope like, it just doesn't care. Yeah,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: it just SIPs electricity. It's like in the two amp
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: range when it's running. Yeah, they're super good.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Their stuff's also pretty good. I mean, again, like a
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: lot of this stuff it is they are buying a
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: compressor from a supplier.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: All of these companies are except for Angle, because they
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: use their own design. I think, yeah, I that swing motor,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: I've never seen it on another fridge.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: I've never seen it on another I think it's exclusive
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: to them. Yeah, but who knows it you can get
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: the Angle. All these other ones they're pretty much you know,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: they're either a thirty five or they're a fifth d
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: C COP or whatever. I think it comes down to
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: the construction quality. I think metal was nice, but metal
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: also heats up, you know, so when you have metal
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: in a vehicle and the sun's coming in.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: The correct sun.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it just absorbs it more. So that's where
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: the demetic's kind of nice mm hmm.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: And the Ecoflow and.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: The Eco flow, I like the National Lunas with they
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: sell like a jacket protection for them those I think
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: that's like a worthwhile investment. I mean, it's just more
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: insulation for it.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But yeah, and then the one that won the
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: test is the ARB. This thing came completely out of
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: left field. I've always been interested in this is their
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: it's their ARB elements, sixty liter And the first time
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: I ever used one one was when I did the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Telegraph track last year, and they had one in a
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: slide out on a vehicle, and they had one in
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: a trailer. And these things were just getting nuked. I
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: mean like it was hot and humid and indirect sun,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and I mean they just they were They kept things
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: super cool and they're pretty big. So we had a
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: team of people with a bunch of food and we
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: needed some space. So there's sixty leaders. So we had
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: two of those one hundred and twenty liters total, and
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, we need to test this thing
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: because a RB makes a bunch of different fridges, but
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: we needed to I'm like, we need to test this
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: elements and it crushed like it It's meant basically to
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: go in the back of a tray bed or in
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the back of a pickup, or in an enclosed trailer
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: slide out something like that, because those are really popular
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: in Australia where they have the fridge on a slideout
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: in the trailer, so they have a filter for the
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: fan that cools down the unit and then they have
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: super thick insulation. You can lock it electronically, like to
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: keep kids out or somebody from steeling your beer. Like
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: if it's in the back of the of the tray bed,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: you can lock it physically. Actually has like a padlock lock.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: It has a crazy thick lid on it that come.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: It's so thick and heavy duty that it lifts with
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: a strut. It has a strut. Now here's the deal.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: This thing is an absolute performer, Like it is outperformed
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: everything in the test by a huge margin. Insulation is
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: a big part of that. Quality of the compressor is
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: a big part of that super oversized fan because it's
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: used to being in super hot conditions. But there is
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: one very notable downside that people just need to be
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: aware of. It is seventy three pounds empty.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: It's it is if you have a truck with like
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: a bedrack on the back and your roof tent, and
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: you want something that slides underneath and can live and.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Like survive being in the bed of a pickup.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is it. Yeah, do not buy this for
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: the back of your forerunner. You'll have to fold your
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: seats down and I will mercilessly make fun of it.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Well, and I don't even think it would fit on
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: most slides. I don't know if a slide could support
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: that kind of weight, because if it's seventy three pounds
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: and then you add another thirty pounds of food, which
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: would seem possible in sixty liters, you're over one hundred
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: pounds just in the fridge alone.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: You could literally blow your payload with this fridge. I mean,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: it's just it's big, right, Like I think it's great
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: for a trailer. I think it's great for a tray back.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: I think it's great for the back of a bed.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: I do not think that it's the best choice for
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: most people.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: It deserved to win the test. It was a total
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: surprise to me. Like every touch point on the fridge
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: is just screams quality, like very well done fridge. The
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Bluetooth thing, I think the fridge was designed probably before
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Bluetooth became a real consideration. There's a way to buy
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: like an aftermarket module to plug it in and then
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: it can interface with some stuff. But that part of
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: it is it's too old. It's an older design.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: From like a design perspective. Somebody they like, let someone
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: geek out on this, and I really appreciate that. Like
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: it is it is, but it's a very it's very Australian.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Right, it's very heavy duty yeaheah.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: And I don't mean Australian is a bad thing. It's
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: just there's a way that a lot of the vehicles
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: are built there, particularly for somebody that's gonna be buying
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: a very expensive fridge, They're going to probably have other
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: expensive things. And I think it's really cool. I just
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: I wish they came up with a fort or a
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: thirty five Leader, if they could do that in an
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: element's construction with that kind of quality. It's it's very wide,
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: and it's very long, and it's not very tall. It's
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: so true and that's what makes it. I mean, you
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: could put it under a tonne cup, yes, exactly, or
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: a bedrack or whatever like yep, it's the fridge. I
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: like when I had my f two fifty with like
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: a lightner rack and I think I'd be perfect. I
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: had my angle in there and it was just fine.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: But this was like that filter. I'll tell you, like
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: I have to clean yearly the filter on the back
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: of the earth Rummer fridge, which entails pulling it out,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Laura helping me, us swearing at each other, scratching something,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: cushing something, and because so much stuff. You know, basically
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: there's there's like this evaporator coils with like aluminum running
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: between him to help find sate the energy transfer and
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: then a little think of it as a like ninety
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: year one hundred milimeters computer fan pulls air through them
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: and it's pretty consistent for most of these. Eventually that
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: starts to get you know, you get a little pet
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: hair in there, and then the dust accumulates the filter
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: is like crazy cool. Yeah, Like, if there's one thing
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: that I could have on a National muna an angle
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: or more of these, I'm going to say like expedition
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: style fridges. It would be that, I mean, they knocked
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: it out of the park, but it's just very specific
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: use case.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Like you're right and that I mean, And I struggled
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: with excursion. I struggled with the decision on the editor's
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: choice because I think the fridge that I came away
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: with like having a little bit of love for is
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: that ice Co. But it's an average performer, and I
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: don't think we don't know yet if it's going to
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: hold up well to long term use, so we're always
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: really cautious around that. The National Luna is an easy
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: choice because I've used them forever, but they've had some
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: issues recently, and it's a warm up performance was pretty average,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: So the insulation is only about forty millimeters in some
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: places forty five in other places, so it's fairly thin insulation,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: so it doesn't do a great job of keeping stuff cold,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: which so you're just going to need to plan on
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: having a pretty robust house battery system to run a
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: National Luna. So I was definitely at the end of it,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I was coming down to like Dometic versus National Luna
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: versus ARB. But the airb was such a standout performer.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: The construction quality companies need to be rewarded, and people
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: need to be made aware of the fact when something
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: is so much better than everything else. But to your point,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: it is a little bit of a narrow use case.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: You shouldn't take this big sixty liter and sick it
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: in the back of your wrangler. First of all, you're
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: gonna have to turn it sideways out. It would take
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: up the entire back of the car.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to create an award here. It's okay,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: called the Opinionated Pretentious Podcaster Award.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I like that. We need to have that for every test.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I would have the National Luna.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Fair energy is so cheap.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Now you can get a three hundred empower energy battery
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: for like a ham sandwich. God, I always love to
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: compare things to ham sandwiches. Down.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Do you eat a lot of ham sandwich? Oh? Oh interesting?
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I mean so they're they're pretty low value.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: My favorite, My favorite sandwich is that Parisian You know
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: it's got the hormonees and the butter.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Sure, Anyways, you don't need a refrigerator for that. Actually,
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: But I just like the National Luna. I like the
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: form factor. I like that it's narrow, I like that
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: it's tall. I like that it's compact yet has dual zones.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: The dual zone is key because you can make ice
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: keep ice.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: I just think for me, the biggest thing is it
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: just has the right form factor. I'm less concerned with
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: the amp hour usage, the energy consumption. Fair So there
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: you go, the opinionated, pretentious podcast or award.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Well, and it works because it's also one of them.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: It is the most expensive fridge.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's got the cool stainless and.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the dimpled stainless.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: It's the cool guy fridge.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: But also, like, what here in our offices, what's the
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: fridge that we use to keep all of our stuff cold?
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: It runs all the time, twenty four hours a day nationally. Yeah,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: it's in fact, it's right behind you, on the other
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: side of that wall.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: You can't even hear it behind the walls.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: I think we did a pretty good deep dive into fridges.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: If anybody has found a fridge that they really like,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: or they have some feedback that we can include, please
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: let us know. The summer issue of Overland Journal is
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: going to feature this test with all of the graphs,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: all of the data we did. We used I our
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: cameras to check for leaks, and we used lots and.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Lots back to the good old days of journal test.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it felt it felt really good to get back
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: to that. So look for more and more detailed testing
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: in Overland Journal. And of course, this podcast is primarily
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: supported by Overland Journal subscribers. So if you're listening to
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: this podcast and you want to support the podcast, subscribing
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: to Overland Journal, you're not just giving us some money.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: You're going to get a beautiful magazine five times a
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: year that we really care a lot about. So if
• 43:39
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• 43:41
  Speaker 1: subscribe to the magazine. Well, we thank you all for
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: listening and we'll talk to you next time.