After Morocco, I was pretty sure that I needed both fridge and freezer function for trips. I had some great memories of Byron and I sipping G&T’s with chunks of ice after a hot and dusty day in the rock garden. However, taking the Waecos with me (CF40 and a CF35) I came to the conclusion that I didn’t need quite that much capacity; especially in the freezer department. The other issue was power. The Waecos are pretty darn efficient truth be told and with their jackets on I managed to keep everything cold or frozen as necessary but not without some juggling. I would run the freezer all day (from the alternator effectively) down to – 24 as indicated by a thermometer rather then just the panel display, then up the temp to -10 when we stopped so that the stored cold mass would retain temperature without the compressor kicking in. I could have kept this method into the future, but the freezer took up one of the rear seats, which was always against my build parameters. I did take all sorts with me including hash browns and emergency milk, which I never used so the conclusion was I could probably get away with less freezer capacity. Of course there is a degree of redundancy here if one or other of the units packed up.
But on balance, I determined it was time to review the equipment. Now typically I do a lot of research when looking at something like this but for some reason I just dived in and ordered the National Luna from Stan. As usual, excellent service from The Overlander and of course a great price. Thanks very much for that excellent service and help Stan.
I did look at material on line but it was a bit sparse actually and in truth not more than a little misleading I thought. At least the dimensions were spot on or I could have been in BIG trouble. I did have to alter my fridge slide to get it to fit and it’s close to the last mm I can tell. I’ll put some pics up later but if you want to see what the fridge looks like you can visit their home page. Seeing in my truck won’t tell you anything different.
So what are the pros and cons?
Well it very well made and clearly the insulation is much better than the Waeco, which after all has a simple plastic lid. The NL has a proper ‘sucky’ seal when you shut the lid.
I wanted to be able to open the lid along the long side, which you can do. But when it came to it, the indication from the spec was that you could configure the lid to open any-which way you liked. Well you can’t. You can open along one long side or one edge. But not BOTH long edges or sides. So why does that matter. Well it’s a question of where the power socket is. The connection is on one end and of course for me it’s the end that sticks out of the tailgate; in other words the wrong damn way around so I have struggled a bit to route the cable round the fridge without it getting jammed in the slider. I’ve managed but it no way near as neat at the Waeco installation I had.
The fridge is 40L same as the Waeco, but it’s much deeper. MUCH deeper; which means that it’s narrower of course and harder to see into. Great for really long tall stuff like, errm, like, ahh, like … Hmm. The floor area is quite small actually and if you put a couple of 2L Coke bottles in there, it’d be half covered. There are some nice baskets but if you put a bottle in, then you can’t put another basket in on top. I might consider cutting a hole in one of the baskets to poke bottles through. Packing is going to be very different I think. Maybe cans instead of bottles? There’s a nice twin LED light in there, which doesn’t shine into the freezer compartment. Grrr.
Now here’s another slightly misleading thing. You do have to read the blurb very carefully. It’s a fridge and a freezer but on the Weekender, it only has ONE compressor, not two at all. You cannot set the freezer temp. You set the fridge and the freezer follows at about 10 degrees less. OK on a trip, anything around -6 is going to be more than sufficient. We’re not trying to cryogenically freeze tissue samples here. But that lack of independent control is a little frustrating. The compressor runs the freezer, but the temp sensor is in the fridge if that makes sense, so the fridge is cooled by cold bleeding from the freezer in effect.
The blurb also says that it has a Turbo mode, which it does. But according to the instructions, it doesn’t work quite like the advert suggests. When the fridge senses more than battery voltage (say 13.8) it should go into Turbo mode to chill as quickly as possible. Useful if you’ve just been to Lidl . Now in truth it doesn’t seem work like that. You have to select Turbo manually and cancel it manually too. I guess if you don't’ it flogs your battery until it’s cold. I have yet to test this out, but that’s what the book of destructions says. Hopefully when Turbo IS selected it WON’T run on the battery.
The fridge has three cut off levels as does the Waeco and a neat alarm to tell you that you have reached this threshold. A nice coloured LED voltmeter appears on the panel too along with a nice bit internal temp gauge.
It’s noisy. I think it’s actually very noisy. I have slept in the 80 with a Waeco in there and never noticed it. The NL is noisy and could certainly disturb you I think. But it’s clever in that it has several fan settings. It can determine if the fridge temp just needs topping up at which point it will run for economy or go to full on mode if some idiot forgot to close the lid. The consequence of this is so far it does seem very very economical. I put it in the truck yesterday and it was pulling 5.5 amps; far more that the Waeco ever did at a full amp less. I was concerned about this, as I had primarily gone with the NL for economy. However, the fridge was empty so there was zero thermal mass. This morning I checked on things and the Victron meter showed that it had only pulled 6.6 amps in TOTAL since installing it and the Optima was still up in the high 90s% state of charge. This really is very good. OK yes it was cool last night, but it made ice at that and was down at -8 with the fridge at around 3. Thermal retention does seem particularly good. I had it running in the house with some ice in and once switched off, it was still frozen some long while later. The stated figures from NL are actually slightly higher than the Waeco, but remember I was running TWO of those.
The mains lead is much longer than the 12v power lead, which is a little short I think, but I could easily extend that. It comes fitted with DIN plugs too not the UK fag lighter connections.
I’d like the insulating cover but there isn’t a hope in hell that the fridge will then fit under the cargo tray. I have no more adjustment. I’ve even had to take the carpet out from under the fridge.
So final thoughts? I think it is technically a better fridge than the Waeco based on energy consumption and insulation. That’s two pretty compelling positives. But do I think it’s a nicer fridge. Time will tell.
And no. I am not selling the Waecos before you ask. You know who you are ...
But on balance, I determined it was time to review the equipment. Now typically I do a lot of research when looking at something like this but for some reason I just dived in and ordered the National Luna from Stan. As usual, excellent service from The Overlander and of course a great price. Thanks very much for that excellent service and help Stan.
I did look at material on line but it was a bit sparse actually and in truth not more than a little misleading I thought. At least the dimensions were spot on or I could have been in BIG trouble. I did have to alter my fridge slide to get it to fit and it’s close to the last mm I can tell. I’ll put some pics up later but if you want to see what the fridge looks like you can visit their home page. Seeing in my truck won’t tell you anything different.
So what are the pros and cons?
Well it very well made and clearly the insulation is much better than the Waeco, which after all has a simple plastic lid. The NL has a proper ‘sucky’ seal when you shut the lid.
I wanted to be able to open the lid along the long side, which you can do. But when it came to it, the indication from the spec was that you could configure the lid to open any-which way you liked. Well you can’t. You can open along one long side or one edge. But not BOTH long edges or sides. So why does that matter. Well it’s a question of where the power socket is. The connection is on one end and of course for me it’s the end that sticks out of the tailgate; in other words the wrong damn way around so I have struggled a bit to route the cable round the fridge without it getting jammed in the slider. I’ve managed but it no way near as neat at the Waeco installation I had.
The fridge is 40L same as the Waeco, but it’s much deeper. MUCH deeper; which means that it’s narrower of course and harder to see into. Great for really long tall stuff like, errm, like, ahh, like … Hmm. The floor area is quite small actually and if you put a couple of 2L Coke bottles in there, it’d be half covered. There are some nice baskets but if you put a bottle in, then you can’t put another basket in on top. I might consider cutting a hole in one of the baskets to poke bottles through. Packing is going to be very different I think. Maybe cans instead of bottles? There’s a nice twin LED light in there, which doesn’t shine into the freezer compartment. Grrr.
Now here’s another slightly misleading thing. You do have to read the blurb very carefully. It’s a fridge and a freezer but on the Weekender, it only has ONE compressor, not two at all. You cannot set the freezer temp. You set the fridge and the freezer follows at about 10 degrees less. OK on a trip, anything around -6 is going to be more than sufficient. We’re not trying to cryogenically freeze tissue samples here. But that lack of independent control is a little frustrating. The compressor runs the freezer, but the temp sensor is in the fridge if that makes sense, so the fridge is cooled by cold bleeding from the freezer in effect.
The blurb also says that it has a Turbo mode, which it does. But according to the instructions, it doesn’t work quite like the advert suggests. When the fridge senses more than battery voltage (say 13.8) it should go into Turbo mode to chill as quickly as possible. Useful if you’ve just been to Lidl . Now in truth it doesn’t seem work like that. You have to select Turbo manually and cancel it manually too. I guess if you don't’ it flogs your battery until it’s cold. I have yet to test this out, but that’s what the book of destructions says. Hopefully when Turbo IS selected it WON’T run on the battery.
The fridge has three cut off levels as does the Waeco and a neat alarm to tell you that you have reached this threshold. A nice coloured LED voltmeter appears on the panel too along with a nice bit internal temp gauge.
It’s noisy. I think it’s actually very noisy. I have slept in the 80 with a Waeco in there and never noticed it. The NL is noisy and could certainly disturb you I think. But it’s clever in that it has several fan settings. It can determine if the fridge temp just needs topping up at which point it will run for economy or go to full on mode if some idiot forgot to close the lid. The consequence of this is so far it does seem very very economical. I put it in the truck yesterday and it was pulling 5.5 amps; far more that the Waeco ever did at a full amp less. I was concerned about this, as I had primarily gone with the NL for economy. However, the fridge was empty so there was zero thermal mass. This morning I checked on things and the Victron meter showed that it had only pulled 6.6 amps in TOTAL since installing it and the Optima was still up in the high 90s% state of charge. This really is very good. OK yes it was cool last night, but it made ice at that and was down at -8 with the fridge at around 3. Thermal retention does seem particularly good. I had it running in the house with some ice in and once switched off, it was still frozen some long while later. The stated figures from NL are actually slightly higher than the Waeco, but remember I was running TWO of those.
The mains lead is much longer than the 12v power lead, which is a little short I think, but I could easily extend that. It comes fitted with DIN plugs too not the UK fag lighter connections.
I’d like the insulating cover but there isn’t a hope in hell that the fridge will then fit under the cargo tray. I have no more adjustment. I’ve even had to take the carpet out from under the fridge.
So final thoughts? I think it is technically a better fridge than the Waeco based on energy consumption and insulation. That’s two pretty compelling positives. But do I think it’s a nicer fridge. Time will tell.
And no. I am not selling the Waecos before you ask. You know who you are ...
