I'm sitting here on a cliff in Cape Ann, MA enjoying the view AND my Vitrifrigo but I'm curious about the battery life. The fridge performs well beyond my expectations but I am lucky to get a day and a half with the frige and that includes using my 30 watts of solar panels. I have 2 aux batteries now so I can get a whole weekend. Where is that "will run for 1 week on one battery" come from? I've met 2 other Vitrifrigo owners and they both say they get about a day. Is it one week on one of those huge batteries that span the length of under the rear seat?

Thanks, Bryan

-----Original Message----- From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of miguel pacheco Sent: Sunday, July 26, 2009 11:13 PM To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Subject: Re: Vitrfrigio install report

Thanks for the write-up, Ken. This upgrade is definitely in my future! Miguel

On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Ken Wilford<kenwilfy@comcast.net> wrote: > I had a customer contact me a few months ago about installing a > Vitrifrigio 12/110 volt fridge in his Vanagon Westy along with a > secondary battery.  I did the install about two weeks ago.  I want to > say I was very impressed by this fridge.  It is made in Italy and it > looks very nice in a Westy.  It runs off of 12 volts or 110 but either > way it gets super cold, enough to make ice in the freezer section and it > is super efficient so that you can run it off of a battery for almost a > week without a charge.  If you have a solar setup it could last even > longer.  Here is a link to Karl Mulendore's site where he talks about > the fridge: > http://www.westyventures.com/parts.html > > I was very impressed.  I installed a secondary battery setup as Karl > describes on this page as well and it seemed to work very well.  We also > installed a Sure Power smart solenoid for the 2nd Battery so that it > would not take a charge until the main battery was fully charged.  It > also has a feature that allows you to jump start the van automatically > if your main battery is low.  The Solenoid senses this and automatically > pulls juice from the 2nd Battery for the jump start.  All in all it took > me about 6 hours to do the install of the fridge and the battery setup > but it turned out very stealthy.  I hooked the 2nd battery up to the > cigarette lighter and interior lights so that they will now run off of > the 2nd Battery and not drain the main battery when camping.  If you are > thinking about spending some money to get your fridge overhauled I > recommend looking into the Vitrifrigio instead.  They are not cheap > (around $600) but they work very well and should last for a long time to > come (even has a light inside the fridge when you open the door!). > > Just thought I would share. > > Ken Wilford > John 3:16 > www.vanagain.com >

-- Miguel