Video Transcript
Hi, folks. This is the DC-50 compressor fridge from Kiravans. As the name suggests, it's 12-volt DC, 50 litres in volume, and this is a more economy fridge, so it's gonna save you a bit of money compared to buying the Dometic, or something like that.
So, it's a lovely package. It's fully encased in metal, so it's very sturdy. It's got a nice kind of brushed element. You have nickel finish on the door. It's got your control panel on the door here as well.
I've hooked it up to a battery. If I just switch that on there. So obviously being only 12-volt, if you've got a sort of average battery, like an ATM power up to a hundred AMP power, a fridge like this is probably gonna run two or three days in your camper van without needing a charge. Obviously, there's a lot of variables, depends what the temperature is. Depends how good your battery is, but that's a rough approximation. So if you want to head off into the wilderness for a few weeks, with a compressor fridge, you're gonna need to probably have a solar panel or something like that, or a generator. But that's just a rough idea of how these things work.
So basically, it's turned on. You hit that button there, and we've got a scale from zero to 10 on the front, 10 being the warmest setting, zero being the coldest. So from my brief play with this, I find that three is roundabout where you start to make ice in the icebox. So it sits there at three, and then the four signifies what temperature it's at now, 'cause it's quite cold in here.
So, open it up with a simple slide catch there. Fairly standard inside. They've saved a bit of money on this fridge by not including lots of extra plastic, sort of salad crispers and that kind of thing. So you've got lots of usable space. This shelf, you can put it whatever height you want.
Up here, we have the freezer compartment. This is a simple metal freezing element for putting your frozen stuff in. It's got a removable drip tray underneath. This door does pop on and off, and the way it works is, that element gets cold, and then the cold air will drop down in to the fridge. In the door, you got a couple of compartments there. These are removable for easy cleaning. You got a magnetic seal all the away around the door. So it's really good. It's a good layout, very simple to use. Let's shove some stuff in just to give you an idea of how much it holds.
So we've got eight cans of drink, another four beers, six bottles of water. You can stick a large water in there, bottle of wine. I have tested this with the big four-pint milk in it. Doesn't fit in here, so you got to go for the slightly narrower two-pint one, and you can fit a couple of those in there. So, plenty of accommodation in it.
Round the back it's very similar to any other 12-volt compressor fridge. You got your compressor up here. You've got a plus and a minus connection. It's quite good practice to use slightly thicker cable than you would for the rest of your van. So, a big chunkier than you would for your lights and things like that, just so that you risk any sort of voltage drop, and obviously stick a fuse in between your power and your fridge.
One thing I did notice is they've rooted one of these cooling pipes across the top, which does actually, when you take into account the insulation, it does come above the top of the fridge slightly, so just allow for that as you're building it in. Apart from that, it's a really good package. One other little I've noticed is the hinges on this side and at present on this model, it's not changeable, so you'll have to just take that into account as well with your design. But yeah, really good fridge. It'll save you a few quid on the more expensive ones and do just as good a job.
All right, thanks for watching. See you next time.
