My old front loading fridge, a Norcold De-0040, which failed at about 5 years, and which had an annoyingly loud vibration prone Sawafuji compressor, was also relabelled and sold as an Engel.
I do believe the sawafuji compressor itself is much more resistant to vibrations, it has to be as its sawafuji swing motor is a huge vibration machine.
The failure of mine was likely due to the plumbing to the condenser from compressorcausing refrigerant loss, exacerbated by my attempts to isolate the compressor further from fridge box as the noise vibrations and induced harmonics of my Norcold would frustrate me to the point of violently punching the fridge door when the harmonics would set in.
It appears the noise and vibrations of the Sawafuji compressor can vary widely with a lot of luck of the draw factor involved.
My Vitrifrigo front loader with Danfoss/secop makes a click, then a thunk when compressor first fires up, but is about 1/3 the noise of the Sawafuji after that and the click and thunk does not wake me up, but the Norcold sawafuji's harmonics certainly could.
Many Norcold Upright/ front loaders now use the danfoss/secop rather than the sawafuji compressor.
http://www.defender.com/category.jsp?path=-1|2276204|2276226&id=2276228
The above link has a few more chest style options like the isotherm, whose body appears very similar to the truckfridge.
I'm really keen on the Danfoss/secop compressor's ability to have the compressor speed changed for the heat load required, and the ability to easily add another switched fan that comes on with the compressor to help evacuate heat from condenser. The only asterix is that both fans must not consume more than 0.5 amps total, but can go higher for 5 seconds initially.
It seems many of these chest style fridges with the danfoss are able to adjust compressor speed themselves. Mine frontloader Vitrifrigo c51is came with a simple resistor to run it at an unmoving 2500 rpm. I removed this resistor to run it at 2000 rpm as i do not need the Quick cool down factor and lower rpms is more efficient.
With my additional 40Mm internal fan and hyper ventilated condenser, I can't imagine cheap american beer being cooled any faster to 32.5f.
Recently I found my 80mm fan evacuating my electrical cabinet failed. This fan also helps pull some air through condenser when compressor is not running. So I replaced fan, kept fridge on same setting and the next day my milk was slushy and interior temps had dropped a further 5 degrees, despite even warmer ambient temperatures. Very surprised that this seemingly small improvement in airflow would cause the fridge box to be so much cooler.
Do not underestimate the efficacy of improving heat removal from condenser and compressor. Increasing airflow over cooling unit might very well add more efficiency than will extra insulation.
So make sure the vents are not obstructed, or covered in dust or lint. If it uses a Danfoss/Secop compressor, one can add another fan, and the extra electrical load of the fan will be mitigated by better heat removal and shorter duty cycles. I replaced the120 MM Vitrifrigo provided fan with a more effective quieter one which used less than half of what the provided fan consumed. Noctua NF-f12. The danfoss controller could run 10 of these fans since it only consumes 0.05amps!
Cut off the ciggy plug and wire short and thick to fuse block, Add insulation, and increase ventilation over compressor and condenser, and the fridge will work better to much much better, consume less electricity, and last longer before failure.
Some spit and polish can really be effective in this area. How it left the factory was for maximum profit dictated by marketers and lawyers and bean counters. Engineers would have improved efficiency by 20% if they were allowed to do the spit and polish themselves, but were overruled by the beancounters.
The Danfoss compressor allows one to more effectively use any spit and polish one wishes to apply.
