Anyone using a Dometic PLB40 in their Tacoma?

was a trip to Sedona, was awesome! First time camping without ice and it was glorious. Didn’t have to worry about any food getting crushed or soggy; loved it!

 

Excellent. Sedona is great regardless of how you do it.

Yes - non-soggy food is the best!

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This setup looks clean & awesome.

@Dometic is it safe to sleep in an enclosed space with one of these batteries? I used to have a van with a deep cycle battery running my fridge (Dometic, amusingly) and I had a CO monitor in there just in case of off-gassing. I know LiFePo batteries don't offgas the way older batteries do, but is there danger?

 

No issues with the PLB40 in this regard.

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Great Thread. Exactly what I was looking for.
Would I be able to charge the PLB40 and power fridge using the truck bed 120v/400w outlet in the bed while driving? And then just run fridge
off the PBL40 when parked?

 

That's exactly how it's intended to be used. Charge while you are driving, discharge while you'll off-grid.

If you have it in your bed make sure it's tied down well. A lot of people will also keep it in their cab in order to power other devices while you are charging it.

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So apparently the bed outlet while driving is 120v/100w will this be sufficient?

 

The PLB40 doesn't have a built-in inverter to support 120v to 12v. That said you can use an inverter to do this.

The most common case, and what is supported out of the box, is to use the 12v connector in your cab to connect up the PLB40 while driving to charge it.

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You can order exactly what you want from here - ends, length, etc. only $15-20

https://powerwerx.com/dual-conductor-custom-cable

 

Sorry for the confusion. I'd been thinking you might already have an inverter in the bed to power other items, connect to solar, or similar. Usually, if a PLB40 is in the bed, it's because the user has solar set up as well. Again, sorry for the confusion. My coffee hadn't kicked in yet

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According to the manual it draws 2.5A AC, or 300 watts, so 100 watts wouldn't be sufficient.

 

What I was thinking was plugging the PLB

I wonder then could i plug the PLB40 ,while driving, into the a/c plug and the Dometic into the PLB40?

 

I recently got a CFX3 55IM and a PLB40. I've been thinking about it for a long time but didn't want to spend the $$$$. Then REI had a 20% sale + my rei dividend and stimulus check made it a pretty good deal.
I first put it in the back seat but then moved it in the bed. I did one trip where I had the battery in the back seat plugged into 12v then ran a cord through windows into the bed for the fridge. This was a little messy and temporary. I bought the dometic hardwire kit but haven't installed yet.
Should I wire the new kit directly to the truck battery? This would mean constant power being drawn even when the engine is off? So then when I get to camp or parked for a long time I would need to unplug the battery from the dometic 12v port in the bed of the truck?

 

yea the PLB40 charges off the alternator after you install the DC hardwire kit from dometic. After you stop it will continue to drain the car battery so I unplug the PLB40 at that point. If I’m over landing and driving the next day I plug the PLB40 back into the DC connector and charge it again with my alternator. If I’m camping I just recharge with a 100watt solar panel. Rockpals makes a good one.

 

Looking for a solar setup to keep my PLB40 topped off now that I have a hardshell RTT incoming and have the real estate for it. Any suggestions of what to look for? I know 100W max. I know nothing about solar panel brands so any jumping off point would be helpful.

 

@Dometic I currently have a PLB40 powering a CFX 75DZ cooler. The PLB40 is being powered by 2x 110w Renogy solar panels.

The setup works great, but I've found that as soon as the sun goes down (and the panels effectively stop feeding power into the PLB40), the PLB40 throws a warning symbol and starts beeping, indicating that "The input voltage of the charger is wrong." The only way to clear the warning is to unplug the my SB solar connector from the battery.

Is there a way to have keep the panels/SB connector plugged into the battery at all times without it consistently throwing a warning when the voltage gets too low (i.e., when the sun goes down)? It's pretty annoying to have to unplug it every night, and then plug it back in in the morning.

 

Curious to know the answer to this. I want to add some solar panels to supplement my PLB40 for days when the truck doesn’t move. Do those two panels exclusively charge it or do you also charge from 12V?

 

@littlefish Right now I've only got the panels charging the PLB40. It seems to charge pretty quickly in full sun if you're not drawing any power from it, but I haven't done a full 0% to 100% time test.

With my CFX 75DZ, it eats into the battery relatively quickly given the size. I usually manage to run the CFX for 2ish days, with full sun during the day (conditions: 85ish degrees out during day/55 at night, with freezer (15 degrees) and fridge (38 degrees) engaged). I'd imagine you could run for longer if you tweak the temperature settings / use only one zone / overland in cooler conditions.

Hotter days though: you'll probably need to supplement with an 12V outlet if you're on a longer trip.

 

Is there a particular reason you didn't just wire to the factory outlet in the back of the Taco? Trying to understand your logic with bothering to install the domestic wire kit. Thanks man.