Portable Refrigerators | Power requirements

I'm running a 2nd gen, so things might be a bit different, but I will say that the voltage booster I installed for charging my AGMs made a noticeable difference. I had three group 27 deep cycle optimas hard wired. One under the hood, and two house batteries in my bed.

Now in regard to the OPs post... I did this using heavy duty jumper cables between starting battery and truckbed, an ML-ACR and a bunch of other stuff. I have since pulled those out and now have a Goal Zero Yeti 500x (honestly I'd have gone with something else, but my incoming camper uses GZ stuff, so figured it would be good to have interchangeable accessories in the meantime). I love the portability and the ease of use. Charge at home, off your 12v, or however. Lotsa options. Although reading all these posts above about simply running a simply hardwired 12v line to the bed... I might do that, too... But yes, a portable power pack is super convenient and a great suggestion for anyone.

 

Can't help more than all the advice given, but I got an Iceco and bluetti ac200. Perfect setup and cheaper than dometic.

 

I'd like to see how that goes. Keep us informed. Thanks.

 

and then you have to remember to push the button every time you start the truck.

 

Yes. Your AGM won't be fully charged or last as long without being charged with the proper voltage.

 

Started my trip today and I will start logging my experiment. Quick recap, my setup is below:
- Jackery 500
- Dometic CFX3 95DZ

I ran this cooler days before to get to the temperatures that I want to which are 39F and 5F. I set it up in my house first and it took 2 days to get the temps with half full on each compartment. I moved the set up to my truck (see pics below) in my garage. As soon as I moved the set up to my truck bed, the temp raised to 44F and 18F. I plugged in the fridge to Jackery with 100% battery. To my surprise, the dometic depleted the battery rapidly and temps went down to 42F and 14F in 2 hours.

This trend continued overnight so I ended up plugged in the Jackery to the wall outlet in my garage.

In the morning, the temps are 39F and 10F. The Jackery is at 77%. I looked at the display on the dometic app, the cooler consumed 4 to 5ah/h overnight. Not great at all. I assume this is due to rising ambient temperature in my truck/garage.

With this concern, before I started driving, I plugged in the dometic directly to the bed outlet and charged the jackery in the cab.

During the drive, the cooler is powered by the truck (100w). At first stop now. So far so good with the power outlet from the bed to run the cooler. I will continue reporting over the next 2 days.

By the way, not too happy with the dometic. I have the freezer section full now with a bag of ice to help cool down along with ice cream boxes, and iced water bottles but temp is hovering at 10F.

 

I go months on trips with my portable fridge on the bed outlet with the 400W anytime mod. You can too. Ignore the other chatter.

 

Setting temps <32 sucks a ton of power.

 

Cheapest is run direct to battery. If you are not stationary for more than a couple days it will be fine. I ram this forever then added a solar panel and controller. 100 watt panel was solid. Winter time needed lore. I run 2 solar panels and run it 24/7. Also now have a dcdc charger and never have charging issues. If you don’t run 24/7 then it’s not needed. The jackery or yeti deals are gear for short trips too. My buddy runs solar on his to keep it charged

 

I can get about 72 hours out my Jackery 1000 paired with my ARB 37qrt fridge in 72F temps while stationary. Go either direction with the temps, and battery life will increase or decrease appropriately.

I have now added two 100 Watt Rich solar panels to the mix and tested the fridge off the Jackery with the solar panel facing straight up. I don't plan to make any kind of tilt system for the panels as I will be touring the SE Oregon desert for 3 weeks this summer (extremely rough two track and washboard roads) and don't want things to rattle apart.

In a 6 hour window starting at around 10am, with partly overcast to complete rain storm cloud coverage the Jackery stayed between 98% and 100% full. I started with the Jackery around 90%. I monitored the solar input off and on to see what kind of power I was getting, and it was always at least 50 watts minimum, upwards of 145 watts maximum (depending on cloud cover extreme). The ARB only pulls about 47 watts when running.

I also upgraded the Taco with the 400 watt anytime + added the 4Runner 120V AC jack to the backside of my center console. My ARB fridge travels in the passenger back seat area on a platform (seat removed). Jackery will be plugged into the 120V AC jack while the fridge is plugged into the Jackery.

Depending on how long we plan to stay in any particular location, I may transfer the fridge to a shaded area under my trailer awning away from the truck/solar and Jackery setup and run a short extention cord between them. Or just move the Jackery and ARB to the bed of the truck.

And as a final level of coverage, I have my Honda EU2000i genny that I ALWAYS pack in the event I need to recharge or jump my truck battery. I can run the fridge and recharge the Jackery at the same time with it.

 

Summary of my test experiment with Jackery 500 and Dometic CFX3 95DZ.

In short, my plan didn't turn out as I expected. I wasn't able to rely on the Jackery 500 alone to power up the Dometic the whole time. The Dometic consumed more power than I expected when I ran both freezer (5F) and fridge (39F).

When I arrived at the campsite it was late afternoon, around 5pm. Outside temperature was around 90F. Jackery at 99% since I was charging in the truck on the way there. Dometic was at 35F and 7F. I plugged in Dometic to Jackery around 5pm and I was able to get some solar power for Jackery for 3 hours however since the Dometic consumed 60 to 70W, by the time the sun set, the Jackery was down to 90% within 3 hours. Finally Jackery died around 4 am and dometic was running constantly all night (I was sleeping in my truck bed next to it. Overall, it was from 5pm to 4am the next day.

At this time, I either have to get a smaller Dometic or get a larger Jackery. But the current set up of Jackery 500 with dometic 95dz doesn't work for me.

Hope this helps

 

Yup, sounds like you might want to do both. Smaller fridge and larger battery bank Jackery 1000, 1500 or any other 1000+ watt unit.

Paired with at least 100 watts of solar, and you should certainly be able to go off grid for more than 12 hours, likely indefinitely.

 

I do have Jackery Solar Saga100W for my Jackery500. Two things I learned about the solar panel:
1. The max input i got from the solar panel is 65 to 70W when I was charging yesterday. I was camping in the desert with no trees at all . See my pic below
2. When I charged the Jackery and hooked up the Dometic during the day, the Jackery didn't store any energy at all since whatever input from the solar got consumed by the dometic immediately.

I think both products performed as expected but the set up doesn't work for my use and this is only based on my one trip, camping in the desert with 90+ degree F. So please take this review with a grain of salt.

I am considering to get another Jackery 500 now, one to charge during the day and one to power the fridge. But probably get a Dometic 75DZ instead of 95DZ for lower power consumption and smaller in size

 

Thanks for running the test. Very informative for the rest of us planning fridge/power combinations.

 

I feel like I should expand upon my initial post. I’m running a dual battery setup; Blue Sea 7622 with 27F and 24F X2 Power batteries. I have 2 additional fuse blocks fed via 4awg added to the house battery. One installed in the engine bay and another installed in the driver rear quarter panel inside a water tight case attached to the bottom of the bed. All my additional electronics (aside from the winch) run off the house battery.

It’s probably overkill for most but I can run air tools with the fridge open while talking on HAM and CB and be winching all at the same time. I can also parallel connect my batteries with a push of a button to increase my bank size or jump the truck if needed. YMMV.

 

@Chap79, that under bed fuse block is slick. Nice work!

 

I just bought an iceco jp30 for my trip after doing, I feel, a fair amount of last minute research. The big brands were automatically out for me but I also wanted to at least have the preferred compressor used. I don’t do anything crazy or anything like these other guys- think family road trips, pb jelly sandwich’s and food to eliminate dining out on the road, etc. I planned on just using the bed plug but then read on tw lmao. No idea if it would of worked or worked for me/my needs because I bit the bullet and ordered the arb harness and the blue seas 12v socket. I was about 3-4’ short of wire following my preferred route (which I don’t see as anything out of the norm). Got everything wired up and running just in time to leave and had no problems on the trip with stock battery. I didn’t keep it running overnight but it did stay on throughout the day (with truck on and off).

Besides cleaning up my quick and dirty 4 ft wire extension, I need to figure out a way to secure the frig while it’s loaded. I like the idea of a slide but since I don’t plan on keeping it in full time I don’t want anything to be in the way of me crawling in and out. Open to ideas

I have a 4x4 block between frig and bedside to keep a gap and still strap it in

 

Any problems charging your two batteries from the OEM alternator? Any separate charging circuit or device? Also what is your 2 meter rig?

 

No issues charging dual batteries if you have an isolator/charging relay. I’m using a BlueSea 7622 Automatic Charging Relay. It utilizes voltage sensing to detect charging on the main battery. Once the main battery hits 13.5v it combines them to charge the second battery. Once the voltage of either battery drops below 13v for 2min it disconnects and isolates them.

My ham setup is a Yaesu ftm-400xdr with either a COMET-NCGSS-460SBNMO or Larsen NMO 2/70b antenna, depending on if I’m somewhere with lots of trees or not.

 

Is that a standard North American outlet or is it ARB specific?