Dometic Alt.

Van Lifers, anyone use a 12v fridge/freezer that doesn't cost $1K?

I've used an alpicool (cheap amazon unit) cooler on a couple weekend trips and it worked great. Also used to use a tiny regular xooler with a nalgene that I would fill w ice for free at gas stations or restaurants every other day. Might be harder in covid times but plenty of places will let you do this, including the subway that's always inside a Walmart, and even gas stations in CA where they say they charge for ice

https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/topics/camping-and-hiking/best-powered-cooler

I’ve had two bargain brands die on me, whynter and something else? I ended up with a small dometic.

 I dunno it seems the reoccurring theme is when I buy cheaper for the van, it breaks or doesn’t work well and I have to spend more on the long run. Ymmv, but that’s been my experience 

Yukon Cornelius wrote:

I've used an alpicool (cheap amazon unit) cooler on a couple weekend trips and it worked great. Also used to use a tiny regular xooler with a nalgene that I would fill w ice for free at gas stations or restaurants every other day. Might be harder in covid times but plenty of places will let you do this, including the subway that's always inside a Walmart, and even gas stations in CA where they say they charge for ice

Why are you talking about ice? The idea is to get away from using ice. 

I've got an alpicool as well. Definitely noisier and I'm sure less effecient than something more expensive, but I've never had a problem with it when living in sunny places. I've thrown in some ice when it got really smokey this summer, which was annoying but it's easy enough to drain and clean if you have to. We'll see about build quality, but so far nothing has broken running it 24/7 for over a year.

Brice C wrote:

If you are turned off by the cost, you could also use this hack:

Ingredients:

- AC powered, minifridge sized deep freezer

- A temperature sensor

- A relay

- (optional) a cheap inverter

Recipie:

Put the temperature sensor inside the freezer. Attach the wires from the temperature sensor to the relay. Run the power supply for the freezer through the relay. If using an inverter specifically for the fridge, put the inverter between the relay and the fridge.

When the fridge gets too warm, the temperature sensor flips the relay, powering the fridge. The fridge (actually being a freezer) will start working towards 0*. Once the fridge gets to cold, the temperature sensor flips the relay back, and the fridge turns off.

Not as efficient as a dometic, but about $500 cheaper up front.

A temperature sensor/relay with adjustable hysteresis or the battery will be flat in hours.

Marc801 C wrote:

Why are you talking about ice? The idea is to get away from using ice. 

Because, for me, one of the biggest downsides of using ice is that you have to constantly buy it, and it's always in greater quantities than I need for my little cooler. That, and the fact that all your food is constantly swimming in water. My cheap alternative to buying an expensive 12v cooler was, for a while, using a small regular cooler, getting free ice from random places, and keeping it in a nalgene. Easy and cheap and keeps your food dry.

Brice C wrote:

Not as efficient as a dometic, but about $500 cheaper up front.

But then you get to buy a 1200Wh lithium battery (approx. a $1 per watt hour) and the solar panels ($250) to charge it.

Yukon Cornelius wrote:

Because, for me, one of the biggest downsides of using ice is that you have to constantly buy it, and it's always in greater quantities than I need for my little cooler. That, and the fact that all your food is constantly swimming in water. My cheap alternative to buying an expensive 12v cooler was, for a while, using a small regular cooler, getting free ice from random places, and keeping it in a nalgene. Easy and cheap and keeps your food dry.

Yeah, but the OP is specifically talking about electric fridge/freezers.

Going back on-topic, I'm also very interested in any experiences with electrics as I'm researching for overlanding trips in the back country (where the nearest ice is a days 4x4 drive away).

Alpicool, alpicool and alpicool. You wont find a compressor fridge that's cheaper. Mine had a few glitches when the voltage dropped to low from my battery where it would keep cycling until ide have to un plug it and plug it back in. Other than that it works great (going on 3 years)  and it's like 250 compared to the ridiculously overpriced fridges out there.

Idk if Marc will allow this because it's not 12v, but my current set up is actually a $150 target mini fridge running off an inverter. I already had a big battery and solar set up, so I am okay with the inefficiency. I have a 100 ah lithium battery, 600 watts of solar, and a 2000W inverter. I can technically only draw 1000W at a time because that's the max for my single battery, and that's fine, but I had overheating issues w a smaller inverter. 

The costway fridges on amazon work real good. Condenser is pretty quality, price is good 300 i think

Anyone have any updates?

I'm considering something to plug in to my Honda CRV 12v, no extra battery or solar planned. I sleep in the car, sometimes, and don't drive every day on trips, so it has to make it through without power. 

Thanks! I prefer to make real food when camping, I'd be storing groceries, not beverages, nawmean??

It looks like six or seven multiday trips per season (4-10 days) will be the usual, without even big multiweek road trips factored in!

Thanks! Helen

Old lady H wrote:

Anyone have any updates?

I'm considering something to plug in to my Honda CRV 12v, no extra battery or solar planned. I sleep in the car, sometimes, and don't drive every day on trips, so it has to make it through without power. 

Thanks! I prefer to make real food when camping, I'd be storing groceries, not beverages, nawmean??

It looks like six or seven multiday trips per season (4-10 days) will be the usual, without even big multiweek road trips factored in!

Thanks! Helen

You will definitely need a second battery if you are planning on using a 12v fridge, more than 2-3 days on even 100ah is also not realistic without the ability to recharge it. 

A compressor driven fridge from one of the previous brands is by far the most efficient powered option available.  

Old lady H wrote:

I'm considering something to plug in to my Honda CRV 12v, no extra battery or solar planned. I sleep in the car, sometimes, and don't drive every day on trips, so it has to make it through without power. 

A car starting battery is not designed to power an appliance like a fridge which can (will) drain it down significantly over the course of several days; it will potentially damage the battery, and also potentially strand you in inconvenient places.  You need a deep cycle battery sized appropriately for the application, plus a way to charge it reliably.  There are a variety of ways to do this, each with pros and cons, depending on the details of your situation.

In general, if you want to keep stuff cold in a car for a couple days, buy a rotomolded cooler and put some ice in it.  It should last for that duration of a trip, no problem.

Edit: Some more hard numbers: A small Dometic fridge (like the CRX50 I am using in my van) will use 20-25 Ah over 24 hours in an ambient temperature of 77 deg F.  A CR-V starter batter is around 50-60 Ah capacity, based on a quick web search.  So, one day will run this battery down to 50% capacity, which is really bad for a starter battery.  No way you'll have enough juice to run for multiple days, and an uninsulated car parked in the sun will also be way hotter than 77 deg F.

One option would be a combo cooler that takes ice, but can also plug into your 12V accessory plug while you are driving.  That would help prolong the life of the ice on longer driving trips.

Alpicool fridge still going strong for me after over a year of daily use 

We have a Dometic over 5 years old, still going strong.  No regrets spending the $$. I think it was $500-600 at the time.

Powered from 2-100ah batteries, 200W solar and wired to charge from alternator when driving. The only time we started running batteries low was in hot conditions, parking the van for a couple days with solar panels shaded, and not driving anywhere. Gotta keep those batteries charged!

Dometic is the top of the line for sure, their propane fridges last a long long time and parts are easy to get. I know they used to make a hybrid propane/12v

Expedition Portal has a lot of gear reviews for car, van and overlanding. A quick search on their site: https://expeditionportal.com/?s=fridge&submit= 

I’ve been using the Dometic CC32 while living out of the vehicle for the past 6 months without issue. It retails 520$ and might do the job well if you can accept the small capacity of it.