securing a Dometic

[maca1]

hi team,

I am torn between a Yeti and a Dometic CFX3 25/35 for infrequent, 2 days trips with my wife and 2 kids.

2 primary questions:

1. Whats the simplest way to secure it, if I want to be able to take it out of the vehicle when not in use?
2. Is a secondary battery source a must have, if I am only out for 2 nights, or can I simply plug it into the outlet in the trunk?

this is for car camping. 21 trd pro. no slide deck.

Thanks.

 

[Cymon]

I am certainly in the “If you go fridge you’ll never go back” camp. But for your use I think the Yeti will be a better investment. Fridge is better if you’re going out long enough where ice refill will be necessary.

You will want a secondary power source for redundancy to run the fridge if you go that route. I run a group 24 agm battery with an always “on” dedicated outlet from the battery to the trunk. I can usually get 18-24 hours of runtime on this battery before the girdle shuts off due to low voltage. We also carry a Goal Zero Power station for backup. Our 400Lithium can run the fridge for about 16-18 hours. Our 1400 Lithium 3-5 days. I’m soon to be installing solar on the vehicle so that they are no longer “necessary” to bring. You’ll also want some sort of emergency jump starter just in case.

I say all of this because I love our fridge but it will take you down a power consumption rabbit hole. The cooler is easy...but it is nice to never have to worry about ice or soggy food.

Edit: for either you can get away with just some cargo tie downs until you decide a better alternative. I have our system in my build thread linked in my signature.

 

[patkelly4370]

I'm an OTR truck driver. I live in my tractor 5-6 days a week. I use a 12v cooler.
Sure, my frozen meals are thawed, but they stay cold enough to be safe to eat.
My drinks stay cold to very cool. Fresh sandwiches (Subway) stay good for a couple of days.
Granted, I do have 4 batteries so I can run the cooler, a fan and/or Wabasto heater, radio, and inverter (for effing CPAP machine/aquarium pump) for 10+ hours with no idling.
(I don't use the effing CPAP anymore)

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[sn_85]

Spring for the 35L at minimum. 25L is way too small and not worth the purchase. Securing it is easy. Use the front and rear cargo area D-ring attachments with cam straps to secure the fridge. I do this now instead of a fridge slide and it works fine. The 35L is short and small enough that I can open it fully and grab stuff out of it without any issue. A lot of companies make fridge tie down straps, you can use whatever one is cheapest since they're all pretty much the same thing. I don't know if the Dometic comes with one or not but I know they do make them. Once secured in front and back it's not gonna go anywhere.

As far as powering it, as others have suggested, I would get a portable solar generator like a Jackery, Dometic PLB40, GZ, etc etc. The 12vdc port in the rear cargo area is not powerful enough to run a fridge but it may be enough to charge the portable solar generator while driving. Thus you want to plug the cargo area 12vdc into the portable battery and then connect the fridge up to the portable battery. Once the car is turned off then the fridge will run solely on the solar generator and spare your vehicle house battery from any drainage.

 

[maca1]

Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated.

 

[rightyouareken]

I'm an OTR truck driver. I live in my tractor 5-6 days a week. I use a 12v cooler.
Sure, my frozen meals are thawed, but they stay cold enough to be safe to eat.
My drinks stay cold to very cool. Fresh sandwiches (Subway) stay good for a couple of days.
Granted, I do have 4 batteries so I can run the cooler, a fan and/or Wabasto heater, radio, and inverter (for effing CPAP machine/aquarium pump) for 10+ hours with no idling.
(I don't use the effing CPAP anymore)

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

What cooler do you use?

For running a fridge when the vehicle is off, I've see a lot of people run them off something like a GoalZero or Jackery battery pack as opposed to hard wiring a second battery. They like the portability and flexibility of the portable battery solution so they can use it for other stuff too. Because the fridge isn't always running, they seem to have the power to run a fridge for several days or longer depending on the ambient temp and how well the fridge is insulated.

 

[BlakeA]

Spring for the 35L at minimum. 25L is way too small and not worth the purchase.
As far as powering it, as others have suggested, I would get a portable solar generator like a Jackery, Dometic PLB40, GZ, etc etc. The 12vdc port in the rear cargo area is not powerful enough to run a fridge but it may be enough to charge the portable solar generator while driving. Thus you want to plug the cargo area 12vdc into the portable battery and then connect the fridge up to the portable battery. Once the car is turned off then the fridge will run solely on the solar generator and spare your vehicle house battery from any drainage.

I have the 35L Dometic and operate in exactly this manner, with a Jackery 500 and a Goal Zero solar panel. Works great. So much more convenient than an ice chest.

 

[jhguth]

i bought mine intending to only use it on short trips, but it lives in the vehicle 24/7 because of how convenient it is. need to do some grocery shopping on your lunch break, no problem. Out for dinner with the wife and have some leftovers you want to save but want to stay out longer and have a drink, easy. meetings all day out of the office and don't want to get fast food, just grab some healthier snacks and a cold drink out of the fridge. kids are getting grouchy because you're running errands and it's snack time, juice and snacks are already in the car.

1. Whats the simplest way to secure it, if I want to be able to take it out of the vehicle when not in use?

You can just use ratchet or camlock straps through the handles on the fridge to the tie down points in the front and rear of the trunk area

2. Is a secondary battery source a must have, if I am only out for 2 nights, or can I simply plug it into the outlet in the trunk?
Thanks.

a few comments:

-2 nights is pushing it on the stock battery if you are parked the full time, but if you are driving some during the day and are parked in the shade, temps are mild, and the fridge is full yit's within limts of possible on the stock battery. The stock battery is not AGM though and will not like being discharged to even the highest automatic shutoff voltage for most fridges, so it's not something you would want to do on a regular basis.

-that being said, a second battery is still not a must - you can simply upgrade your single battery to AGM. if you ever want longer capacity, solar is a better bang for your buck than dual battery and can give you virtually unlimited fridge run time on your single battery.

-you'll need to run a dedicated always-on 12v outlet to the rear, this is really easy to do and kits cost about $50 (or buying materials yourself probably ~$25). You can make the rear 12v outlet always on, but the wiring is fairly small so a lot of people have problems with voltage drop tripping the low voltage shutoff when the compressor kicks on -- so it's better to just run a dedicated 12v outlet.

a good rule of thumb load average over time is ~1A, but there are a lot of things that impact how much power the fridge will use such as the quality and how efficient it is, the size, the ambient temp, if it's in sun or shade, and if the fridge is kept full or left empty (full fridge is better at maintaining temp).

 

[Heavy_GD]

Admitting I do not have a fridge, but I will say consider a couple of large soft side coolers.

I switched to the yeti bags with the ice packs and its so much easier for weekend trips.

Plus you can use the bag for anything when empty or fold it up to save space.

I also freeze my reserve drinking water the night before.

 

[Mudhorn]

I have both. I am very happy with the fridge. I got a smaller Dometic and use it a lot outside of camping. Perfect for road trips as well as grocery runs. Not having to worry about going straight home from the grocery store is nice.
Haven’t had power issues. As others have mentioned these are low draw, and using an external power source when the vehicle is off for a while works nicely. I ran mine off the battery for 2 days with zero start issues.
I secured the fridge with these floor grips (I’ll have to find the link). No issues with it moving. Before that used a ratchet strap.
I still use the Yeti when away from the vehicle, beach, etc. Nice to have options.

 

[rageandlove]

Dometic fridge (appropriate size), Dometic PLB40, Overland Solar Bugout 130 Blanket. That's what I run and it's highly recommended.

1) The Dometic battery is lithium iron, not ion. You will get a much larger number of charge/recharge cycles out of it. There are other benefits if you want to read up on battery type.

2) The Dometic has a built in charge controller. Why does that matter? Well, when you buy a solar blanket you just plug it into the battery and that's that. Leave the battery powering the fridge and the solar charges the battery. No extra pieces or parts to buy and carry.

3) The Bugout 130 was designed to work with the Dometic battery. Plug and play.

I was skeptical of the whole powered fridge thing, but with those three things I can operate indefinitely off the grid. If I'm driving the car charges the battery, if I'm off fishing or hiking the solar blanket does. First "mod" I would do if I was starting all over.

As far as mounting, I put together a wood platform that I use to strap down fridge and battery as well as sleep on (it levels out the back).

There's a post I made on how to build it here if you are interested.

(I'm actually working on v3.0 but that's mostly for fun.)

 

[TexasTJ]

I can't help with the mounting as I have the sliding deck. I spent a month camping in the 4R running an ARB 63qt 24/7 on the single starting battery without an issue.