Portable Refrigerator Suggestions

[Patriot]

On 7/12/2025 at 3:10 PM, jd1923 said:

Love it, fits like a glove exactly where I want it! Right know I have it propped up on 4x4s.

The only caution flag I would have with your cooler install is wet weather/ hard rain. I know that the Truma coolers cannot be exposed to rain, likely Dometic has to be the same. Have you thought of a way to protect it from a down pour. You may want to consider the manufacturers insulated cover to help with direct sun also.

I know our Truma 36C runs less under our ARE topper in higher temps with the insulated cover installed. I also give the cooling vents on our Truma plenty of space to breath…and cool the unit.

Mod On!! 😊 👍🏻

Edited Monday at 11:34 AM by Patriot

[Ronbrink]

10 hours ago, jd1923 said:

In an 8-hour day it cooled down 15 water bottles from 82F to 36F, per the Ruuvi. Not bad cooling since cooling 2 gallons of water bottles is not an easy task starting at 82F.

I’ve always made it a practice to pre-chill the CFX prior to loading content, which are usually pre-chilled, as well, if time allows. 

[John Dorrer]

JD, I have a piece of plywood that is installed in the backseat on the driver's side. It is level, 50L National Luna. It is strapped down tightly to the seat and also cable locked. I have reflective sheet that I sit on top

 Plenty of room for our 78 lb lab on the passenger side

 Plugged into 12v while traveling and I can go 3-4 hours before plugging into shore power. At the campsite I insert a piece of swim noodle cut down the side and installed on the top of the window, and run an extension cord to the shore power post or Olli plug.

 

Boondocking, at night we plug into a Goal Zero 400 Lithium Power pack. We plug in the Goal zero to recharge it. Been doing this for 7 years.

[jd1923]

6 hours ago, Patriot said:

The only caution flag I would have with your cooler install is wet weather/ hard rain.

5 hours ago, John Dorrer said:

installed in the backseat on the driver's side.

I want it in the truck bed arms reach from the passenger door vs. behind me in the truck. The fridge produces a hum and quite a bit of heat that we wouldn't want interior to the truck cab. Our A/C is stressed enough on sunny Arizona days. 

I'm not ever again going to have a truck with a cap, making it near impossible to get to half the stuff in the bed! Did that for years when we had two Labs and was so relieved to remove the cap from the bed. Love our open long bed, so convenient and easy! 

I'm giving some thought to some kind of cover, mainly to keep the sun off of it and to protect it from rain. The manual states, "The cooling device shall not be exposed to rain" and nothing else. I need some kind of partial cover, still allowing the lower rear of the unit to be open to the air flow it requires. There will be some risk in the truck bed location I've chosen. Good thing is rain is the rare case where we live and usually travel.

[Patriot]

41 minutes ago, jd1923 said:

I'm not ever again going to have a truck with a cap, making it near impossible to get to half the stuff in the bed!

I am in the completely opposite camp. For us not having a topper is like equivalent to leaving our trunk up on our car especially during a thunderstorm storm while underway down highway. 😂 

Our topper provides a reasonable level of security vs open air, and has served us well keeping our gear clean, high and dry. This really comes into play when we set up basecamp, and leave our Oliver to go and XPLOR a NP or maybe enjoy a nice dinner out somewhere. I guess I am over the top with the security of our expensive gear. Our ARE topper at least gives us a little peace of mind and we have not had any issues yet. I guess there are easier pickens out there.

I am sure you will come up with a good way to keep your gear clean, high and dry most of all secure! 

Mod On! 🤠

[jd1923]

38 minutes ago, Patriot said:

I am sure you will come up with a good way to keep your gear clean, high and dry most of all secure!

I get it and it's a compromise. I guess somebody could steal our new fridge, though its quite a lift to get it out of there. My suitcase solar is padlocked to the toolbox and since we love our new Napoleon Grill it is chained and locked. We have two mounted toolboxes for all the important small stuff. If we had a cap, I could not access a front-mounted toolbox. There are some caps with side reach-in openings, but one rear door is a pain.

It's more of a carefree philosophy we like to have when camping. Chris and I say often we need to loose the old feelings, those from our Chicago city backgrounds, , crime-ridden environments where you worry and lock down everything.

Most of our stuff can get dirty and wet. When it rains we put our lawn chairs in the Oliver when towing or at night in the front passenger floor of the truck, so they stay dry for use. If we lived east, the criteria would be different. We've camped 110 nights and have had more dirt road dust than rain. I only remember about a half dozen rainy days in our travels. Also, even when towing in the rain, the truck bed stays dryer than you'd think! I will need something appropriate to cover the new fridge from sun and rain, TBD!

[rich.dev]

2 hours ago, jd1923 said:

I'm not ever again going to have a truck with a cap, making it near impossible to get to half the stuff in the bed! Did that for years when we had two Labs and was so relieved to remove the cap from the bed. Love our open long bed, so convenient and easy!

Nooo John, that must’ve been in Adam and Eve’s days, these days there are bed slides…..like this one we have, love it 1000%! 😁

Edited Monday at 10:19 PM by rich.dev

[Ronbrink]

18 hours ago, jd1923 said:

I'm not ever again going to have a truck with a cap, making it near impossible to get to half the stuff in the bed!

17 hours ago, Patriot said:

Our topper provides a reasonable level of security vs open air, and has served us well keeping our gear clean, high and dry.

I totally get it! Even though my former TV was only a short bed with a topper, I was constantly bumping my head, bruising my arms and crawling on my old knees while rigorously digging around to retrieve stowed and/or staged camping equipment. Often wished for a longer bed, but then that would only exasperate the matter. Breaking camp was a whole other issue with more bumping, bruising and crawling! On the other hand however, there was comfort in knowing all was secured and protected under cap. Enter my current TV, a cargo van; best of both worlds!

 

 

[Patriot]

4 hours ago, Ronbrink said:

I totally get it! Even though my former TV was only a short bed with a topper, I was constantly bumping my head, bruising my arms and crawling on my old knees while rigorously digging around to retrieve stowed and/or staged camping equipment. Often wished for a longer bed, but then that would only exasperate the matter. Breaking camp was a whole other issue with more bumping, bruising and crawling! On the other hand however, there was comfort in knowing all was secured and protected under cap. Enter my current TV, a cargo van; best of both worlds!

Looks like you're all set, and 👍🏻 you’re keeping your gear clean, high and dry is wise. Setting up and breaking camp for us has never been an issue, fortunately no bumps or lumps or bruises. Unlike many folks, we travel fairly light, ready to camp, and all of our immediate go to set up gear is stored in our Sea Biscuit front storage basket the rest under our ARE Z topper. There are trade offs for sure.
I always say, ya gotta roll with what works best for you and puts a smile on your face! 🇺🇸😄

Edited Tuesday at 07:53 PM by Patriot

[jd1923]

On 7/13/2025 at 10:19 AM, jd1923 said:

I've made both AC and DC connections to the CFX5. I just tried to turn it on powered by 12VDC and nothing happened like it did not see the connection. Perhaps something is very wrong with my installation, bad ground, bad switch or fuse, will test soon.

Tested and corrected this today. I had 12V+ at the Dometic Fridge DC plug which proves  the wiring was installed as planned. Searched the User Manual re DC wiring and it had nothing technical to add. In no illustration did it show which side was +/-. All it stated is do NOT cut off the fused cigarette lighter plug (first thing I did)! The DC positive and ground tested good today, so what's up?

My next thought was that maybe I had the DC polarity crossed. I made the wrong assumption that in the bonded power cable the positive should be the 'ribbed' side of the cable. True in AC wiring, check any lamp you have on your desk or in the house, the AC hot is ribbed in a bonded lamp cable, the neutral being smooth. Not true here where Dometic wired it the other way around! I had purchased a HD hardwire kit from Amazon for a later permanent installation and after looking at the kit, wires are clearly colored in Red and Black. I had the wires crossed!

A few cuts and splices and all was good. Now running our Dometic CFX5 on 12VDC. Turns out you can have both AC and DC cables plugged in and it will prefer the AC connection and revert to DC when AC is disconnected. That's what I was hoping for, so not to change cable connections at the rear of the fridge.

Before I connect the fridge to 12VDC, I measured our dual AGM tow vehicle batteries at 12.53V. When I turned on the Dometic, the display stated battery input voltage at 12.5V without having .01V precision. The reading looked to be accurate and it's nice not to have to measure this often manually. I will check voltage on the display and manually later tonight and in the morning 12 hours later to measure the decrease in battery SOC over time. The Dometic system also has shut-off protection when the batteries read less than 12V.

Later plans are to add a dedicated battery, connection to the onboard DC-DC charger (already working today), a 100W Renogy flexible solar panel and Victron 15A MPPT SC...

It should soon be GREAT! Love grabbing cold water while working on the truck and Oliver. A good mod for use in while traveling and camping! 🤣