Fridge on OEM battery - impossible?

[Jeeperz Kreeperz]

First Jeep. First portable fridge. Need some advice:

I just purchased a Dometic CFX 50W fridge, and have been trying to just plug-and-play with the OEM battery setup.

From what I’ve read, this should work, but I will run the risk of draining the starter battery if I left it on too long. Fridge has three settings for voltage drop shutoff: High, Medium, and Low. Instructions say to only use “High” if you are in a single-battery setup, and really worried about impacting the starting battery. “Medium” is for normal operation in a single-battery setup. “Low” is only for use in a dual-battery setup, where you are not concerned about how far your voltage drops.

“High” was of no use. Fridge would only work for less than an hour after shutting off Jeep, then the voltage would drop to the point the fridge wouldn’t work. “Medium” is only slightly better - Fridge stops cooling after a couple hours. Test was done for one week - most days the Jeep would be running for 30-minutes on my commute in the morning, and 30-minutes back home at night.

Question: Is the factory wiring to the rear 12V plug the problem? I bought the ARB wiring kit, but have not installed it yet, because I want to be sure this is even a viable setup with a single OEM battery. If it isn’t, no sense installing that kit, as I’m looking at the following total costs:

Single-Battery Setup:

$650 for fridge
$250 for fridge slide
$ 40 for ARB wiring kit
$940 Total for single-battery setup

Additional Dual-Battery Costs:

$550 guess for Genesis dual battery kit
$296 for Odyssey Group 25 battery #1
$296 for Odyssey Group 25 battery #2
$1,142 Additional Costs

I went with the fridge THINKING the total cost would be less than $1K. Now I’m getting into it, thinking my actual cost maybe more than double that, and deciding whether I should abort the mission, sell the fridge, buy a good cooler for $400, and redeploy the other nearly $1,700 on bags of ice and more mods to the Jeep!

Is anyone running their fridge successfully with a single-battery setup? Am I missing something?

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[DanW]

First Jeep. First portable fridge. Need some advice:

I just purchased a Dometic CFX 50W fridge, and have been trying to just plug-and-play with the OEM battery setup.

From what I’ve read, this should work, but I will run the risk of draining the starter battery if I left it on too long. Fridge has three settings for voltage drop shutoff: High, Medium, and Low. Instructions say to only use “High” if you are in a single-battery setup, and really worried about impacting the starting battery. “Medium” is for normal operation in a single-battery setup. “Low” is only for use in a dual-battery setup, where you are not concerned about how far your voltage drops.

“High” was of no use. Fridge would only work for less than an hour after shutting off Jeep, then the voltage would drop to the point the fridge wouldn’t work. “Medium” is only slightly better - Fridge stops cooling after a couple hours. Test was done for one week - most days the Jeep would be running for 30-minutes on my commute in the morning, and 30-minutes back home at night.

Question: Is the factory wiring to the rear 12V plug the problem? I bought the ARB wiring kit, but have not installed it yet, because I want to be sure this is even a viable setup with a single OEM battery. If it isn’t, no sense installing that kit, as I’m looking at the following total costs:

Single-Battery Setup:

$650 for fridge
$250 for fridge slide
$ 40 for ARB wiring kit
$940 Total for single-battery setup

Additional Dual-Battery Costs:

$550 guess for Genesis dual battery kit
$296 for Odyssey Group 25 battery #1
$296 for Odyssey Group 25 battery #2
$1,142 Additional Costs

I went with the fridge THINKING the total cost would be less than $1K. Now I’m getting into it, thinking my actual cost maybe more than double that, and deciding whether I should abort the mission, sell the fridge, buy a good cooler for $400, and redeploy the other nearly $1,700 on bags of ice and more mods to the Jeep!

Is anyone running their fridge successfully with a single-battery setup? Am I missing something?

I read that ARB says there is a minimum guage of wire that is required to solve what sounds like exactly this issue. You might look into that. I'm sure if it is an issue with ARB, it would be with Dometic.

Anybody else running a Dometic, or ARB, or Smittybilt fridge off the rear accessory plug with success, or having the same issue? I'm thinking of a 37 liter ARB.

 

[Krondor]

I'm leaning more and more toward getting ice and keeping with a cooler. Still, I'm interested in what you guys find out.

 

[Swanny297]

First Jeep. First portable fridge. Need some advice:

I just purchased a Dometic CFX 50W fridge, and have been trying to just plug-and-play with the OEM battery setup.

From what I’ve read, this should work, but I will run the risk of draining the starter battery if I left it on too long. Fridge has three settings for voltage drop shutoff: High, Medium, and Low. Instructions say to only use “High” if you are in a single-battery setup, and really worried about impacting the starting battery. “Medium” is for normal operation in a single-battery setup. “Low” is only for use in a dual-battery setup, where you are not concerned about how far your voltage drops.

“High” was of no use. Fridge would only work for less than an hour after shutting off Jeep, then the voltage would drop to the point the fridge wouldn’t work. “Medium” is only slightly better - Fridge stops cooling after a couple hours. Test was done for one week - most days the Jeep would be running for 30-minutes on my commute in the morning, and 30-minutes back home at night.

Question: Is the factory wiring to the rear 12V plug the problem? I bought the ARB wiring kit, but have not installed it yet, because I want to be sure this is even a viable setup with a single OEM battery. If it isn’t, no sense installing that kit, as I’m looking at the following total costs:

Single-Battery Setup:

$650 for fridge
$250 for fridge slide
$ 40 for ARB wiring kit
$940 Total for single-battery setup

Additional Dual-Battery Costs:

$550 guess for Genesis dual battery kit
$296 for Odyssey Group 25 battery #1
$296 for Odyssey Group 25 battery #2
$1,142 Additional Costs

I went with the fridge THINKING the total cost would be less than $1K. Now I’m getting into it, thinking my actual cost maybe more than double that, and deciding whether I should abort the mission, sell the fridge, buy a good cooler for $400, and redeploy the other nearly $1,700 on bags of ice and more mods to the Jeep!

Is anyone running their fridge successfully with a single-battery setup? Am I missing something?

Rotomolded cooler and save your money - I am not sure what the draw to these fridges are maybe I am just to primitive LOL

 

[Martindfletcher]

My arb 50 stayed on fine for at least 24 hours in 90 degree heat without starting the engine jus5 plugged into cigarette lighter.

 

[TIDALWAVE]

I have a JLUR. I want to use a 12vdc fridge. I was thinking about adding an AGM type battery next to the fridge in the back. Running a battery charger off of the 110VAC power inverter to the battery and then 12vdc power from the battery to the fridge. The inverter shuts off when the engine is off and the fridge shuts down if it depletes the battery. I don't want to spend the additional $1,000-$1,500 trying to put a dual battery set up under the hood. When the Rhino Back Bone roof rack becomes available, I will install a solar panel on the rack and run the feed down to the AGM battery. Any advice?

 

[old8tora]

My arb 50 stayed on fine for at least 24 hours in 90 degree heat without starting the engine jus5 plugged into cigarette lighter.

stayed on fire ? Hope you had a fire extinguisher .

 

[old8tora]

I have a JLUR. I want to use a 12vdc fridge. I was thinking about adding an AGM type battery next to the fridge in the back. Running a battery charger off of the 110VAC power inverter to the battery and then 12vdc power from the battery to the fridge. The inverter shuts off when the engine is off and the fridge shuts down if it depletes the battery. I don't want to spend the additional $1,000-$1,500 trying to put a dual battery set up under the hood. When the Rhino Back Bone roof rack becomes available, I will install a solar panel on the rack and run the feed down to the AGM battery. Any advice?

Very clever way to do something useless , especially with the solar panel rack . If your solar panels are from china , that electricity will not be compatable with the Jeep electronics ; it will have different amps , volts , ohms , and watts . Jeep electronics will trump the voltage from china . So there .

 

[old8tora]

First Jeep. First portable fridge. Need some advice:

I just purchased a Dometic CFX 50W fridge, and have been trying to just plug-and-play with the OEM battery setup.

From what I’ve read, this should work, but I will run the risk of draining the starter battery if I left it on too long. Fridge has three settings for voltage drop shutoff: High, Medium, and Low. Instructions say to only use “High” if you are in a single-battery setup, and really worried about impacting the starting battery. “Medium” is for normal operation in a single-battery setup. “Low” is only for use in a dual-battery setup, where you are not concerned about how far your voltage drops.

“High” was of no use. Fridge would only work for less than an hour after shutting off Jeep, then the voltage would drop to the point the fridge wouldn’t work. “Medium” is only slightly better - Fridge stops cooling after a couple hours. Test was done for one week - most days the Jeep would be running for 30-minutes on my commute in the morning, and 30-minutes back home at night.

Question: Is the factory wiring to the rear 12V plug the problem? I bought the ARB wiring kit, but have not installed it yet, because I want to be sure this is even a viable setup with a single OEM battery. If it isn’t, no sense installing that kit, as I’m looking at the following total costs:

Single-Battery Setup:

$650 for fridge
$250 for fridge slide
$ 40 for ARB wiring kit
$940 Total for single-battery setup

Additional Dual-Battery Costs:

$550 guess for Genesis dual battery kit
$296 for Odyssey Group 25 battery #1
$296 for Odyssey Group 25 battery #2
$1,142 Additional Costs

I went with the fridge THINKING the total cost would be less than $1K. Now I’m getting into it, thinking my actual cost maybe more than double that, and deciding whether I should abort the mission, sell the fridge, buy a good cooler for $400, and redeploy the other nearly $1,700 on bags of ice and more mods to the Jeep!

Is anyone running their fridge successfully with a single-battery setup? Am I missing something?

I thought New Hampshire people had something better to do with their time ; like partying and drinking and partying .

 

[Grimmjpr]

I ran an ARB 50 L fridge in my 12 JK and 15 JKU on the power plug in the cargo area. Fridge set to low voltage cut off. I only had the OEM 70 ah starting battery. I ran it for 2 nights with no problem starting it. Though I always have a jump pack in the Jeep in case. It's really easy to carry one now that they are so small.

As far as the ARB wiring kit, it's probably going to be best, but the JLs are supposed to have heaver wire to the power port then the JKs did. I had to run the wiring kit in my WK2 since it just wouldn't run on the stock power port.
From what I can gather the ARB pulls an average of about 1 amp hour. HTH

 

[offcamber]

I have the 42qt ARB that I bought new in 2003. I can leave it in the back of the Jeep for 2 days, without starting the Jeep and it'll start fine on the 3rd day. The 4th day, not so much.

 

[Martindfletcher]

I pushed the medium setting and eventually killed the battery after 2 days sitting in the sun and high temps. I will get a battery tender solar to supplement on pool/lake days in the mountains.

 

[tobyw]

We use our ARB 37qt all the time on the factory 12v plug in the cargo area of our JLU-R without issue. Have left it plugged in for several 24+ hour stretches without starting the Jeep and have not had an issue with lack of cooling or trouble starting the Jeep. We have the fridge on the medium voltage cut-off setting.

 

[redracer]

I don't have one, so I could be out of line here... but from the information that I've read, one suggestion is to make sure to pre-cool the fridge and contents first. They will draw a bunch of power when getting itself and it's contents down to temp.

 

[JIMBOX]

I've been camping for MANY DECADES and I've had COLEMAN/ENGEL/ARB/IGLOO coolers-

All the electric ones are a P.I.T.A. and pose battery trouble, I've read about so many battery failures over the years, so

I will/have only used the ICE type any more and I don't have any troubles, even after 5 days--although I don't camp any longer than that !

How you prepare the cooler and the ICE FORM makes all the difference in the world-

W.E.

JIMBO

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