Another great collaboration. It is great to hear everyone's thoughts on what is important, why they like certain features, etc. Thanks to everyone involved.
So glad you enjoyed it. I wish more channels would collab - personally I really like seeing the positive vibes between creators. Thanks again for taking the time to watch and comment!
I can vouch for the Set Power 45. I did a lot of research before I got a fridge and that's what won for me. Totally agree with Matt's review on it as well for pro's and con's.
Great vid Will! Personally I won’t skimp on a fridge ever again. I tried a new bigger fridge-freezer (well known brand) model and it failed on me twice on remote trips. Even though they replaced the fridge (twice), that didn’t help me in the middle of nowhere… I went back to an Engel combi. My smaller 40l Engel is 15y old and hasn’t skipped a beat.
Egnel's are expensive, but their durability and longevity aren't really questionable...other brands do offer some upgrades over Engle...but none of that matters if they don't work LOL. Really great comment - thank you for sharing!
A lot of great food for thought! As we usually camp in an RV we’ve always just had a cooler for our extra drinks. As we are building out the Tacoma for more overlanding I can see the advantages to having a fridge, gotta go back and watch again so I can write all these products down for reference, thanks for sharing.
So glad you liked it. Almost all of the fridges were more on the budget side of things...with the exception of my Dometic, but I bought it used...so it was still a budget buy for me ;)
I have a Dometic 50 L fridge I bought a few years ago. I love it. I don't use just for trips. Helps keep groceries cold coming home from the grocery store.
Great Vid. We still rock a Coleman cooler because we still haven't found ourselves out of range of ice to the point that our food spoils. My wife is an excellent cooler packer and has a good system that works well. On a side note, I had decided to purchase a dometic last year at MOORE, but my wife did not want to spend the money because we had been spending a lot of time in bear country and we didn't knowhow well it would last in a bear box if it wasn't plugged in. So I asked the Dometic rep that question, to which he went on a 2 minute tirade about how a bear would never get into a dometic cooler and my food would be safe. He obviously does not know anything about grizzly bears, or answering questions. At that point I walked away, and we still have the cooler!
Really great comment. Grizzlies are relentless. I’m a fan of coolers..in fact I was on the All Things Overlanding podcast talking about it a few weeks ago. You gotta do what works best for your setup and your type of travel. Really great to hear your perspective..thanks for sharing!
Dude from bc ..like that you are rock'n the cooler. I do the same thing.. i have found that on the trips up to a week long that dry ice works wonders. Did a trip to Texas in the middle July to spend a week on the Guadalupe river. We hade 9 people on the trip so i took my coleman 96 cooler packed down with full racks of ribs and meat. Dry ice keep meet frozen thu thursday. Saturday when we left we had enough dry ice left to put on a litte show in the river.. kides loved it.!
@geefrombc Is not alone in his Cooler Kingdom!!!! LOL. Thanks for watching...great comment...and totally agree that you don't have to have a fridge to be an overlander 😆
I have enjoyed my BougeRV 37qt. Have not tried the batteries yet but ran off my Bluetti, Ryobi 800W inverter (In the truck), and camper outlets like a champ! Like the video!
You guys have some good suggestions that don't have to cost an arm and a leg I'm looking forward to more collaboration vids from you all! BTW, I run a Massimo 50L fridge from Costco. It has a LG compressor and has been very reliable.
I have a Dometic CFX55 that I have had a couple of years. The "tech" part about it I very rarely use and I think because in this model it uses the WiFi instead of bluetooth and I would not find myself having to change settings all that much. If I was buying a new fridge now I would not spend the huge markup that Dometic charges. I think they charge a lot (they are nice) mainly because they were one of the first in the game and have a lot of brand name recognition (very similar to Jackery...getting outdated tech and overpriced). I would opt for the SetPower VL45ProS. The features are a lot nicer, such as 12v socket on each end and the way the door can be opened from any side or taken off completely...and the tech is a lot better. The price point is way better than the Dometic. Anyway, if you are out for more than a day, and have the extra power needed to run it, a fridge is absolutely awesome to have.
Really great comment! I think Dometic is a strong brand..but agree that they are very pricey...I bought mine used on Craigslist and it's been great...but I didn't pay very much for it either. I'm glad to hear I'm not missing out too much on the "new tech" features..seeing Matt's SetPower really got me thinking about that brand for my next purchase. Thanks for taking the tine to write such a great comment!
I ordered a Euhomy 45L refrigerator from Amazon for Burning Man and I'm loving it! It's dual zone so it can work as a freezer as well, and definitely way cheaper than a Dometic or any of the other name brands.
To fix the handle issue you could take some nylon straps and use a soldering iron to make some holes. Add some metal plates to clamp the strap and bolt it down tight. You can even take some pipe over the strap to make a better handle. Now you got a handle that doesn't take up much space. I would probably fold the strap over it's self and sew it together to make it more durable at the ends where it clamps.
Idea for the diy handle, take a piece of tubular nylon webbing, even add PVC/dowel inside, melt ends & holes for bolts & add washers. Length & color to preference.
I use my 35L Engel (bought used super cheap)as a freezer, & bring a soft cooler. Move daily needs out of freezer into cooler bag. I can freeze water bottles as needed.
Very informative, thanks! I use a cooler and I freeze 16 ounce water bottles prior to my trip to keep it cold. The frozen water bottles last much longer than ice or blue ice. Hope this info is helpful!
I bought the Dometic CFX 75 and have not been impressed with it's performance. I bought it for keeping a large amount of meat frozen for extended outings of two weeks or more and with the larger side set up as the freezer the inside temperature on a hot day can reach 17 and above. The inside temperature of the fridge side can reach 50F on a hot day. If the lid is opened temperatures can exceed those and the Dometic doesn't cool down until well into the evening. I have two 100 amp batteries that are 6 months old. By morning, they are down to 80 percent when the sun starts charging them. I use a RedArc power manager. FDA Guidelines are -10 to 0 and 34 to 38. My feeling is that these units are all under powered but the Dometic is the only one I have experience with.
There is literally no excuse for that performance unless it was not designed to operate to your expectations. My CF 35 has no issues..but it's smaller and probably easier to keep cool relative to the compressor size. I also have an insulated bag around mine, which I think helps a bit.
I can't get on board with those super expensive fridges. Is a thousand dollar fridge really going to last 5 times longer than my 200 dollar fridge? I have my doubts.
I have the set power one. Love it and yes it's made for stickers 🤣 Temperature that it shows is off by 9° on mine but no biggie cos I checked it before using it
As long as you can do the math to know what the actual temp is, and the thing is consistent, it's not really a problem. I hear a lot of good things about Set Power.
Me calling my Refrig, “Can you hear me now, what’s for dinner, got ice, hello…. Hello…. HELLO… CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?” What have we come to, we go out camping, sleeping in the wide open, cooking on a camp stove, and we can’t even adjust the Refrig temp without a frickin phone
I couldn’t agree more! My next collab series will feature a female perspective, as well as an upcoming vid with only females. You might check our podcast out…we have a great episode where Kate and Elsje talk about things/gear. It’s really good 😎. American Overlander Podcast on all major podcast networks!!
I think he means like the random Chinese Amazon brands that show up broken, never start up, break on the first power up etc. Plenty of quality brands are made and sourced from China, but plenty of 'no name' Chinese-Made vendors are out there too; both can he true at the same time.
Hmmm, nope, sorry there are no female campers out there in your world, lmao. Tres Bizzare. When looking at fridges, I want specs, height, width, weight empty, cost. How much vent room does it need? and can you sit on it without messing it up? With so many full-time retired senior women, living van life, or teardrop, or adventuring all over the place, I think I'll stick to their reviews. Power consumption, quality, IS IT AMERICAN MADE? will medications like insulin be kept stable, these are things I want to know before shelling out $400/$500 bucks and warranty info. It's an investment, just like a power station. Unless it's about a few burgers and beer.... My go to guys for stuff for off grid fun n games, or living daily, are Bob Wells, "Cheap RVliving (van life) down in the heat of the Desert, and Up in the cold of Alaska, "Playing with Stix" with Drew,and family.
I actually took some notes from this comment for an upcoming fridge review video so thanks for that. However…your comment about no female campers is way off. Have you watched any other vids on my channel or listened to any of my podcasts? My wife Kate is heavily featured on the channel as are other female campers we frequently go out with, and the other two channels you mentioned as your “go to channels” are male channels. Tres Bizzare 😂
