Hello and thanks for posting this review. My question is can the large compartment be used as a freezer only and if so what is it's lowest temperature setting? Thanks you
Can you tell me about the camping box in the back of your XJ Cherokee? Did you build that, or purchase? I'm looking for plans/ ideas for mine and yours fits what I'm needing. Thanks!
Thank you. Best review l seen. You were clear concise and efficient. Love that you packed it. Love the packing tip. Everyone hates having to repack to close. Great job. Thank you again.
You’ll add a lot more “space” if you bag up some of your items. Saves space and less trash as you move from one destination to another. What temp does the small section get to? I’ve used all as well. The iceless cooler uses a lot of power and is either always on, or off. Coolers = water and soggy items. My Dometic 40 will be here in a week. Thanks for your review
Very good demo of your CFX40. I liked your video and very informative. I have the Engel MT45 that I bought over 10 years ago and that thing is heavy. I think it's around 50 pounds empty. I love it but am wanting something smaller and lighter for the back seat of our car on road trips where we don't need the room like we would when camping. Am even thinking of the CFX28, however depending on sales, the CFX 35 or CFX40 aren't much different in price. So hard to justify the smaller cooler when the price is similar. I liked your magnet idea. I have the same problem with the Engel and the lid actually fell down and bonked my daughter in the head on a camping trip once. I have since made a block of wood that we can position to hold the lid in place while open.
I'm glad you found the video informative! Your poor daughter! Yes I was also thinking a piece of wood to prop open the lid but my husband thought of the magnets and it works. If you're looking for another fridge, we just ordered the Dometic CC40. It's lighter about 25lbs and a bit smaller but apparently can still hold 40 qt. I think it uses a bit more energy than these ones. Sometimes it goes on sale on Amazon for around $500-$600 CAD! Right now it's about $800. Still cheaper than the CFX. I'll do a review on that one once we've had some time to use it.
I have a CFX3 35, this thing has never been switched off since installing it. I do have a solar panel connected to the leisure battery. My battery is still fully charged. We don't get a fat lot of sun or daylight hours in UK through winter. I'm impressed with it and would recommend a dometic CFX3 series to anybody building an overlander.
You are a comlete angel. I had a problem with my fridge displaying an orange light and the compressor not running. i.e. warm food and beer. In the most simple and direct way you showed me that my battery protection was set for high and should have been on low. My battery box has it's own battery protection. Why can't every youtuber dump their egos and anoying voices in the trash can and learn from someone like you. Thanks so much.
Thank you for doing this review. The hardest thing to imagine when considering a fridge size is: how much food you can really pack in it. You explained that perfectly!
Thanks- well thought out review.....great speaking voice: intelligent/ friendly. One question: Dometic higher capacity CFX have 'dual zone'- so you can have fridge and freezer. Would this be desirable?
Thanks! I would say yes if you need ice (or ice cream ;) or if you're travelling for over a week and need to freeze some of your food (like raw meat) before you can get to it. Some other things to consider are the price, weight and size of the dual zone fridges as well. Hope that helps! Sorry for the late reply!
I know I'm late to the party but I JUST bought a lightly used CFX40 and at least the testing phase has been great. Great review. Are you able to post up some info on the set up and procedure to build that slide set up? Very clean and much lighter and cheaper than anything else I've seen in the open market. Subbed!
Hi Alistair, during the trip we had it plugged in 24/7 with no problems. In terms of when the compressor cycles "on" I didn't measure that. I have a monitor that now gives me the readings in amp draw so I was thinking of testing it for an hour and measuring how often it turns on just to verify the draw but haven't had time. Maybe a future video! Thanks for the comment.
Great review! Just I have a question, could you confirm the length of the DC cable included? (my car does not have a 12v connector in the trunk, I need to go through the rear seats) Greetings from Paris.
Echoing the others in their praise of this review. Very well done. You covered pretty much everything anyone could possibly want to know about the unit. Cheers
Hello, awesome setup! I just bought one of these after watching your review. Would you share the link for the slide or part number, please? Where did you buy? I have a Honda Element and I will try to build one for my self. Thank you.
Hi! I bought them from Lee Valley tools, but I'm sure you can get them on Amazon if you don't have a Lee Valley. They're called Double locking extra heavy duty slides (rated at 400lbs). Item 02K4724, 24" Slides, pair
Once the fridge is at your desired temperature (typical refrigerator is at 4 degree C), I would say its the same time as if you were to put it in your fridge at home.
No I'm not sure. I would suggest checking the settings (degrees F vs C). It's been a while so did you figure out what was going on? Sorry for the late reply.
I actually don't know because we've always been moving so the batteries are always recharged. You can make a guess by knowing the capacity of your battery, and the power consumption of the fridge. Sorry not much help.
I am looking at getting a 95DZW for a solar powered cabin/summer home, been watching a lot of these videos. This is the first one, including vids from dealers, to get the Ah/h units correct. +1
Hey thanks! I just wanted to clarify that there is no backup battery. There's a battery monitor so the fridge will turn off once your battery is drained to a certain level, so you don't accidentally drain your car battery if it's plugged into that. Thanks for watching!
Stunningly well done. My biggest "concern" was how much real-world food will it take. You've answered that well. I've watched one video (Australian) which as he explained, as the main one "fills up" with cold air it spills over into the smaller. This makes sense, as you have shown, you put things that don't really need to be that cold. Also, historically most manufacturers (cars, fridges, whatever) will quote the volume as if it was filled with water. So all those spaces where you can't fit stuff anyway, they count as volume. You sold me:)) I'll buy one now.
Would love to know about the warranty and durability of these things. I used Coleman coolers for years and they all stopped working within 6 to 8 months. Total junk. For the price tag of these dometics they better run well for many many years.
The warranty is 2 years for parts and 1 year for labor for Dometic USA. A little disappointing since I think I read somewhere that it was 3 or 5 years in Australia? I've only had it for a year, it does feel very durable but I guess only time will tell.... thanks for the comment.
@@somewhereoverland9228 That's true but in Oz we also pay more for the fridges up front and the extended warranty is built into the price, like many goods in this country. Consumer laws are stringent and we pay for that at the counter. The warranties usually do not include labour either, just parts.
I use 2 Taylor refrigerator thermometers to measure the inside temperature of the freezer fridge. I returned my CFX65DZ because I was afraid the food in the warmest part might spoil. The freezer was measuring --8F, and the warmest part of the fridge was measuring 32F. That was with it empty. So, with food, the higher levels would be considerably warmer, potentially sending temperatures in the warmest part at above 40F. More food also means less cold air circulation. What is your experience with this relative to the cfx40w model? Thanks!
Hi Mike, though I didn't test with a thermometer I did experience the same thing. The warmest part was a little cooler than room temp. I mainly kept food that did not need refrigeration like fruit or peanut butter there. I was disappointed about that space and the real capacity of the fridge. Thanks for watching!
@@somewhereoverland9228 I returned it and bought a single zone cfx50w. Works great. It's a good idea to keep 2 thermometers in there to monitor coldest and warmest.
Yes you're right, and I think the dimensions from the manufacturer included that portion. However, I found that it was not very cold at the top for obvious reasons. Sorry for the late reply!
Oh yes, and in the video at around 5:43, you can see the manufacturers inner dimensions and they include that lid portion which is where I got the 34 litres from.
Hi, very helpful review. I think the reason for the difference in capacity is that the 40 refers to US quarts. 40 quarts equals about 38 litres, and Dometic actually quote a figure of 38 litres for the CFX40 on their website.
Yes you're right, it should only be 38 litres in total. I guess my point was that the large compartment that actually cools to the desired temperature is only about 34 litres and the other 4 litres is the small side compartment that doesn't cool to the same temperature so you can't put things like meat, milk or anything that needs refrigeration there. So in actuality, you only get 34 litres of real cooling :)
@@somewhereoverland9228 If it's cold but not that cold, it's great for stuff like chocolate that doesn't need refrigeration but you don't want to melt. Is 4 litres of chocolate excessive?
@@somewhereoverland9228 Great review! The home made fridge slide made me sit up and take notice but you didn't go into it. I third the motion for a video on that. As for cooling I believe you are being a bit harsh as regards what is cooled in the fridge. Logically all parts of the fridge inside are cooled. No fridge on the market or indeed your household fridge has a constant temperature throughout. What is cooled inside your Waeco fridge is . . . all of it, just at different temperatures. The side compartment over the compressor is for cheeses, sauces and spreads etc, just as you used it. It's a neat solution for fridge makers when the inbuilt compressor forces the makers to shorten that section. In Australia we can buy portable fridges that have the compressor mounted external to the cooling section thus giving back all the space to food etc and the fridge insulation isn't fighting the compressor's heat output thus they are more efficient but the fridge is longer. Can't have it both ways. The external dimensions of the CFX 50, the next one up in that range isn't much bigger than the 40L you bought. I believe it would suit your usage needs better than the 40L and uses just 0.3A more power (per your Amazon figures). If you spoke with a salesperson instead of buying online you would have been made aware of that. As the fridges go down in size they use more power, did you notice that in the figures you showed? They have less thermal mass and need to work longer to maintain a set temperature. The CFX 50 is a sweet spot for size and power usage and is the most popular size in Australia, a hot country. The next size up, the CFX 65 uses more again and should be used in a 2 battery vehicle setup. Happy trails!
Very impressive! You have an excellent speaking voice, sound very confident and technical minded. I already have a Dometic 35 mounted in my TRD off road but was looking for longer term reviews to see if I needed to head off any future problems. You answered that perfectly. I'm most impressed with the drawer slide you built! I'm a contractor and didn't want to tackle that. Lol. I spent the rediculious 270 bucks to buy the darn Dometic slide. Happy travels!!!
Thanks! Haha, yes that's my "narrating voice". As for the drawer slide, she ain't pretty, but she works, for now anyway. The wood seems be distorting all over the box since my dimensions were so tight because I was trying to maximize storage. We'll see how long it lasts! Thanks for watching :)
mary magdalene barely takes anything to keep it running. I’d recommend a goal zero yeti 400 (or more) with a small solar panel. It can run this along with other stuff just fine
It uses less than 1 amp per hour so if you know what size your battery is, you can work out how long you can run it. If you drive a bit everyday, you shouldn't have a problem!
