The Setpower FC15 & PT45 - Are budget electric coolers any good? 

Just picked up the PT55 yesterday evening. Put in in the garage and turned it on. The sides became cold to touch in minutes, and the compartment reached set temp of 34 in about 30 minutes. It is hot in my garage. I was trying to simulate summer camping conditions. Loaded it with sodas which were room temp, and within minutes the indicated temp rose to 59 degrees which made sense. Over the next two to three hours the temp came back down to about 40, and when I checked in the morning it was at 34 degrees and all of the drinks were cold. I had the smaller compartment turned off. Very happy with this. I do think some planning will be involved, but that is no different from ice coolers. Load and plug in the night before the trip. If you reload, do it in the evening so in the morning it will be cool. There are two big pluses this offers me: First, have now eliminated the need for ice runs. Anything to decrease "chore" trips away from the campsite is good. Second, my camper has a small refrigerator with a bo-bo freezer that might fit one or two small things. Time will see how durable this is. This may also become our drink refrigerator for the house to free up some big fridge space. Thanks for the review!

Thanks Jerry, great review on the SetPower, great sense of humor. Bought one, your code saved me a bunch of money too.

Weight isn't much better than ice coolers, as compressors weigh about same as ice, in my experience. But WAY nicer not to have to deal with wet food packaging and dumping water/ice etc! My BougeRV budget cooler always reads 6-8 degrees lower than it is. so I set it to 28 deg, and that keeps food at bottoms/edges just above freezing, going on 3 years old now, back and forth across the continent a couple times. But I like the lower form factor design for the compact SetPower; if I have to replace the BougeRV, will probably get one of these.

I had a Dometic front loading frig/freezer - piece of crap. Removed it from my RV and replaced it with a 45 qt ARB top loading frig or freezer (not both) - much better. The PT45 seems like a great deal for what it does. Thanks for the review Jerry.

I bought the 15 quart version a couple weeks ago for $118. I thought what the hell for that price. I have a 42L Iceco but it's a bear to lug that around and get in the backseat. I thought the 15qt would be too tiny but is the perfect size for day trips. As Jerry said, it will go cooler than your setting. I started at 32 but it would go to 27/28. Temps are spot on. I leave it at 32 as nothing will freeze if just doing a day trip. I did leave it in the car for a few hours while I went camping and it held the temp but it was only 90F, not the crazy heat in Phoenix. Unless your car is running, I would get a small solar powersupply. Mine is 600 watts and would run the fridge for two days. I also have a 100 watt solar panel and with that, if you have sun would run it forever with plenty of juice to spare for batteries, phones, etc...

I have the PT55 and it's great. We can load up all kinds of drinks plus food for weekend trips, but i'm confident we could go much longer. I'm interested in the FC15 just for a drinks / snacks cooler for non camping based road trips.

Thanks for your honest, thorough and entertaining review of this electric cooler. I'm looking for a smaller electric cooler for my hiking trips and have been going blind reading reviews of a bunch of other brands. This one popped up and I thought, "Oh no, another one to consider." But watching your review as an actual user (not an obviously biased infomercial/review), has pretty much convinced me to pull the trigger on this one. I'm gonna give it a try. Thanks again.

I appreciate this video I’ve been getting so many adds for this cooler so I wanted to check it out and find a real review, I live in Tucson and I do a lot of camping and hunting and off roading so I’ve been very interested in a nice cooler like this but don’t make a lot of money so this caught my eye but wondered how good could it be at such a low price compared to the big brands thanks for a good review👍🤘

i am looking at a fc15. i am adding a roof rack to my impala and plan to add the biggest solar pannel i can fit. i plan to get two 100ah lifepo batteries i can mount in the trunk one for my CPAP when tent camping and one for an electric cooler for trips and camping.

Thank you. Very thorough. I have been investigating these two for a little while.

Thanks so much for this! Much like yourself we've been looking at purchasing an "electric cooler" for some time now but haven't made the plunge. This has been very informative. Looks like you can get something that's decent without breaking the bank! Likely will now take the plunge with your generous 15% off and review as the carrot!

Thank you Jerry!! We bought the aj40 and saved $32.00. 😊

Excellent review; I want to keep equipment smaller, of course, but without sacrificing minimum needs. For me, two-compartment unit is ideal. Can even freeze small water bottles and use them as ice packs for smaller, day trip, soft side coolers.

“….I don’t need to know Celsius.” Love it. 😂

In Alaska your truck is hot cause your trying to stay warm, in Nevada your keeping your rig cool so fridge would work better in hot areas if you already keep it inside clinate controlled environment

ARB, Dometic, Snomaster, National Luna and Engel. They all have benchmark testing. These inexpensive fridge/freezers I'm not seeing that. Or any published data. It reflects in pricing. Not saying the inexpensive fridge/freezers are bad. But it's not uncommon to see ARB's, National Luna, Engel and older Dometic/Waeco fridges that are 10-20+ years old in the back of trucks in Australia and South Africa. And the aforementioned companies sending out 100's of test samples. It's pretty easy to get away with the less expensive ones when they are not subjected to everyday use in pretty extreme environments. I think the inexpensive ones are fine for weekends and various things. And will probably do great in a van, big truck or where they are not subjected to the extremes. Within the last 5-6 years the explosion of 12v fridges have came onto the market. And it generally causes high priced items come down. I'm not seeing that with the higher end companies. So it tells me they aren't so worried.

Jerry, have you tested the coolers through the summer heat yet? Specifically leaving it in the vehicle here in AZ. That's where I believe most fail to keep things cool / cold.

Thank you

Great reviews. 😂 I loved this guys humour 😂. Most likely around my age mid 40s and I felt every joke lol. To be honest I’d likely buy both. That 15 would be great for the summer… I live in southern commiefornia and it gets really hot in the summer and not having ac I’m always chilling in my tundra in the park reading or playing on my switch for a few hours to not die at home… but I also lived in the mojave desert for 5 years and I’m a huge fan of camping. The 15 looks like it would be a permanent stay in my truck being so small and the big boy for camping.

Great review.

U have nice way of teaching

Just ordered a the same PT 45. It was 303 usd total. Hard to believe this will work, but giving it a chance. Lol Bought a cooler yesterday on Walmart for 200 usd. Mentioned 9 days ice. But I watched a review, and it looks like it needs to be fully loaded with use to still have some at day 9. Lol

Do they offer solar charges for there coolers

Suggestion: compressor cooler and non compressor cooler. Then you don’t have to be concerned with the word fridge.

Good review. Thank you. Wondering where you found the info on how to adjust the temp offset (display vs actual). Please help point me to where I can find that info.

They will handle it! LOL! Awesome video! My PowerSet is coming in the mail today! 20 liter one.

It’s a catalog, even if it’s online🥴

This guy was probably hardcore in high school and juco

Wait there are 2 of you?

Does anyone know if the PT series will run on 24V?

Hope you get your Forerunner back!

Are you concerned that it is made in China? Electricity codes, etc.?

I wonder how long the cooler will run if the car is parked just out of curiosity I know you can set the three different levels but is it going to run for 8 hours or 3 hours curious minds want to know

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