Portable 12v Freezers?

We have had them to excellent, you can get covers too that will reduce their power consumption. They also do keep frozen stuff frozen for a good time if you have power failure
 
A friend of ours had this for his Atlantic circuit and is very complementary. He used it as a freezer. I had heard that they could do with a little more insulation to reduce power consumption.
 
I have had a CF25 for about 8 years and has run faultlessly about 3 months each year. As other posts referenced you do need a heavier than expected wire to feed the 12v otherwise the voltage drop can make the battery protection kick in and flip out the cooler. Work fine as a freezer or fridge and very controllable. We use ours also to keep my wife's injections inand it controls very well to +- 2 degrees. Uses very little power and normally operates on a 20% on cycle for me but this is in an unventilated locker and a location with more ventilation would be better.
 
I've got the older version of that and it is excellent as a fridge and a freezer. The walls are thin and that must influence the insulation - they are fine as a fridge on the boat with a comparatively low running time for the compressor. I have not tried using it as a freezer on battery (but have on mains) so I haven't noticed what the average power consumption is.

A bit more insulation would certainly help that - you used to be able to get insulating jackets to help but I don't know if they are still available
 
Since we rely on solar a lot, and often on a sunny day we top up the batteries by 11am. But on overcast days we never reach float level.

Do they have enough insulation to add a 12v timer and have it turn off at say 6pm and kick in again at 6am set to its lowest freezing temp. I'm thinking it might be more efficient use of power to consume it whilst the sun is shining.

Maybe that's not good for food.
 
northcave said:
Do they have enough insulation to add a 12v timer and have it turn off at say 6pm and kick in again at 6am set to its lowest freezing temp. I'm thinking it might be more efficient use of power to consume it whilst the sun is shining.

Maybe that's not good for food.
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I think you are asking a lot of any portable freezer to do that - but it will depend on what is in there. If you add appropriate freezer blocks to act as an accumulator you might manage it.
 
northcave said:
Since we rely on solar a lot, and often on a sunny day we top up the batteries by 11am. But on overcast days we never reach float level.

Do they have enough insulation to add a 12v timer and have it turn off at say 6pm and kick in again at 6am set to its lowest freezing temp. I'm thinking it might be more efficient use of power to consume it whilst the sun is shining.

Maybe that's not good for food.
Click to expand...

To be honest the duty cycle is quite good, and they do sell extra insulating jackets. They probably would stand your regime but I suspect leaving them on 24/7 would use less power.
 
There is another way to approach this problem and that is if your keel cooler fridge will operate as a freezer. If it is Ok as a freezer then you just freeze bottles of water to use to keep an insulated box cool. Your keel cooler fridge should be more efficient than the freezer in the link due to better dissipation of heat and better insulation. On the other hand if you want large capacity fridge and small freezer then the small stand alone freezer will be fine. Has the advantage you can load it up at home and carry the frozen stuff in the ar to the boat. (but a big one can get heavy). good luck olewill
 
I've an inbuilt cool box in the galley and a Halfords 40l 12/240v Camping cooler. I use freezer packs to give it a bit of extra Oomph and it generally keeps fresh food safe enough to eat for a good couple of days or three. My boat is only 8m so don't really have the space for anything else but a few frozen bottles of water in the galley cooler keep white wine at an extremely quaffable temperature. I'm lucky in having a very accommodating bar near to the Marina which will freeze the shopping as well as giving away ice by the carrier bagful for free to the regulars at the end of an evening. Quid Pro Quo. Or Euro Pro Quo anyway. Works for me. If I want to keep beer cold then a Dhobi bag hung over the transom let's the Atlantic do its own form of heat dissipation. I just rinse them before use with the run off from the galley box. Works for me at least. I should add that at sea the Solar panels keep the electric one running without having to run the engine to keep the batteries charged.
 
I have the Dometic CFX50, a fair bit more expensive than the one you posted from Force4 but it's nice to be able to control the temperature of your beer whilst in bed, or at helm or whatever via wifi.

Joking aside, it is a brilliant piece of kit. Can be used as a fridge or a freezer co happily go down to -22c. It also draws very little amps. Probably the best purchase I've made so far on the boat.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Waeco-CFX-...F8&qid=1505929828&sr=1-1&keywords=dometic+cfx

Now ask me about my Dometic toilet, and that's another story.
 
We have a CF18. When I got it home a few years back (we bought the mains adapter as well) we plugged it in and it froze a cup of water with the temp control set at "12 o'clock". Our standard sailing setting is about "0840" when sailing and when on engine or mains about "1000", otherwise salad or veg freeze and go nasty!
 
I have a CF18 it was fine for 5 years but gradually became less effective. I sent back to Dometic who stated it needed re-gassing but for H&S reasons they could no longer braize. Its still fine as a fridge but cannot get below zero. It would be good to find somewhere that could re-gass it.

We used it as the main fridge over 5 years and it was very efficient using about 20AH per day.
 
All that I can say about these is that they are superb. I have a cf11. So efficient and effective. I only have one average size battery and it's never even threatened to drain it even after a full day at the beach with the stereo going and all. I set the battery warning cut out to medium, just in case.
My trick is to fill the fridge up and plug it into the car on the way to the boat. This means all the hard work and initial cooling is done by the time you get there.
Can't speak highly enough of them. Best present I ever had.....apart from my first outboard Mercury 2.2 when I was 7 !
 
DuncanHall said:
I have a CF18 it was fine for 5 years but gradually became less effective. I sent back to Dometic who stated it needed re-gassing but for H&S reasons they could no longer braize. Its still fine as a fridge but cannot get below zero. It would be good to find somewhere that could re-gass it.

We used it as the main fridge over 5 years and it was very efficient using about 20AH per day.
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Fitting a valve would take 5 minutes and any fridge engineer could do this for you, on a small unit thats portable i.e. You could take it to them whole job would take 1/2 hour inc vac and recharge
 
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