Refrigeration boxes

ashtead

ashtead

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I noticed there is a company at SBS advertising portable fridge/freezer boxes around£400- has anyone actually used one or an equivalent as I know Dometic etc produce - I am just wondered if any first hand experience of such items -we currently have a cheap 12v box from carrefour which does cool drinks well but I just thought I might look at these at SBS . I have also studied these on Amazon but confused by choice really. Campfire mag online suggests some models but never seem in stock.
 
We have had a Dometic cfx65 now for over 4 years. It can be used as a refrigerator of a freezer. It is bloody amazing!Although it is a portable one we have built it in. Cannot recommend highly enough. some of their newer models have half as a fridge and half as a freezer-what luxury.
 
ashtead said:
I noticed there is a company at SBS advertising portable fridge/freezer boxes around£400- has anyone actually used one or an equivalent as I know Dometic etc produce - I am just wondered if any first hand experience of such items -we currently have a cheap 12v box from carrefour which does cool drinks well but I just thought I might look at these at SBS . I have also studied these on Amazon but confused by choice really. Campfire mag online suggests some models but never seem in stock.
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Gerry said:
We have had a Dometic cfx65 now for over 4 years. It can be used as a refrigerator of a freezer. It is bloody amazing!Although it is a portable one we have built it in. Cannot recommend highly enough. some of their newer models have half as a fridge and half as a freezer-what luxury.
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I have a Dometic also it is great and not a big user of power. I made an insulated cover to go over it.
 
A compressor coolbox or fridge is what you want - I can vouch for Alpicool, very good value indeed, Amazon sell them or you can buy direct from China as I did...
 
Had a Waeco one which we used as a freezer, great unit, prior to that we had a Engel one which caught fire, thankfully we were onboard at the time to deal with it.
 
I bought a "Mobicool MCF32" from Amazon for £390 after doing some online research . Chills on 12v and will freeze on 240v. Served as as a 240v beer chiller at home then a 12v cooler for our mostly marina based week away. Milk stayed fresh, not too noisy (although unplugged for sleeping hours with only 1 dgree or so warm up by morning) and didnt bother with 240v while in a marina as the battery drain was nominal.
 
I've had a Waeco CF18 18 litre compressor coolbox for 15 years. Always works well. In my tests in an average UK summer set to cool to 4 C it uses about 10 Ah per day on 12 Volts. That's opening it minimally and mostly only putting in already cooled stuff. You won't get cooling for less electron Volts than that.
 
They are a great alternative to traditional marine refrigeration.

We have two so one can act as a fridge and one a freezer, alternatively we can have more fridge space, or if power is short run just one. The biggest advantage is if a unit fails and cannot be fixed easily it can thrown out and replaced rather than bothering with technicians visiting the boat.

One of are units is a National Luna, the other is an Engel. The National Luna model is a premium brand and is noticably better, but the Engel is better value. Dometic are also very popular and a bit cheaper again than Engel, but arguably less reliable over the long term.
 
Thank you to all for comments -some names there I hadn’t really noted before so I will do some research online and see which are being exhibited at show - the intention is to supplement the fridge but one with a freezer section might add to our small built in ice box on existing fridge . Hopefully it won’t be too busy at SBS by next weekend .
 
AngusMcDoon said:
I've had a Waeco CF18 18 litre compressor coolbox for 15 years. Always works well. In my tests in an average UK summer set to cool to 4 C it uses about 10 Ah per day on 12 Volts. That's opening it minimally and mostly only putting in already cooled stuff. You won't get cooling for less electron Volts than that.
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Is that in a DF920? If so where does it live/fit?
 
We are looking a for a box to fit between the chair base and table as on our 41 we have tables on each side of saloon and it’s where the current carrefour cool box sits but we do need something small and light enough to manage .
 
We gave up on our in built unit, a Dometic cold machine CU84; It uses a lot of power and has far more volume than we need. A cruising acquaintance introduced us to portable units - he has a Dometic Cfx28. We purchased a Dometic Cfx40 (38 litres). We can now sit at anchor, (as long as it is sunny:) )and with our modest solar energy, never need to start the engine, It is strapped into a corner in a spare cabin. We normally run it at about +5C, but if we are into G and T's I set it at -5C and the ice tray in the bottom freezes quite quickly, but at the top of the unit items do not freeze.
As said above, some units (the larger ones), have two compartments, one for frozen items and one normal refrigerator.
The 'W' models can be controlled by smart phone via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
M.

This our model:-
coolfreeze-cfx-40.png
Coolfreeze-cfx-40
 
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