What’s up guys, the fam and I are currently banging out a cross county road trip and living out of the GFC for the next month. Started in San Diego, and checking out NOLA right now. Been having some issues with our fridge set up and curious if anyone here could help out.
I initially ran the dometic 12v power supply direct from my battery and had been using that setup to run the CFX3 55 for the past 5 months or so with no issues. After our first day traveling through Arizona and New Mexico, I noticed the fridge would randomly power off. I attributed it to maybe the high temps through the dessert and elevated temps in the truck bed. The fridge would just completely shut off and not respond for about 10 minutes. I’d have to unplug the 12v socket and wait a few minutes before it kicked on. Sometimes I would have to switch it altogether over to my 115 AC outlet in the truck bed.
Due to this and not wanting any food to spoil on our trip, we picked up an Ecoflow River Pro at REI. I have borrowed my brother in laws for a recent Yosemite trip and had great results using it. Ecoflow gets powered by the alternator via the 115AC bed outlet while driving to charge it up, and then the fridge is powered by the AC outlet when the truck is off. Running this set up in Yosemite had great results. I could get about 2 1/2-3 days on one full charge on the ecoflow.
So here we are in New Orleans, pulled in about 4 Pm yesterday with a full 100% charge on the ecoflow. Check the fridge this morning thinking I’d surely have plenty of battery left, come out to find 0% battery charge and the fridge off…
Any ideas why I may be getting poor results? Faulty dometic? Faulty ecoflow? Human error? Anything you guys recommend I check to make sure everything is working right? Won’t have access to a voltmeter until next week when I get to my parents house. Current settings for the fridge are:
Ice maker off
Battery protection: low (switched from med when I plugged into the ecoflow)
Temp: 32(I’ve noticed the temp is usually gets around 34-36 in the fridge with this setting)
Also, I should note, airflow in the back is relatively minimal. The gfc gets pretty hot with the black panels and since we’re cross countrying we have a decent amount of stuff loaded up. That being said, the battery and fridge fan outlets are free from obstructions.
Sorry for the long winded post, hope you guys can help us out. Pics for reference and eye candy… lol
This has happened to me before. You’ll need to go to your settings in the dometic app and there are warnings for levels of battery protection. I just turned off that setting to avoid this. Basically the fridge will
Shut down if it sees its pulling too much power. Maybe this is it? It worked in my case. Wait looks like you did this already. Also it does get hot back in that box during warmer months. The dometic I think has an auto shut off if it sees it too hot. I have the same exact fridge and did the same things you did and it helped in my case. Sorry if I wasn’t more helpful
I don’t have the same fridge as you, but have seen similar issues with the three I have owned. In one instance the lid wasn’t closed and the compressor ran all night trying to keep things cool until the low voltage setting kicked it off. In another instance, the ambient temperature was over 100 and again the compressor ran continuously until the low voltage setting kicked it off.
Looking at your fridge’s user manual there is mention of High ambient temperature kicking off warning code 35 “Controller over- temperature”, which would be my best guess. In tech data in the manual it says the Ambient Temp range is +61°Fto+110°F.
In your description of using the Eco Flow, you said you plug it into the trucks AC outlet, the the fridge into the Eco Flow’s AC outlet. It takes power to run the inverter. I believe you’d get a little better results using the Eco Flow’s DC outlet.
Interesting. I need to flip back through the manual then. Thanks for that.
I’m no electrician, but somewhere along the line I heard that running ac power to dc power was somehow inefficient… I may give it a try and see how it works since you bring it up. Thanks for the help.
I do have an EcoFlow but I don’t use it for my fridge. I use for smaller electronics. I run a dual auxiliary battery along with a solar 100ah battery for the bigger stuff. Solar is free and very effective. It’s even charged my eco flow back up.
This may or may not be helpful. I have a CFX40 that is set at 37 degrees. It cycles between 36 - 39 degrees. As i understand it, at or below 40 degrees is safe for food. I tried running the temp around 32 degrees and found it takes a lot more power than setting it at 37 degrees. I use a pair of 100W solar panels to charge a Dometic PLB40 and to date it keeps the frig and a Maxxfan deluxe running even on cloudy days.
The MaxxFan Deluxe is installed on a Ford Transit. Not sure how it would be on the 1/2" composite roof of the GFC. To answer your question I’ve not run it while going down the road but there is no reason i see to prevent it.
Update:
After speaking with dometic and describing the problem, they are going to replace the fridge. If it was happening only when dc was connected it can be attributed to a faulty dc power cord. However since it has the same issues when plugged into ac it’s a faulty unit. Pretty good customer service so far from dometic.
I’m thinking that trying to drive your fridge temp to 32 is nearly the same as ice maker ON. I live in AZ and on a recent trip back from Montana, when I hit AZ my Tacoma Bed temp was extremely hot, above the suggested operating range for my Dometic PLB40 battery and fridge CFX55 and was getting LED readouts on the battery that were unrecognizable. I suggest setting fridge temp around 37-39, that works for me in AZ. BTW- I run my battery into the 115VAC outlet running down the road and 12Vdc battery to the CFX55 and that has been working great ever since I blew off the niceties of ice, really put a drain on my battery. I will say that in order for my Tacoma to charge the Dometic battery going down the road, I have to 1) start truck, 2) hit the 115vac power switch in cab and verify 400W and 100W lights on, 3) wait about 10 sec before putting truck in gear or else either the truck or the battery will kick the power off to the 115Vac truck bed outlet after about 20 seconds or so. I found this out by trial and error, driving down the road thinking I was charging and then looking down at the power switch seeing the 100W light was NOT on.
