Lazy Daze Owners' Group

"I believe Andy had a setup similar to this on one of his tow cars."

I've had solar-powered 40- to 50-quart Dometic compressor fridges in all my vehicles (cars and trucks) for the past five or six years, and would never want to be without one again. It isn't just having cold drinks available whenever I want; when I'm camping out in the boonies and have to drive half an hour or an hour to get groceries, the fridge will keep them cold until I get home. And since my 19' Airstream has a mini-fridge, the truck fridge adds needed extra capacity.

The setup is pretty simple: a solar panel on the roof (mounted with 3M VHB tape, so it can be removed without leaving any damage when it comes time to trade in), a Victron 75/15 MPPT charging controller, and a Lifeline group 27 AGM battery, plus fuses and whatnot. This system is entirely independent of the vehicle's 12 V system.

I used 100 W solar panels for a while, and they were adequate most of the time (bearing in mind that I live in the Southwest), but if there was a run of cloudy days or parked the vehicle in shade, the battery could get low. Then I'd either turn off the fridge, or if staying in a campground with shore power, plug in. (All the fridges I've used were able to run on either 12 VDC or 120 VAC.)

Currently I have a 140 W panel on the topper of my Ford Ranger--it was the largest panel I could fit. The system has almost never run out of power; in fact, on a sunny day the battery is in float mode after just a few hours, and rarely goes below 12.3 V overnight.

My current fridge is an 18-month-old Dometic CFF-45, but it's had some spells of confusion recently that caused it to stop cooling, and the display/control panel stopped lighting up for a week or two, so that I couldn't set it. (I monitor its temperature with a Govee wireless sensor.) Then a few days ago, the display came back on for no obvious reason. It's working now and cooling just fine to 36° F plus or minus two degrees, but it just doesn't feel trustworthy.

A friend of mine with an older Dometic model ran into a problem where the control panel stopped responding to button pushes, so that they are now unable to change the temperature setting. And it's very hard to get parts for these Dometic/WAECO fridges; you pretty much have to order from Australia. At this point I'd hesitate to recommend a Dometic chest fridge.

I have seen a 48-quart BougeRV model recommended, although I have no experience with it myself. It has several advantages over the fridges I've owned: it has dual zones, each of which can be set to either refrigerator or freezer operation (my fridges have been able to run at fridge or freezer temperatures, but it's one or the other). It has dual lids. It can be controlled via Bluetooth from a smartphone app. It's currently selling for less than $400--about two thirds the price of my Dometic CFF-45. And it carries a two-year warranty, which is twice what my Dometic has. If it become necessary to replace my current fridge, I'll probably give this one a try.