Hi all,
Thought I would start a new thread in response to the cooler fridge debate. I am king of cheep. so here are my thoughts. First I bought a dometic 35 qt fridge this past summer on Amazon, I think it was $365 if memory serves me. I already had twin yellow tops, but you could do the same thing with a Walmart deep cycle battery, lets say $125. Then I added a cont duty relay to connect the batteries to charge. another $50. add in some cable, ends and heatshrink, and a conector. say another $50. we are at just shy of $600. Labor, all done by myself. Wieght and room, not a problem for me, I'm driving an e350. That said I used to do this out of a scout. still had the twin yellow tops. so I would have spent that same money. wiring and all pretty much the same. I would have run a fridge had I found the dometic before I sold the old girl. to me once you set it up and is the simple thing to have, plug it in and go, no charge panels on the roof, no charge controlers. I tend to move daily so I don't have to worry about the battery not being charged. If I sayed in the same spot, it would be an issue. So far I haven't seen my second battery go below 12.3 over night.
This all my 2 cents so take it as you mite. but the whole set up cost me the same as a high end cooler with out having to deal with Ice.
Thought I would start a new thread in response to the cooler fridge debate. I am king of cheep. so here are my thoughts. First I bought a dometic 35 qt fridge this past summer on Amazon, I think it was $365 if memory serves me. I already had twin yellow tops, but you could do the same thing with a Walmart deep cycle battery, lets say $125. Then I added a cont duty relay to connect the batteries to charge. another $50. add in some cable, ends and heatshrink, and a conector. say another $50. we are at just shy of $600. Labor, all done by myself. Wieght and room, not a problem for me, I'm driving an e350. That said I used to do this out of a scout. still had the twin yellow tops. so I would have spent that same money. wiring and all pretty much the same. I would have run a fridge had I found the dometic before I sold the old girl. to me once you set it up and is the simple thing to have, plug it in and go, no charge panels on the roof, no charge controlers. I tend to move daily so I don't have to worry about the battery not being charged. If I sayed in the same spot, it would be an issue. So far I haven't seen my second battery go below 12.3 over night.
This all my 2 cents so take it as you mite. but the whole set up cost me the same as a high end cooler with out having to deal with Ice.
