Dometic CoolMatic CRX 80

Att: caravaners and boaties running fridges on 12 volts – Previous Waeco dometic models, better (imoo) drew cooling air from the back of the fridge and pushed it to the front of the fridge, cooling the fridge body as it passed. Our dometic product draws air from the hot compressor and pushes it to the side. So, the orientation of this ff is critical if running on 12v batteries. Our crx80 flattened our batteries in one night running on setting 3. We had to run on setting 1 to save battery life, barely freezing ice and barely cooling drinks. Took to a dealer who said the fridge was fine.

This is not my recommendation, its just what we did to make the enclosed fridge perform properly in its cramped location which is usual on boats and caravans. Our solution: We removed the fridge fan cover. Shouldn't do that, but it doubled the cooling air flow through the radiator immediately. Vast improvement in lowering run time and fan noise. And still safe imo as its inaccessible while our fridge was in position. We also enlarged the vent area behind the fridge x 2 for increased airflow. More improvement. We then fitted another low current (.2 amp) 100mm fan in parallel in the wall behind the fridge compressor to push cool air past the hot compressor along the sides and to the front. In our case all 3 measures lowered the compressor run temp from 64 deg c to the mid 30s on setting 2 in December with ambient 28 deg c and lowered run time back to <50%. Overwhelming sucess from an underwhelming fridge design for its location in our boat. Hope this helps someone Al.

Good Combined Fridge Freezer – This fridge works wonderfully as a fridge freezer, on battery, it keeps everything cold and frozen. But, if you use it as a freezer only, it is hopeless, totally dont use it as a freezer, or you will have to throw everything away.