No more YETI... Hello, Alpicool!

toner

And here it is installed - it was difficult to position the slides correctly at first until I re-read @jahorsle 's comment about the slides needing to be 3/4" above the floor of the cabinet. That measurement worked.

We'll see how well it works this weekend!

jahorsle

@toner said:
And here it is installed - it was difficult to position the slides correctly at first until I re-read @jahorsle 's comment about the slides needing to be 3/4" above the floor of the cabinet. That measurement worked.

We'll see how well it works this weekend!

Looks awesome! Just make sure you have something under each of the slides to prevent them from sagging. The screws that came with the slides we used were not as long as I had hoped, and it ended up sagging while in transit. We ended up adding 3/4" pieces of wood, and all has been well! We will be testing ours out again over the next two weekends. I am very excited to have actual food when out camping. Breakfast burritos are a must have item! Those require eggs, and we can keep eggs cold forever now.

jahorsle

@zgfiredude said:
Ok, pics

Now, that is snazzy!

AZTag

@jahorsle said:
So, we conducted our first "field" test of the Alpicool while boondocking at Roosevelt Lake this weekend in Arizona. Everything went very well! The fridge only draws about 35-45 watts when set to MAX mode and the temp set to 35 degrees. It cycled every 30 minutes or so, with high ambient temps in the upper-50s to low-60s. The fridge spent about 60% of the day in shade, and the rest was in partial to full sun. Our food stayed nice and cold the entire trip. During the day, we would consume about 10% of our 81AH battery in total. This includes all of the other things we ran during this time (water pump, lights, etc.). Our solar (Factory 120W panel) easily topped up the battery each day and we did not need to charge up via our generator, which I brought along just in case it was needed. The only issue we ran into was discovered when we got home... I did not install any kind of support under the slides, and the weight of the fridge under transit caused the slides to droop about 1/8". I plan on adding the 3/4" blocks, which I used to align the slides, under each slide as permanent supports.

@jahorsle You inspired me to get a C30 for our 2021 T@G Boondock. It worked great at home and at our first longer camping trip (Roper Lake State Park, anther good AZ place for you to try in the winter!) with one exception: the DC plug doesn't stay connected in the DC socket. Almost any touch of the wire causes interruption in power. I finally unplugged it for the drive, then ran it on shore power at the campground. Do you have any trouble keeping yours plugged into the DC socket and if so, how did you resolve?

jahorsle

Really? We haven’t had any issues with the DC socket coming out or moving to the point of no power. Maybe there is an adjustment for the plug? Bend out the little tabs a bit more?

We did discover our fridge will jump out of the tray on bumpy roads, so further mods are forthcoming. Haha.

LuckyJ

Our norcold fridge was hard wire to our 2017 T@G. Wanted to go with a 12 volts plug in, but was never able to have a connector that would be sturdy enough.

Finaly found some screw in plugs. Problem solved, but not universal anymore.

Ho but like mentionned below, it is now plug directly to tge battery, in my case with 12 ga wires.

ScottR

Thanks to everyone that's posted on this thread. You've provided loads of good information. I too have purchased Alpicool C30 and am in process of building the tray. My question is on how have folks have wired it up?

I know the easiest would be to just plug into the existing 12v cigarette socket above, but that's not aesthetically pleasing; plus I want to put in a cutlery drawer later above the C30 and the wire would be in the way.

My thoughts: I purchased a 12v cigarette socket (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TTNF118/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and have removed the underside section of the wiring box in the upper back of the opening and exposed a lot of wires. Haven't yet explored wiring to find the correct circuit to tap into. Any advice would be welcomed. I'm a newbie here.

Thanks,
Scott

ras

I don't think you will find a set of wires built to carry the amperage (slightly less than 5A when the Norcold cycles on, don't know about the current draw from the AlpiCool).. We have a Norcold in our 2016 T@G. I ran a pair of 10 ga wires in conduit from the battery along the bottom of the trailer back to the wall space between the kitchen and the sleeping area and connected it to a 12V cigarette lighter that was already in place behind the Norcold. Included a 7.5 A in-line fuse. We had had intermittent problem with the NorCold showing an error message due to low voltage. The new wires have pulled a Roberto Duran "no mas, no mas".

AZTag

@jahorsle With some comparison of other sockets and devices, I've concluded that the problem is likely due to the T@G socket being slightly larger diameter than others. Measured with my caliper, the ID is .5mm larger. That seems like small difference, but it's noticeable when I moved devices from the truck to the T@G and found they slide in a lot easier. Checking the C30 plug in the truck and the shell on back, it holds better in those. Both of those are .5mm smaller than the T@G. For now, I opened the C30 plug and bent the center pin spring back some so it is not pushing out so hard. There wasn't a reasonable way to change the side spring tabs. We'll see how it works next trip. If still problems, I can swap out the socket or replace the plug with an aftermarket that has more spring contact.

jeepers29

Does anyone know why nucamp quit putting the dometic fridges in as standard? Our 2015 has one and has been awesome.

zgfiredude

Hmmmmm......money?

jahorsle

Money would be my guess as well. The Norcolds have an MSRP of $800+ and the YETI tundra is sub-$300. Plus, less wiring on their end. The newer models got lots of upgrades and to keep the cost down it makes sense to drop other features. I didn’t mind losing the television, but I’d have liked the fridge to stay.