The history of Dometic Cooling Units
Founded in 1922, when two students at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm came up with the idea for an absorption fridge, rv refrigeration is one of the oldest and most successful names in portable refrigeration. Electrolux, the company who bought them from these students, later spun off their portable appliance division into its own brand name, and today Dometic is a global powerhouse.
It’s a good thing the guys at Dometic are a bit of a nerd when it comes to cooling technologies, because they’ve built a lot of excellent devices. We’ve tested a few of them in our search for the best coolers for camping, and they all make the cut when it comes to keeping food and drinks fresh on the go.
The CFX3
If you’re looking for a small, efficient and powerful compressor powered cooler, the CFX3 should be at the top of your list. It’s able to shave temperatures by about 10 degrees F in just a few minutes while drawing only about 50.7 watts of power while cooling, which is a pretty impressive feat.
The unit also comes with a neat feature: an LED temperature indicator that lights up when the internals of the cooler are getting hot. The LEDs aren’t particularly bright, but it’s a nice little trick for making sure you’re never caught off guard by a sudden change in your temperature.
Another nice feature is the integrated thermostat, which makes it easy to set a desired temperature without having to use a digital thermometer and take measurements. The unit can also be turned off if you want to conserve power or keep your battery charge from getting too low.
In our tests, it took about 40 minutes to drop the internal temperature from 70 degrees F to 36 degrees F, which is the fastest we’ve seen on a cooler this size. That’s actually pretty impressive for a full-powered fridge/freezer and the CFX3 definitely won’t disappoint you on a long journey.
We’ve been very happy with the CFX3 as our main fridge for our vans. Its cooling speed and efficiency are impressive, and it’s a very reasonable price for what you get. It’s also tough as nails, which is important when you’re hauling it around in a van or truck all day every day.