C20 portable compressor fridge freezer 21Quart(20Liter) for car and home - 12V/24V DC and 110V AC

Update May 2022. Running continuously, in a truck, left outside, year round, in S. Texas, for over 4 years. Has started to occasionally make fan noise like the bearings are starting to wear out. I've only heard it 2 or 3 times in last 4 months and turning it off and on again makes the noise stop. Otherwise, still working fine. Update Sept 2021. Running continuously for 3 1/2 years and still going strong. First, although the manufacturers box clearly shows that it must be transported "right side up", amazon placed it upside-down in an amazon box. In order to read the shipping label, the manufacturers box had to be upside down. While this was a serious fail on the part of amazon fulfillment, it had nothing to do with the manufacturer or the quality of the compressor cooler. I contacted the manufacturer and they said that it should be alright as long as I let it sit, Right-Side-Up for two days before using it. I did so, plugged it in and it is getting cold. The manufacturer was quick to respond and provided very helpful information. Second, I also contacted the manufacturer about the specific cut off voltages for the three levels of the battery saver feature. They are as follows: Stage 12V input 24V input H1 9.6V off;10.9V on 21.3V off;22.7V on H2 10.1V off;11.4V on 22.3V off;23.7V on H3 11.1V off;12.4V on 24.3V off;25.7V on The documentation they sent also included instruction for making adjustments that I have not seen documented anywhere else. These special features are accessed by first turning off the cooler with the "soft off" button. The pressing and holding "Set" until "E1" appears. Press "Set" to move to each setting in turn, and press the up/down buttons to make adjustments. The special settings are: "E1" Lowest temperature setting "E2" Highest Temperature setting (I think there is a maximum 40 C spread between E1 and E2) "E3" Temperature Return Setting "E4" Soft start Setting and "E5" Changing from Celsius to Fahrenheit (My favorite) Programming temperature compensation (in case the internal thermometer is not accurate) appears to also be possible. Third, innitial impressions: The owners manual says that the top can be opened either to the side or front to back. That is not true. It will only open to the side. The top is easily removed by lifting off when the hinge pins are at the correct angle. It is reasonably quiet. 10 minutes after first plugging it in and setting to the default minimum temperature of -4 F (-20 C) it got to that temperature and stopped. It was empty at the time and started at 78F. So, assuming the internal thermometer is accurate, it dropped the temp 82F in 10 minutes.\ The plastic around where the power cord plugs in seems a little cheap and flimsy. It bowed noticeably with the force required to insert to power cord. I have given this 4 stars for now, because of the poor documentation and cheap feel of plastic where the power cord plugs in. After a little use, if it works as expected, I'll probably increase this to 5 stars. To the manufacturer: Draining a battery to 11.1 volts (the highest battery protection setting) on a regular basis will quickly kill most batteries. Draining it to 9.6 volts (lowest battery protection setting) would damage any lead acid battery. Please add a battery saver setting with a relatively high voltage, like 12.5 volts. This would allow it to be plugged into a car and only run when the car was on. When hooked up to a solar system, it would allow it to run as a "dump load" only running when your battery is fully charged and you have nothing else to do with the power. Then the excess power could be used to make ice. Final note: There are several reviews here which report erratic operation or it staying on all the time. I suspect that some of those problems are related to the hidden settings getting accidentally set to random settings after piling stuff on top of the cooler. I upped my rating to 5 stars. After several weeks of use I'm very surprised by just how little power it uses. I have it on a 35AH battery that is charged by solar panels and the lowest voltage I have seen so far in the morning is 12.4. It does collect a little condensation and after a month it started to grow a little mold inside. It cleaned up easily with a paper towel. It does what it is supposed to do, it us very efficient and it was less than 1/2 the price of the competition. So 5 stars. Update: After 16 months is has 2 times (that I know of) gone into a "run away" cooling condition. When in that condition it would run the compressor, non-stop, until it was turned off or the battery was dead. The compressor gets VERY hot when this happens as it is not designed for a 100% duty cycle. Everything inside freezes solid. Some other reviews mention something like this. I suspect that it is a firmware issue, causing the internal computer to lock up. Unplugging it for a moment has always returned it to normal operation. Other than these two instances, it has worked flawlessly, non-stop, 24/7, for almost a year and a half. Because of the low price and fact that it has only done this twice (that I'm aware of), I am keeping my 5 star rating. I have also noticed that a few paper towels in the bottom to absorb the condensation helps to keep the mold down. Just change them once a month, when operated continuously. One other note: A 35 AH AGM battery, with a solar panel, will not keep it running for more than 2 cloudy days. 1 day if parked in a garage.

EDIT 5 WEEKS AFTER PURCHASE: Still haven't had a reply from customer service. :/ EDIT, DAY 10: STILL NO RESPONSE FROM CUSTOMER SERVICE! EDIT, DAY 4: SENT TO CUSTOMER SERVICE YESTERDAY. NO REPLY! "We need guidance on how to use this as a freezer while it's plugged into the wall at home, please. #1. It seems unclear as to what MODE it should be when plugged into the wall at home. #2. It's been plugged in and set to -4°F for 3 days and, while it's keeping things cold, nothing is FROZEN. (We have planned to use it to keep ice packs frozen, so it's filled with ice packs.) #3. The booklet says to put it at -14°F for ice cream. However, our unit will not go below -4°F. Could you please educate us on how to use it as a freezer, at home, plugged into the wall with the provided cord? Thank you!" (WILL UPDATE WITH RESPONSE IF RECEIVED) EDIT, DAY 3: It's been set at -4°F for 3 days, filled with ice gel packs that we know get hard when frozen, and they're still liquid. Very very cold, but still soft. I emailed the company for advice. Will update. Original post: I have no regrets on day one. Immediately after plugging to AC indoor power, it started getting cold, but you can just BARELY hear it! It's a fan noise, whisper quiet. If I had to sleep in close quarters with it, it would not disturb my sleep or peace. Got this to keep 12 of the LARGE SIZE COOLER SHOCK PREMIUM ICE PACKS (available at Amazon) frozen in order to rotate out to a plain ice chest or other 12v refrigerator (depending on what we get; we're not there yet) OR even to keep our big freezer in the sticks-n-bricks as backup in case of SHTF. We will rotate in the spent ones from our ice chest or fridge into the Alpicool to re-freeze at 0°F (having put the other 6, FROZEN ones in the ice chest for the next night. Saw this general technique on Lulu's Way YouTube channel and it seems to work amazingly, though she used hard ice "bricks" and I'm trying these as they say they're "colder and lighter than ice." (Not cheap, but it's a one-time investment for a system we think will last longer term. Hope!) If anyone needs this info, this Alpicool chest holds 6 LARGE laid flat and stacked horizontally inside the freezer. I bought 12 so I can always have 6 being frozen and 6 more at hand to keep the ice chest cold without getting soupy with ice water. If we have any problems I'll let ya know. But so far we are really grateful we were able to grab one. Must-have for any prepper or no_mad!

Literally, this wonderful, cost-effective, and thoroughly dependable unit saved my little girl’s life. We were faced with a HUGE dilemma when having to move over 1,000+ miles from Florida up to our new home in the Northeast. I’ll explain... Our daughter is a Type 1 insulin-dependent diabetic. Insulin is extremely temperature sensitive medication. If not being used with a 30 day period, insulin MUST be stored between roughly 34 degrees—45 degrees (approx.). When moving in a car across the US, it’s very tricky to be able to consistently temperature regulate anything, let alone a very sensitive life-saving med that is prone to denaturation. This wonderful Alpicool car fridge resolve all of my fears and issues about the insulin. It was a total champ through the entire 3-day car ride. It kept a consistent temp (give or take a degree C) the whole trip. I used a standard manual fridge thermometer and a digital thermometer with two sensors (for a total of three measuring devices) to ensure that the contents in the Alpicool retained a safe temperature within my given medication tolerances. The Alpicool performed perfectly! I was able to easily adjust the internal temp of the unit with the simple digital temp controls on the outside of the unit by a degree Celsius at a time. Opening the door of the unit allowed me to warm the inside when the unit was cooling a bit too much, and I’d also just raise the temp a bit, too. I was able to use the car plug while traveling, and the wall plug when we checked into our hotels at night. The cooler maintained the internal temp beautifully in the interim from car-to-hotel and vice-versa. Inside the car, the Alpicool fit beautifully on my front passenger seat, and it would’ve fit horizontally or vertically in my mid-sized Escape (just FYI). Also, the unit is very quiet, even when the compressor kicks in. Its important to know that you must make sure to keep the vents unblocked on both sides of the unit so the Alpicool can do it’s job. This is one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. I’d tell any family of a diabetic or person with diabetes to order this life-saving product. It’s important to note, the Alpicool was not just a one-time moving essential for our family: we will continue to enjoy the peace-of-mind that accompanies this purchase as it shields and protects our child’s life-saving insulin. I love that I can use this if the power goes out...or if there is a zombie apocalypse, lol. Seriously, the Alpicool is amazing! A million thanks to the manufacturer of thus product.

Ok, I basically lived out of this thing for a couple of months doing some extended travel. I waited to write this review until I had really lived with it, and gotten to know it well. This thing has a lot to recommend it. Most importantly, it is a real fridge using the same compressor technology as your home fridge. The compressor makes it strong enough that it can even work as a freezer if you want it to. The compressor makes it very efficient, far better than those thermoelectric coolers, and it is fairly quiet in operation. It is not huge, but big enough to cover your basic needs. And it is an absolutely screaming bargain vs. similar units. It comes with an 110v converter so you can plug it into your car when on the road and then carry it into your hotel room and plug it into the wall all night. Here is the bad part: you absolutely need to buy a fridge thermometer and you need to spend some time playing with this thing before your trip to see how the temp you set correlates to the temp you actually want. Be patient. You will initially get frustrated, but you can get to a point where it will keep your food where you want it, without freezing it. See the machine doesn't actually ever know how cold the food inside it gets. Nor does it constantly blow cold air over your food with a fan like your fridge at home. It is a very simple system, with a single coil of coolant wrapped around the walls of the box. The coolant makes the wall of the cooler very cold. That cold wall makes the air and eventually your food cold. But stagnant air doesn't conduct temperature terribly efficiently, it is the basis of most insulation after all. Why does that matter? Because this design means that how the box is packed will alter where you need to set the temperature. At one extreme, if you pack the thing full of stuff at room temperature, stuff that is touching the walls, the warmth of that food will be conducted into the walls of the box, and from there into the coolant, telling the machine to run. On the opposite extreme, if you were to put a small glass of water in the middle of the box and leave the cooler otherwise largely empty, then the walls would still get cold and stay cold, but it would take forever to chill that glass of water indirectly through the air with no fan circulating the air around. So you turn the thermostat down a bit when the cooler is empty, and up a bit when it is full. After a little while, you get a sense of where you need to set it based on what you have in it and how full it is. But you absolutely have to have a fridge thermometer in it so you can understand what is actually happening inside the box, particularly when you are first learning how to use it. The other caution with this thing is that it is fairly heavy, even empty. And it is heavy in an uneven way, with the compressor and such all at one end, and your relatively light food at the other. While you certainly can lug it into a hotel room every night during extended road trips, I definitely got tired of doing that. And, just like any other compressor-based fridge, you can seriously damage it if you don't keep it basically upright all the time. Nobody tips over their cooler on purpose, but you want it to sit level, particularly when it is running. It tolerates the usual bumps in the road fine, but it is not at all excited about sitting on even a modest incline in operation (it will start to make unhappy noises, and my guess is that if you ignore those noises, it would eventually die). So think carefully about where you are planning to put it when it is running, whether there is sufficient air flow around that one end, etc., and realize that the back seat of your car is probably NOT level enough, because it is angled to be comfortable to people. Expect some fiddling to get the fridge level and stable will be needed before you depart. But overall, I really liked it, and it probably paid for itself inside of a month, allowing us to eat out less on the road, not to mention eating a lot more healthy than if we had to eat a bunch of fast food. This is a good choice for an off-grid system, a small RV, or a family taking an extended road trip that doesn't want to constantly buy ice. It is superior to one of those cheap thermoelectric coolers in virtually every way except weight. For a simple, weekend camping trip, stick with a traditional cooler that doesn't require power. But for extended trips, this thing is absolutely worth the higher up-front costs and some of the hassles I just explained.

We bought this originally to be a small stash of cold milk for our nursery, but it's since became one of our go-to items to travel with and use around the house. The inside is decently sized, it can fit a handful of bottles, a few quarts of ice cream, and other smaller items without issue. Overall, the entire unit is about the size and weight of a medium sized cooler with ice. It's portable enough to carry around without much issue or sit in the trunk of a car or back seat. We use ours with a portable power station that outputs 12 volts, and with those in the back of our car on hot days, we're able to keep food cold and ice cream frozen even while spending half the day at the zoo. On very hot days, it struggles a bit to maintain a deep freeze temperature, it hovered around 10-15 F when set to 0 F, but otherwise has no issues keeping cold and keeping things frozen. When we're not traveling, we keep a stash of cold water in a storm shelter and turn it on and off via a WiFi controlled outlet. It resumes it's last setting when powered on, so we set it once and use our other home automation to turn it on and off. It has a bluetooth app, and that's handy for checking on it when driving down the road. You can control most everything through the app and lock the buttons to prevent accidental changes as well. The only negative I can really say is that it has quite a bit of temperature swing before it comes back on, but the temperature inside the the cooler is often colder than the readout on the display. We set it at 36 F, and noticed it waited until temperatures were well into the mid 40's before turning back on, but the drinks were still freezing. We checked things with a food thermometer several times, and found the food temperature maintains close or below the set point, and the digital display swings quite a bit. We stored milk in this for a long while, and had no issues with anything spoiling, but keep that in mind when setting a temperature.

I am a long time off grid homesteader and I have struggled to find a fridge/freezer that would would work on my small 400 watt system and I have tried just about everything. The Dometics and ARB and Engle are great but they are just too expensive for most of us cheap off gridders to invest in. Ice chests are not efficient and won't keep food frozen and you spend as much on ice in a year as this C20 costs without any of the hassle. I have had the C20 for over a week now and it works excellent for a single guy and I use it as my regular fridge freezer in my cabin but can also take it with me camping and adventuring which I do a lot. No more messy ice chests and buying ice. It runs great off of DC and at 3 amps on the eco setting with battery protection it won't leave you stranded with a dead battery. The picture shows the C20 loaded with a weeks worth of food. 2 frozen dinners, pound of hamburger, package of lunch meat, 2 frozen burritos, 2 frozen pizzas, , package of hot dogs, package of salad, bottle of past sauce, bottle of salsa, bottle of mayo, 2 cans of soda, package of shredded and sliced cheese and a quart of milk. Just a heads up. When I first got this fridge I set it to the lowest -4 setting because I didn't think it was cooling fast enough and by morning EVERYTHING in the fridge was frozen solid. If you are using it as a fridge set it on 20 and then the stuff at the bottom will stay almost froze and stuff on top will stay fresh and ready to use. It has enough room for an adequate supply of food and still small enough I can take it with me camping and adventuring which I do alot.. Another idea is you could use this as a freezer for all the stuff you want frozen and put in a couple of those reusable blue ice packs and freeze those to use in your ice chest for fresh foods and could even be used in one of those homemade chest air conditioners to keep your places cooler in summer. I am going to try that when the weather warms up! I have a full review of this Alpicool C20 on my Solarcabin channel: Alpicool C20 Off Grid Fridge Review 1 month update: I am using this as my full time fridge/freezer in my off grid cabin. I have finally found the perfect temp setting to be 20 which keeps everything just above freezing and that will keep frozen stuff frozen for 3-4 days and keeps my soda and beer at just the perfect temperature. I am running this off my small 400 watt solar power set up on DC power and it uses so little power I see hardly any drop over night just on battery power. I noticed compressor noise which is very soft just the first day or 2 and then it faded in to the background I no longer even notice it is running. Kicks on maybe every 5 to 10 minutes just to keep the temp at the setting. This has just enough room for a weeks supply of food and replace items only as used. I would give it 10 stars for price, low power and excellent for off gridders! LaMar- Simple Solar Homesteading.

Update 2/17/2020 - I took this unit on a field trip and it worked great. Caveat #1 While this unit work wonderful I did purchase a 1000W Jackery to power the unit while my Subaru Outback was turned off. The Jackery was expensive 1K however I also use it at home during infrequent power loss at home. I also use it outside to power some power tools. The Alpicool runs easily 7 to 12 hours on the Jackery. Note once the Jackery is used you either have to recharge it using your car which will require 10 to 12 hours of driving or find a 120V outlet. All things consider it was a great value. I did a 8 day trip during covid and used the Alpicool & Jackery with no problem. I spent 2 days without being close to a 120 volt outlet and still had enough power in the Jackery for 1 more night. Note before leaving it is best to start the Alpicool and get it cold only put cold food are cold beverages into the unit in order to conserve Jackery power. I am glad that I purchase both these items, traveling during Covid I made zero stops to purchase food are drink and was able to avoid other people. I have only had the fridge/freezer for 24 hours and here is my data for this 1st review on this product more to come as I continue to test. These car/trailer fridge/freezers on the market are becoming popular and they cost as much as your home fridge/freezers and while I did in depth research online real information is sparce, even the highest price units seem to have significant short comings. I don’t really believe any of the 5 stars can be true on any fridge/freezer product. 1st thing I did was turned on the Alipcool fridge setting to -4 degree F. After 2 hours it was at 4 degrees F settings on the fridge/freezer Max (seems good). At 5.5 hours it reached Zero degrees again not bad for a warm unit startup. At 7 hours running time it reached -2 degrees and remained there overnight. It never went below -2 degree after 18 hours of running time except when cycling. It seems to me that the lower limit is -2 degrees not -4 degrees. I also put a thermometer into my home freezer and it never got below -2 degrees so I am pretty sure this Alipcool fridge/freezer will not go below -2 degrees, which is an adequate temperature for most products. Personal note: When you open the door briefly you will see a sudden and dramatic temperature drop; it does return to the previous temperature within 15 minutes, this of course require more energy. I just wanted to note this for those with children for obvious reasons. Also, I placed the same digital thermometer into the Alpicool after removing it from my home freezer. A few remarks on the accuracy of this thermometer; This thermometer is not designed for testing however it does seem to give fairly accurate results and I have used it for years. It is an outdoor thermometer that seems to correspond to weather channel readings even when the temperature drops in the negative number for days at a time. In theory this Alipcool unit will be used a refrigerator and not a freezer ergo the cold temperature setting will be in the range of 30 to 35 degrees F. Having said this the temperature readings now coming from the Alpicool is 4 degrees F on the E mode. The problem is that my thermometer is showing 18 degrees F. My thermometer was placed on top of the Cotinga Cup in the center of the Alpicool. This is a 14 degree difference from what is seen on the Alpicool unit and is very distressing. After testing with the lithium batteries moved the thermometer back to my home freezer and the temperature returned to -2 degrees. Heretofore now, I have not seen this discrepancy reported in any previous reviews and makes me suspect either my thermometer is wrong are Alpicool unit thermometer is wrong? My next step was to run the unit in its current cold state with an external lithium battery with 150-Watt Hour and the Alpicool setting was to allow the fridge/freezer to drain the battery low. The fridge/freezer was plugged into the 110-volt sine socket. After 2 hours the 150Wh battery shut off. This was not surprising, and my test will continue with the Alpicool using the E setting and 150-Watt Hour battery. I forgot to mention previously that on the cold start up I put two 15 oz. Contagia cups filled directly from the cold-water tap. It took between 11.5 hours and 18 hours for the water to freeze solid. After hooking up the 2nd 150 Watt Hour lithium battery and running the Alpicool it ran for 3.5 hours on E mode vs 2 hours in Max mode. A significant increase in service this would indicate to me that E mode may work for those times when the Alpicool is being run off of the battery. So far, I feel good about this products performance and it is much cheaper than the higher end products. If my math is correct you should be able to run a 1000 Watt Hour lithium battery for over 13 hours. The downside is you just spent an additional $1000 dollars. My next test will begin September 10th when I am planning to go camping. Temporary Conclusion after 24 hours - the temperature discrepancy is distressing and leads me to believe that you must choose a setting below what you would normally set your home fridge/freezer. I fear that choosing a lower temperature could lead to freezing but since I don’t intend to use the fridge for anything like fruit are vegetables, I believe for $200 dollars it is good enough for me.

I like Alpicool. My fridge came with a seemingly german built compressor. There were three factories of origin all located throughout europe. The size of my compressor is much larger than a 60w fridge I have. It's very quiet. If there is a fan, I never hear it. I hear pump, and I hear liquid flowing. This fridge is only 40w if I recall. I was on the fence about keeping it (they make a non bluetooth, 60w version). I decided to keep it, because it's highly portable. It can still fit a 1 gallon milk jug, full sized ice cube trays (maybe not at the same time). It's goofy in stature, but useful for it's size. And if I needed to stuff it full of a few days worth of food, I'm sure I could make due. It's been running, for months, keeping drinks cool, and sometimes making ice. Again, I know I'm weird, but my ice maker makes strange ice, and my freezer is full. I like this fridge. I feel it was great value. The bluetooth stuff is readily supported by the non invasive app (make sure your location is turned on when pairing, that's just an android/bluetooth thing). I have another, larger, portable fridge (two sections). It's ok too and was a great deal, but by comparison, that compressor is tiny, the fan is loud, and the parts are from an unknown origin. It clunks occasionally. It's not portable. It can't hold ice trays. I'd not hesitate to purchase from Alpicool again. I think they even answered a few after sales questions for me (because I'm one of those annoying people that wants to know things). I think one thing they missed on this fridge, and it's a bummer, and perhaps I'll hack it..... They all function this way for the most part...... You can't run it off an 18v battery, even thought it has a wide input range. 12-24v. This is because regardless of the battery cutoff value (low med high), it'll probably think it's a dead 24v, and protect/not work. I really wish I could disable the battery protection completely, as it would be much more useful to me. We all have tool batteries, and they can run a fridge like this for quit a while. Other than that, love this little fridge, and it would be the first one I'd grab if I were headed somewhere or road tripping. Alpicool seems like they want to build quality products. And they want customers to have good experiences. At least that's how I felt after this purchase.