The best remote control fridge / freezer setup for Cybertruck!

[Nephilim]

I have spent some time perfecting this setup and now want to share it with everyone because it is awesome!

Requirements:
1. When I am at the grocery store, I want to be able to flip on the AC outlets via the Tesla app while I checkout. When I get to the truck with my groceries, I now have a cold and dry cooler/freezer to use for as long as I need. Now I can go to multiple stores in hot weather, or even decide to go out for dinner while I am out. I'll get to the groceries when I get to them. I can also go for a walk on my lunch break, stop by a grocery store, buy some meat, eggs, and other stuff that I might need, then toss it in the truck, sitting in the hot sun until I drive home 4 hours later. No problem. Just toggle the AC outlets on while at checkout.
2. When I am out to dinner and end up with extra food to bring home, I want to be able to carry on my night without worrying about what to do with my leftover food. I can click on the AC outlets from the app, and now I have a cold place to keep the food with zero pre-planning, no ice, and no wet mess to deal with from melted ice.
3. I want to be able to take long road trips, perhaps many days or even weeks long and have a freezer/fridge to keep my food in. The AC option is not great for this, because I may find myself AC charging, in which case the outlets wont work at all. I may find myself at a hotel, in which case, the 12-hour on/off cycle gets to be easy to forget and I might accidentally let my food spoil.
4. Be able to flip up the larger two-person bench seat for dog storage, which is my default configuration.
5. Continue to be able to fit two passengers in the rear of the truck on rare occasion.

I have perfected a solution!

Equipment:
* Igloo ICF-40 fridge/freezer cooler. It can run on AC or DC power.
* Ecoflow RIVER 2, 256Wh LiFePO4 Battery. (The river2 can CHARGE from USB. The river3 cannot)

Behold!
(It looks a lot cleaner in real life. I just wanted to show all of the details of how it is electrically connected as well as how it is physically secured.)

How it works:
The River2 stays off. It will charge from USB any time I am driving the truck. Totally fine to keep the LFP battery at 100%, it it pretty much does stay that way without any action on my part. It is totally hidden under the single person bench seat on the passenger side of the truck and is strapped to the seat support bar under the seat with a quick-connect strap, keeping it from moving around at all.

The cooler is strapped in to the single person bench seat with a quick connect strap as well. It loops around the carseat bar in the back of the seat. The cooler is connected to AC to the truck via a flat extension cord that goes under the floor mat. The cooler is also connected to the River2 via 12V DC, but the River2 is off by default.

Normally, the cooler only runs when I toggle the AC on from the app. Now I can have an easy place to put my groceries or leftover food. Problem solved.
When I road trip, I simply press the power button to turn on the River2. The cooler will now run from DC power from the River2, and ultimately from a single USB-C port on the truck. Yes, now when I turn off the truck and walk away, the USB port will turn off and the River2 will lose power. It will however keep running on it's internal battery, keeping the cooler online for 16h+ (I have not actually found the limit yet). I can come and go, park, sleep in a hotel, keep on road tripping and not think about or have to fidget with the power on the cooler at all. When driving, the River2 refills quickly and by the time I stop again, it is feeding the cooler from 100% again. It just works.

At the end of the road trip, I just turn off the River2 and we are back to AC mode where the cooler only runs when I tell it to from the Telsa app.

This does exactly what I want and it is so easy to use. I hope this info is useful to someone.

Other notes:
The cooler uses about 40w DC while the compressor is running. Once cold, it does not run very often. While buffered by the battery, I do not believe this is too much stress on the USB power system of the truck.

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[MICyber]

You could have bought the Ecoflow fridge that has a battery built in that lasts 40 hours.

https://www.ecoflow.com/us/glacier-portable-refrigerator

 

[Nephilim]

You could have bought the Ecoflow fridge that has a battery built in that lasts 40 hours.

https://www.ecoflow.com/us/glacier-portable-refrigerator

I looked at it and gave it consideration, but It it was not able to meet my requirements.

It would not fit comfortably in the single bench seat as it is wider than the Igloo. After measuring and testing fit, I would have to push the front passenger seat up too far to be comfortable long term, or I could turn it sideways and sacrifice additional bench seats, but that breaks my dog storage and means I need to move the cooler if I need to fit 2x passengers.

I would also like free-of-cost remote app control from anywhere (cellular). It does not offer this without an external DIY solution of some sort.

 

[alockbox]

Nice solution.

I solved this in my frunk with a Iceco Go20 I had and an EcoFlow River 2 Pro.
I'm wiring a 110 to the frunk power feed this weekend so "complete the circuit" but the Iceco plugs directly into the River 2 via 12v and then the River 2 will plug into the 110. The Go20 is very efficient so the battery lasts a very long time, and certainly charges must faster than it depletes. I left it running 28 hours and still had 68%, in 90+ weather. I think once I get it all dialed in, it'll do just what I need. I came to the same conclusion you did way back when I had this setup in the Lightning frunk...I'd rather not just rely on the outlets. The battery back up gives me a nice safety buffer, even if I forget to turn on the outlets, my groceries bought on my lunch break are fine for the drive home at the end of the day. I'm actually really happy with the size, even though it seems small, because there's never any ice taking up space in it.

 

[Nephilim]

Nice solution.

I solved this in my frunk with a Iceco Go20 I had and an EcoFlow River 2 Pro.
I'm wiring a 110 to the frunk power feed this weekend so "complete the circuit" but the Iceco plugs directly into the River 2 via 12v and then the River 2 will plug into the 110. The Go20 is very efficient so the battery lasts a very long time, and certainly charges must faster than it depletes. I left it running 28 hours and still had 68%, in 90+ weather. I think once I get it all dialed in, it'll do just what I need. I came to the same conclusion you did way back when I had this setup in the Lightning frunk...I'd rather not just rely on the outlets. The battery back up gives me a nice safety buffer, even if I forget to turn on the outlets, my groceries bought on my lunch break are fine for the drive home at the end of the day. I'm actually really happy with the size, even though it seems small, because there's never any ice taking up space in it.

Nice! How will the 110 wiring mod work?

 

[kappaknight]

I looked at it and gave it consideration, but It it was not able to meet my requirements.

It would not fit comfortably in the single bench seat as it is wider than the Igloo. After measuring and testing fit, I would have to push the front passenger seat up too far to be comfortable long term, or I could turn it sideways and sacrifice additional bench seats, but that breaks my dog storage and means I need to move the cooler if I need to fit 2x passengers.

I would also like free-of-cost remote app control from anywhere (cellular). It does not offer this without an external DIY solution of some sort.

Why not just strap it in the trunk then you can free up all of your seats?

 

[Nephilim]

Why not just strap it in the trunk then you can free up all of your seats?

I used to have it strapped in the vault, against my divider. It had to move when I got my cybertent. Now it lives in the cab, accessible even when the tent is deployed.

 

[kappaknight]

I used to have it strapped in the vault, against my divider. It had to move when I got my cybertent. Now it lives in the cab, accessible even when the tent is deployed.

It fits under the tent right? I don’t remember if I checked that when I researched.

 

[Nephilim]

The icf-40 is too tall to fit under the tent. But even if I got a shorter cooler, it would not be readily accessible under the tent. With my tent deployed, I tend to be in and out of the cooler a lot. With it in the cab, it's protected from the elements as well as animals, and accessible for access as frequent as needed.

 

[BeFamousVideo]

That's a smart set up.
As I mentioned to you yesterday. I have a fridge/freezer and a Ninja smoker/grill for road trips. The Ninja is truly remarkable I'm done with propane. I've just started smoking beef, pork etc. Electric is better. You've taken this to new improved level. I like that you still have 2 back seats available and you solved the issue where when your charging the CT you fridge stays on.

 

[Nephilim]

That's a smart set up.
As I mentioned to you yesterday. I have a fridge/freezer and a Ninja smoker/grill for road trips. The Ninja is truly remarkable I'm done with propane. I've just started smoking beef, pork etc. Electric is better. You've taken this to new improved level. I like that you still have 2 back seats available and you solved the issue where when your charging the CT you fridge stays on.

Totally with you on the smoker/grill! I bought my ASmoke AS300 many years ago, but the Ninja looks like a great option. Looks to be quite a bit smaller than the AS300 and probably easier to pack/fit.

What I do like about the AS300 is that it is nearly exactly the same height as a cybertub, so it fits in perfectly and can be in the bed while the tent is deployed. It uses power from the truck to run the auger, controller, and starter, but all of the heat energy used to cook/smoke/grill is from burning wood pellets, so the overall battery draw on the truck is very low.

 

[BeFamousVideo]

Totally with you on the smoker/grill! I bought my ASmoke AS300 many years ago, but the Ninja looks like a great option. Looks to be quite a bit smaller than the AS300 and probably easier to pack/fit.

What I do like about the AS300 is that it is nearly exactly the same height as a cybertub, so it fits in perfectly and can be in the bed while the tent is deployed. It uses power from the truck to run the auger, controller, and starter, but all of the heat energy used to cook/smoke/grill is from burning wood pellets, so the overall battery draw on the truck is very low.

Very interesting. Just one last thing about the electric Ninja 700 series smoker/grill. It has a very small footprint and is very lightweight. I purchased it just for the truck. But started using it at home too. I've made pork bellies, brisket, pork shoulder, burgers even biscuits. This BBQ is like magic, truly amazing. I smoke meats now for 6 or 7 hours now and never worry about heat control. I've had 4 other people visiting me run out and buy one after eating the food from this little unit. Now I'm selling my bloated gas powered portable BBQ.

 

[Guylouis]

This is what I have: Ecoflo

dual zone fridge and freezer plus ice cub maker

 

[Woodrick]

I'm surprised that your choice can meet your first requirement. Not even full-size refrigerators can get cold in only 5 minutes. For most devices it's often hours.
I know that I had to turn my camper refrigerators on the night before.
Especially for the freezer sections.

 

[Nephilim]

I'm surprised that your choice can meet your first requirement. Not even full-size refrigerators can get cold in only 5 minutes. For most devices it's often hours.
I know that I had to turn my camper refrigerators on the night before.
Especially for the freezer sections.

It has to do with how the thermal mass is used. If I were to fill it with room temperature beverages and then turn it on, it would probably take many hours to chill the beverages.

If I put cold/frozen groceries in, all it needs to do is keep them cold. It gets cold enough in less than 10m to do this just fine. Within 10m, it will go from 90F in the hot car to being cold enough that condensation has already formed on the inner surfaces, sometimes even frost. The air in the cooler is not yet super cold, but I will be displacing the air with cold groceries.

Putting a small bit of room temperature left-over dinner probably does take a bit longer, though it is not very much mass generally, so it is not a crazy amount of time. I will generally toggle it on from the app as soon as I start to suspect that leftovers are going to be a thing.

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