Dometic

40 Ah Portable Lithium Battery

Outdated power supply. Too many problems

Familiarity:

I've put it through the wringer

I bought a PLB40 from Backcountry in August of 2019...for $850. It has lived in my Jeep for more than 4 years. While it has done an adequate job of powering my permanently-mounted Dometic fridge, I started having problems with it about a year after the purchase. There are more advanced power supplies available now. After about a year, the display started to go dim or become totally dark. The only way to bring it back has been to put a small ice pack on the display for several minutes. This happens even if the ambient temperature is around 60-70 degrees. The identical issue has been reported by quite a few people on various forums. Around the same time, it would not power on with the power button unless plugged briefly into an external power supply...even though the display would indicate a 100% charge (when the display worked). It's almost like it needs to be jump-started. I also received a defective AC charger with the PLB40. It would only work if I bent the cord just right. I finally replaced that charger about 2 years ago. I started using the fridge less and less just because the PLB40 was becoming problematic to use. I had to jump through too many hoops to get it to power on and have a readable display. I finally replaced this compact little power supply with a Jackery that is much more versatile and more advanced with a capacity of 1264Wh (compared to 518 for the PLB40). I've had a smaller Jackery next to the PLB40 in the Jeep for more than a year. It is extremely easy to use and has performed flawlessly.

Love this battery.

I have been using the PlB40 for 4 years in my Jeep. That is where it stays for most the year. I bring it and the fridge into my office in the winter. For the rest f the year it’s charged via a 100w solar panel on my roof rack. It also keeps my BlackVue battery charged for the front and rear dashcams. Works flawlessly. However recently I decided to hook up my Uniden SDS-200 and a Touch Scanner remote head. That was a bad idear I guess. It short circuited the USB ports. No fuses blown. Now it is discharging and displays the warning signal. Looking to have it repaired but waiting on Dometic to tell me why short circuited. I would buy again.

Amazing battery!

I was skeptical of the unit and the price, but it was worth every penny. The battery life is incredible and it charges quickly. We had used another battery previously and this one blows it away.

Display stopped working

Common problem from what I hear, the display stops working and eventually goes blank.

Does it’s specific job well enough

I’ve had this unit about 9 months now. It lives in the back of my grand Cherokee down here in SWFL. I turn on my cfx40 dometic fridge for the weekend and the family uses it for drinks and snacks. During the hot summer here the vehicle interior gets up to about 110 degrees. The cooler will run about a day and a half on the pb40 power station without charging. It takes about 6 hours on the AC cord to charge it if I pay attention. ***NOTE: after charging the first 10 percent on a/c, no matter what the temp, it will fault out and start beeping (and stop charging. Unplug it and plug it back in and it will finish charging up to 100 percent. Now I’d be fine with this unit if I hadn’t bought the ecoflow river pro at the same time. So much more versatile with built in inverter and solar panel controller. And it recharges in an hour on a/c (with no drama). That being said, the dometic unit is smaller and more efficient. It does it’s job ok. But I won’t buy it again when it wears out.

PLB Beast Mode! (DC cord issue resolution)

It's a simple unit, but very powerful and effective. We've run our CFX3 45 Powered Cooler for over 2 days without a charge. We also bought the CFX3 45 cooler and protective cover, the Faucet & Jug, and Hard Cases, and they are all great. I do wish it had an AC out to plug in string lights and other items w 120v AC cords, and not having any input data will be annoying if/when I end up hooking up Solar panels to charge it. We did have some trouble with our DC cord, and CS sent a replacement after we read a few reports of people having an issue with theirs. We ended up replacing just the tip of the cord (unscrewing the tip like you do to access the 2-pin DC), and that fixed it, so clearly that was the problem.

Does not work for multi day Solar charging

I have the plb40 with CFX3 45 and renogy 100w. I need this battery to be able to charge during the day while hooked into solar, not charge when the sun is down, then start charging again in the morning when the solar voltage is high enough. I want to keep my cooler contents cool while I’m on backpacking trips, when I’m away from my vehicle. As of now, I have to reconnect in the morning to get the beeping to stop. This is not ideal, and is a major design flaw. I’ve followed up with Dometic, and have been informed that once the unit goes into error mode and starts beeping(overnight), the unit will have to be unplugged from solar and plugged back in. This is a blatant oversight from the r and d team, and makes the unit useless for my intended desires.

Won’t restart solar charging

Familiarity:

I've used it several times

I have the plb40 with CFX3 45 and renogy 100w. I need this battery to be able to charge during the day while hooked into solar, not charge when the sun is down, then start charging again in the morning when the solar voltage is high enough. I want to keep my cooler contents cool while I’m on backpacking trips, when I’m away from my vehicle. As of now, I have to reconnect in the morning to get the beeping to stop. This is not ideal, and is a major design flaw. I’ve followed up with Dometic, and have been informed that once the unit goes into error mode and starts beeping when solar voltage drops(overnight), the unit will have to be unplugged from solar and plugged back in. This is a blatant oversight from the r and d team, and makes the unit useless for my intended desires.

Excellent power management and iOS app

I did a lot of research on overlanding batteries. I guess I could have cobbled something tog ether using what's out there on the market. But this battery is built with all that I would ever want, already included. It keeps my CFX3 35 going for almost four days if I don't start my Jeep. I tend to move around every 1-2 days, so the battery is always chugging along. It keeps the fridge cool, and it also provides light to my roof top tent, and charges my USB devices (laptop, iPad, iPhone, etc.). I higely recommend this battery. The only improvement I would suggest is to provide a mounting bracket, so it can be secured, as most of us are going over rough terrain. With that said, a couple bungie cords did the trick.

Have great hopes for this battery.

I have two Dometic coolers that I take to Maine on vacation. One I use for the frozen foods the other I use to keep food/drinks cold. One is a CFX28 and the other is a CFX65DZ. What I like is that I can use both to cool or freeze or split the CFX65DZ into part freeze/part cool. As we tend to use the cooler more going to Maine and the freezer coming home, this gives us unmatched versatility. As we usually stay at another place before Maine, I had been hauling the coolers into the room and plugging them into the A/C outlets to keep items cool or frozen; much easier than unpacking/repacking the coolers and most refrigerators are too small. However, the CFX65DZ does get heavy to lift and lug especially if we have to stay upstairs. So last year I tried using a Rescue 2100 portable power pack which weighs in at over 37 lbs. to keep the coolers running in the minivan overnight. The procedure was stop at the motel, unplug the coolers from the car system, plug them into the battery pack, then reverse the procedure in the morning. Although it has dual 12v 22 AH AGM Batteries, it barely provided enough power for both coolers through the night. I stumbled across a review of portable power supplies on YouTube and one was the Dometic PLB40 which got very positive reviews; other reviews were also encouraging. I found the Dometic video about the battery pack and was again impressed by it’s versatility. The feature that would be most helpful for me was that I would be able to leave the PLB40 plugged into the van’s 12v outlet and the coolers plugged into the battery pack and I could charge the battery pack while it was suppling power to the coolers and continue to supply power after the van power was shut off. This will eliminate the ritual of unplugging/plugging cords into the Rescue 2100 and then the van’s power supply which became annoying if we wanted to stop for a few hours to hike. As the PLB40 is only a 40 AH battery vs the 44AH power supply, I decided to do a test to see how long the battery pack would last. I plugged both coolers into the battery pack. What I didn’t realize, until I watched the Dometic video, was that one power outlet only took a 2 pin plug (Great, where am I going to get one of those) and then the video continued and said, “All Dometic coolers are two prong plug ready; just unscrew the back of the standard DC plug.” Really??? I never knew that. So I went out to my coolers, and sure enough, both plugs unscrew to reveal a two prong plug! (Go figure LOL) So now I plug both coolers into the PLB40 charged to 100%, coolers empty, with a room temperature of 77 degrees F (both coolers agreed with that starting temperature). On one plug I used a pigtail to plug in a volt meter. The small cooler was set at -6 F and the larger cooler at +34 F. Here are the results. On startup: 13.7 Volts at 100% After 5 hrs: 13.6 Volts at 59% After 16 hrs: 13.1 Volts and then the battery pack shut off slightly after. With the PLB40 lasting over 16 hrs., weighing less than half of my Rescue 2100, compact size, and ease of use I will say it has exceeded my expectations so far. I will put it to “my real world test” in a couple of months and report back.