Bodega MCD25D portable 12 volt cooler review
Today we’re reviewing the Bodega MCD25D portable 12 volt cooler. This is a smaller 12 volt cooler with about 26 liters of capacity in a single compartment.
Bodega reached out to me and asked if I wanted to try one of their coolers. I have to admit - I’ve got a thing for 12 volt coolers and have also reviewed the Bodega TWW45 model as well as Dometic’s enormous Dometic CFX3 75DZ portable cooler.
For comparison I’ve also looked at the Airskirts inflatable cooler, one that actually uses ice, and our friends looked at the IceMule Jaunt 15L backpack cooler as well.
What is a powered cooler
We’ve all used ice chests in the past. I grew up camping with a Coleman ice chest which was a simple metal insulated box with a latch that you put ice in to keep things cold. There’s really nothing complicated about these.
But I’ve grown fond of powered coolers. They don’t need ice but do need some source of power. Most of these can run on the 12 volt power in your vehicle as well as a household power outlet. The good thing about these is that they’re basically small, portable refrigerators in the shape of the traditional ice chest.
There are a number of advantages that a powered cooler has over one that needs ice. The obvious of those is that, this doesn’t need ice. Duh. But not having to put ice in it also means that the space the ice would take can be used by whatever you want to keep cold.
Another advantage is that you don’t have to accommodate melting ice and the soggy sandwiches that can be the result of that melting ice. I can’t tell you how many times we would have soggy items in our coolers on road trips when I was a young lad. Of course nowadays we also have those ice packs that you can freeze but, again, they take up space in the cooler that could be better used with beer. Or bacon. Or whatever.
As with anything the larger the portable cooler you choose the more power it’s going to consume but none of these are real power hogs.
Bodega MCD25D features
The coolers I’ve looked at in the past have been much larger but also offered the advantage of having two compartments. With those compartments each can be either a freezer or a refrigerator or both can be freezers or refrigerators.
This one offers a single compartment with space allocated for the compressor in the fridge. Using the controls on the outside of the unit you can set the temperature inside and it can be anywhere from -4°F-68°F.
Something interesting about this unit is that it’s got an IPX4 water and dust rating which means you can have the thing out in the rain and not worry about it getting fried. Honestly the wind is so strong and persistent here in New Mexico that I’m more concerned about dust than water.
There is a single lid over the whole thing which can be flipped to open from either side.
There are also provisions for small hooks on either side of the fridge so you could secure it in a vehicle or on a bike or something.
The cooler measures 13.6” long, 22.5” tall, 14.9” deep. It can operate from an included 12 volt “power port” cord or a 120vac standard household outlet.
There’s a control panel on the front that lets you set the temperature and also shows the setting as well as the measured temperature.
There is a provision for high performance or more economical operation and a battery saver mode.
The battery saver mode is meant for when you plug this into your car when the car’s not running so you don’t kill the battery. Makes sense, right?
I also found that this cooler is very quiet and gets cold very quickly. From the time we left the house until we got to Costco the thing was at food-safe temperature (41°F) and that’s about 40 minutes or so. I believe we started at about 75°F so that’s a 30°F drop in about 40 minutes.
I had mentioned that there are provisions to hang this with a place for straps but what I didn’t like was the handles on this - they’re just not very deep. So pulling the cooler out when it’s full isn’t all that easy as the handles aren’t the best.
Power consumption
In order to test the unit I put it on our Bouge RV Juice Go portable power station. When I had it plugged into the household power outlet on that device it measured about 40 watts of power but when plugged into the power port it measured just 28 watts of power.
That’s pretty efficient. So why the difference? Converting the BougeRV’s internal 12 volt power to 120volt AC power takes, well, power so the logical thing is to use the most efficient method which is the power port.
Remember that this power consumption is when the internal compressor on the fridge is running - it take no power when it’s not and compressor fridges cycle the compressor. In other words, once the fridge is at the temperature you set it at, the compressor cycles off.
That was what made it difficult to measure the power consumption over a 24 hour period with this - after the compressor shut off eventually so did the portable power station since it wasn’t measuring any power consumption.
This fridge does have a setting to conserve battery power so if your vehicle has a power outlet that remains on even if the vehicle isn’t running this will know not to completely drain the vehicle’s battery.
Uses
I absolutely love these gadgets for a variety of reasons. This size of cooler is perfect for the back seat of our truck and, with the battery protection function, we plan to just leave it turned on and plugged in.
This makes it ideal for lunches in the cooler along with water and drinks. No reason to go all the way back to the RV for a drink or a snack, the cooler’s right there in the back seat.
We also use this on Costco runs, especially if we go in the summer and don’t want the ice cream to melt on the way home.
This could also be used for medications if you have something that needs to stay at a certain temperature.
Should you get a portable powered cooler?
So does this make sense for you? I don’t know. But we do really like these things for road trips, Costco runs and that sort of thing. This smaller model can now basically live in our truck and be ready for the next road trip.
My experience with the other Bodega cooler is that it has held up really well with zero issues since we got it just over a year ago. We do use that one a lot but, I suspect, this smaller cooler is going to be even more handy.
