Dometic PLB40 review: Is this portable power station worth the hype?

Our honest review of the Dometic PLB40 Portable Power Station – who is it for, how it held up off-grid, what we liked, and more.

There are times when we decide to do something without the caravan or the camper in tow. This might be a weekend away from home or at a location that’s difficult to access while towing. However, you might still want to pack a fridge’s worth of feed for the troops and possibly keep the data flowing too (for the kids, of course!). 

With this in mind, I thought I’d have a look at the well-known Dometic PLB40 portable power station and put it through its paces. Weighing in at under 8kg, this little jigger has enough juice to run a fridge for a couple of days, most likely enough for a full weekend away with the family in tow and takes up bugger all room. The Dometic PLB40 definitely caught my attention.

First impressions were honestly more than a little reserved; “How’s this little thing going to keep the fridge running for a weekend?”. Suffice to say, I finished the weekend with a hat sandwich – this is a magic bit of kit. Let me tell you why, starting with the Dometic PLB40 features.

The details

If you can’t tell how big the unit is in the photos, it’s about the size of a four-litre juice bottle. It’s a solid little box that houses a 40Ah 12-volt lithium (LiFePO₄) battery. It’s got an inbuilt three-way charging system, so it’ll charge from the 12V socket in your tow vehicle, from a solar panel, or you can plug it into 240V mains power to charge up. It takes five hours to fully charge from flat.

It’s got an in-built LCD display that lets you know how much power you’ve got in the battery as you charge it, this too keeps you in the know on how quickly you’re using it up. It’s also IP44 rated, so it’s pretty well water and dust sealed – protected against water splash from any angle.

There are three outputs on the PLB40 – you’ve got a standard 12V ciggy socket, two-pin 12V socket and a dual USB port too. As I said earlier, this little thing only weighs 7.5kg being lithium, so it’s easy to lug around with you – a regular deep-cycle battery weighs more than 20kg. Being lithium, aside from the weight savings, it more efficiently delivers power, maintaining voltage until it’s just about flat, and the battery itself will cycle many times more than the standard lead-acid we’re used to using. This makes the Dometic PLB40 a clear winner in our book.

Cost

This little box retails at around $1000. Sounds pretty steep, right? Except when you compare it to a 100Ah lithium battery on its own. So, you’re getting just under half the amp hour rating, with three different ways to charge it, with three different output methods. And it’s portable – add or remove it from your vehicle as you need it. Consider the Dometic PLB40 as a flexible and cost-effective option.

When you think of having a lithium charger, low voltage cut-off solenoid, all the wiring to go along with it, and the installation of the gear, this actually works out cheaper. It won’t eat into your payload too much but will add camp flexibility. 

Our test

Now, I’ve got a play/work vehicle that will always have a dedicated 12V set-up. However, I’ve just bought a HiLux, and up until I can find the time (and money) to install a full 12V set-up, this thing is an absolute pearler. Especially considering I’ve already pressed the HiLux into service as my new long-distance rig, heading 900-odd kilometres up to Toowoomba recently. Without a hard-mounted 12V system, I had no way to keep the beers cool or the meat from spoiling.

Although it was just about charged to 100 percent before leaving, the great thing about the PLB40 is that it can be plugged into the vehicle and charging while you’re driving. You can, in turn, have a fridge plugged into it and powered simultaneously. According to Dometic, the PLB40 was designed with its CFX 40W (41L) fridges in mind and can run one of them for more than 40 hours on a single charge.

For our test, we had it plugged into a little back-seat mounted 15-litre car fridge which was left in the back of my HiLux for 36-hours straight in 35-degree heat. And it worked incredibly well. When I checked on it as I was breaking camp, it still had 42 percent power remaining. Yep, I was surprised too. So I’d used a little over 20Ah of the available 40Ah in 36 hours. Not sure about you, but in my book, it makes it just about perfect for those quick weekend camping runs. The performance of the Dometic PLB40 was impressive.

Who is it for?

The other side of the coin, apart from being able to use it without needing a hard-mounted 12V system, is the ability to pack it in the back of the four-wheel drive and take it fishing. Say I want to head down for a fish on a beach or rocks that I can’t legally take the four-wheel drive to, I can have this in one hand, one end of the fridge in the other, and the better half and I can lob the whole lot down wherever we want to go, instead of having to head back up to the ‘Lux for a drink. Plus, lugging the Dometic PLB40 around is a breeze due to its lightweight design.

Of course, this setup is more for times without the van, or for the kids in a tent, but it’d also make a great addition to the camping gear for a lot of folks. Strangely enough, despite having arguably some of the worlds angriest 12V systems over the years, I’m finding that I’m one of them.

Tech specs

• POWER RATING: 40Ah / 512Wh
• POWER TECHNOLOGY: LiFePO₄
• WEATHER RATING: IP44
• WEIGHT: 7.54kg
• OUTPUT CURRENT: 15.0A
• DIMENSIONS: 197mm x 257mm x 197mm
• PRICED AT: Around $950 depending on retailer

WORDS WES WHITWORTH. IMAGES WES WHITWORTH AND STU GRANT. 

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