Anker EverFrost Refrigerator Battery Recall

[geojag]

A few months back I purchased an Anker EverFrost 40 from Amazon. They had a sale on and it seemed like a good deal to get into an electric fridge, with the bonus of having a self contained battery.

I have used the fridge extensively while traveling, working, and camping. I have had zero issues, in fact I have been very impressed.

Today I got an email through Amazon that there was a recall of the battery, that there may have been a manufacturing defect in the battery that could cause fire. It affected a very small number of the batteries (0.04% according to the webpage), but they seem to be recalling all the batteries.

The webpage is https://www.anker.com/anker-solix/cooler-battery-replacement-pps

The form is simple to fill out, the only thing you have to have is the physical battery for the serial number and the proof of purchase. I am terrible about keeping up with that kind of thing, fortunately I bought from Amazon so I could access the invoice. I have removed the battery and placed it in a location where it can't hurt anything, but I will await the receipt of my new battery before I deactivate and dispose of this one.

If you have the Anker EverFrost, you might check on this recall.

 

[86scotty]

I really like Anker's products. I had no idea they made a fridge. I'll be checking it out. Thanks for sharing!

 

[fourfa]

I have one too, so far I’ve been super impressed with it. Runs and charges just fine off the crappy stock inverter in my truck bed, so it has to be the simplest possible way to integrate a fridge into a build. Plug it in: install finished. (The AC power brick does not run hot when I do this either.) Runs very quietly and low vibration, doesn’t wake us up when it clicks on. The Bluetooth app connects easily when off-grid, though it doesn’t really do or tell you anything you can’t see on the control panel. The signal reaches from the bed to the cab easily enough, and doesn’t care if you’re off grid or out of service. Only complaint there is that you have to make an account login, and it makes you log in again ~monthly or so.

The battery seems more than good enough to me. I got mine in the fall (no hot summer camping yet) but the lowest I’ve seen in the morning after running on internal power from late afternoon until morning, is maybe 75-80%. So its 299 W-h seems perfectly sufficient to me. (I do also have 200W solar and a 500 W-h battery pack, which I can use to power the fridge if needed; so far I have never needed to.)

Back to the recall: Is the date code visible anywhere on the exterior of the battery pack? (I’m 3000 miles away from the fridge right now). If it is, and it doesn’t match the problem date code (if we believe them that 99.96% do not) - then this sounds a lot like a free second battery 🤷

 

[fourfa]

Just FYI, the battery deactivation procedure they outline (a complex sequence of button presses) appears to permanently deactivate the battery. Can't seem to get it to wake up again. I wasn't really intending to do that yet, but I didn't get around to explaining that to my partner before she went ahead and did it. So now we have zero batteries right before a 10-day overlanding trip :/

I can run it from A/C on my EcoFlow unit, but it's not ideal. Oh well. Sounds like the OP did this right, but I'm putting this here in case someone searches on the topic and comes across my warning

EDIT: charging the battery from the supplied 12V cigarette to XT60 seems to wake it up. But while researching this I definitely found instances of other devices using the same batch of bad batteries catching fire. So be smart y'all

 

[fourfa]

Found where the active discussion is happening, with a pretty active company rep: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ankereverfrostusersgroup