12V Refrigerator or Nice Cooler

[OffTrac]

Just wondering if anyone has used a 12V refrigerator or thermoelectric cooler in the bed since we have a handy 12V outlet back there. There's also one in the rear of our Edge which we take on longer trips that don't involve off pavement.

The reason I ask is because my wife found the Orca cooler in our Amazon wish list and at over $400, I wondered if a small refrigerator might do the trick since there is an outlet back there and many of them cost less than the best coolers but actually have cooling capability.

My concern is the need to be plugged in. Not a problem on the road but if the car's not running, I obviously wouldn't want to leave it plugged in. Then it's worse than a cheap cooler unless moved indoors at a hotel; even worse, when hunting/camping and there is no power source. Still leaning toward a quality cooler for this reason.

Just considering the options. Not looking to buy anytime soon, at least until deer season, but just throwing this out there for some discussion. Any experience or opinions?

 

[colintrax]

Screw both options
What I did was buy a pure sine wave inverter ($160) and hid it. I bought a small fridge/freezer off eBay for $55 and it's worked well. The fridge stays at work all week and comes home for camping or motocross on the weekend.
I have a sears platinum AGM battery, group 65. And haven't killed the battery. Only problem I had was on the road trip. After watching a DVD on the radio, rolling windows up and down, running the fridge all night, and running a hot plate to cook chicken for breakfast the inverter shut off. It turns off at 10 volts. But the truck still cranked over and even if it didn't I have a jumper box

 

[InspectorGadget]

I had one of the 12v fridges and hated it. First of all unless someone has come up with a new design the unit will only drop the interior temp of the unit about 20 degrees below ambient air. So if the air temp is 90 your only going to have a cooler temp of 70.

I replaced it with a good ole coleman cooler.

JMHO

 

[Tbars4]

I had one of the 12v fridges and hated it. First of all unless someone has come up with a new design the unit will only drop the interior temp of the unit about 20 degrees below ambient air. So if the air temp is 90 your only going to have a cooler temp of 70.

I replaced it with a good ole coleman cooler.

JMHO

Your statement is true of thermoelectric fridges and they cool to 40* below ambient and will deplete a normal battery when the vehicle is off in 2-5 hours.

I've had a number of real fridges that run on both 12v/110v which run 2-3 days without killing the battery but you won't find them if you only want to spend $100 or less..

 

[colintrax]

Guess I should update. After posting I went to go to work.... Power inverter hit the low voltage shut off and the truck didn't start. Came close but justnot enough. Long story short left the fridge for 14 hours with the temp all the way down. Was late to work

 

[OffTrac]

I've had a number of real fridges that run on both 12v/110v which run 2-3 days without killing the battery but you won't find them if you only want to spend $100 or less..

I'm okay with spending more but would it be worth more than a good cooler?

Sent from my Galaxy S5 using Forum Runner

 

[Tbars4]

I'm okay with spending more but would it be worth more than a good cooler?

Sent from my Galaxy S5 using Forum Runner

..I might be biased as I use mine all the time to the point I remodeled the X just to build one in permanent..

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=369695&highlight=fridge

..and there are a number of other members who hve gone to fridges and will not go back to coolers..

 

[OffTrac]

..I might be biased as I use mine all the time to the point I remodeled the X just to build one in permanent..

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=369695&highlight=fridge

..and there are a number of other members who hve gone to fridges and will not go back to coolers..

Your build is what put the idea into my mind in the first place.

 

[2TimingTom]

I bought a Yeti cooler and immediately went "crap, I should have bought a frig".

The Yeti is nice- I can strap it down to my ARB drawers and still open the lid. I put a couple Nalgene bottles full of refrigerated water in there surrounded by frozen water bottles and loose ice on my 4wheeling trip this weekend. There was ice inside the Nalgene bottle when I opened it. Little surprised by that.

But I am still giving up cooler space for ice. And while the Yeti "keeps ice longer", it eventually runs out.

http://expeditionportal.com/overland-journal-portable-12v-fridge-review/

I'm leaning toward the ARB. It runs off 12v and 110v.

I know someone with a National Luna- he eats ice cream while on multiday camping trips. Try that in a cooler!

 

[mrbrett]

The ARB fridges are pretty impressive.

Any of you guys running dry ice in your coolers?

 

[Kjhadfield]

Now I'm interested in the idea of a compact fridge. With the cap, I wouldn't be worried of it being exposed to passers and the elements.

 

[Tbars4]

..Until the plastic cased ARB fridges came out, The Engel, Norcold, and ARB were all made by one company and use the Dan Foss compressors..

 

[colintrax]

Am I missing something? ARB fridges cost a grand. What makes them worth so much?

 

[mrbrett]

They work, and well with a minimum current draw.

The price difference? It's like how you can get a cheap Coleman cooler for $39 and a Yeti for $149 and while they both keep your beer cold for tailgating, I know which one I would want to go out to the middle of nowhere for a week.

 

[colintrax]

They work, and well with a minimum current draw.

The price difference? It's like how you can get a cheap Coleman cooler for $39 and a Yeti for $149 and while they both keep your beer cold for tailgating, I know which one I would want to go out to the middle of nowhere for a week.

But why not run a dorm fridge? I suggested it (and do so) and yet most people use an ARB or similar. My $55 ebay special draws just over 1amp to run and has a 6ish amp start up. Add in the fact it doesn't run all the time, and you're not talking about much battery draw.
I can instal a brand new starting battery, 2 marine deep cells, a pure sine wave inverter with more than enough watts for a fridge, and buy the fridge for less than an ARB. And I can take the fridge out the truck and plug it in at work :scratch:
I will say the ARB has a better warranty lol

 

[2TimingTom]

A fridge like a dorm fridge isn't meant to be run in an environment such as a truck on a bumpy trail. I would bet the compressor wouldn't last long bouncing around and getting shaken up.

Try it though.

 

[Tbars4]

..I know a member who bought a brand new ARB for I think it was $550 new...

..I wish you would share the model number, dimensions, and specs on your EBEY special..Always looking for less expensive and better stuff..

..I think I've had 3-4 fridges now, none over $300, and everyone could be tilted at a long angle, eat dust, be jostled and banged around and kept my stuff cold and sometimes frozen in 100* heat...(and nothing wrong with them when I sold them)

..Repeat hat for a number of days...Unplug it for a month...Load it up and do it all again..

..Everything you can not do with a regular fridge, these can do...

..They were designed mainly to haul organs for transplants and survive in the most undesirable climates/conditions..

..Heck..Some people are just fine with the wally world plug in coolers but it all depends on what you need and there is a commitment in price when you choose not to replace your batteries, alternators, fridges, and possible fire danger too..

 

[colintrax]

..I know a member who bought a brand new ARB for I think it was $550 new...

..I wish you would share the model number, dimensions, and specs on your EBEY special..Always looking for less expensive and better stuff..

..I think I've had 3-4 fridges now, none over $300, and everyone could be tilted at a long angle, eat dust, be jostled and banged around and kept my stuff cold and sometimes frozen in 100* heat...(and nothing wrong with them when I sold them)

..Repeat hat for a number of days...Unplug it for a month...Load it up and do it all again..

..Everything you can not do with a regular fridge, these can do...

..They were designed mainly to haul organs for transplants and survive in the most undesirable climates/conditions..

..Heck..Some people are just fine with the wally world plug in coolers but it all depends on what you need and there is a commitment in price when you choose not to replace your batteries, alternators, fridges, and possible fire danger too..

I got a Igloo FR100 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Igloo-1-7-C...all_Kitchen_Appliances_US&hash=item3ce2bc5e1c

Looks like the price has since gone up.
I was worried about the fridge surviving. However I've driven about 4,000 miles with it. 500ish were offroad. Ontop of that it stays at work all week. I'm a millworker in custom millworks.... so it gets coated in just a little sawdust lol

I'm still not sure how it'll do with some real wheeling. Stuff tends to break when the truck gets airborne

My only issue with it so far is the back gets hot. Try sleeping in the back of an explorer with someone else and a nice warm compressor by your head. Gotta turn it so the back is away.
I should add to, I wish I had gotten the bigger model. While it's big enough for me.... it becomes real small when you have a girl camping.

 

[1998rollover]

There are some simple things one can do to improve the performance of thermoelectric coolers (TEC).

Step one to improving TEC performance is to take the cooler sandwich apart and see what problems it has.

Many of them have poor surface contact between the Peltier element and the heat sinks. Some I've seen had surfaces that appeared to have been "machined" with a chisel.

Usually a few minutes work with a flat file will have the surface smooth and shiny. Worse cases will need to be gone over with a milling machine, preferably with a fly cutter and slow feed. The mill must be trammed square to the table or it won't cut flat. On the worst one I tuned up, all I could do was file it as best I could then fill the deep gouges with heat sink compound.

The next thing to address is the rest of the heat sinks. They are usually roughly sawn from extrusion, leaving sharp corners and bits of flash hanging on. That roughness restricts airflow. Use a rotary tool to deburr and round the cut edges of the fins.

The greater the surface area of a heat sink, the better it can radiate and conduct heat to the air. A simple method of doing that is to bead blast every bit of it except where it contacts the Peltier (or CPU or other thing it's mounted on). Cut a piece of heavy masking tape to apply there then blast the rest.

Around the edges of the Peltier must be sealed or insulated to prevent condensation because moisture can cause damage that reduces the performance or completely destroy it. The cheapest TECs sometimes have no sealing or insulation. Caulking that does NOT contain acetic acid (smells like vinegar) will do, but will make it difficult to take apart, or cut gaskets from sheets of closed cell craft foam.

The bolts that hold the sandwich together must be insulated from at least the outer heat sink. The usual method is flanged plastic washers with the bolts going into threaded holes in the inside heat sink. Better is to have bolts with nuts, insulated on both sides, ideally with plastic caps on the inside to prevent them from transferring heat in or out.

Airflow is another often rather poor aspect of TECs, even in some of the expensive ones. The fan motors are usually dirt cheap brush type 12V DC and very noisy even when brand new. The fans are usually a squirrel cage type, open on one side. Some TECs have double ended motor shafts with a second, smaller fan inside. The fans barely move enough air to be able to feel that they're moving air. The more air blown over a heat sink, the more heat it can conduct to the air - up to whatever maximum is dictated by the material the sink is made of and various laws of physics.

With only an outside fan, the fix is fairly simple, toss the OEM crap and install a 12V computer fan, preferably with ball bearings. That can usually be mounted to the plastic cover at the air intake. Open up the holes or slots so the fan isn't restricted.

On many TECs the motor is recessed into the cooler wall by cutting a hole in the insulation, sometimes all the way to the inside liner. Plug it with a piece of styrofoam and seal up with some aluminum flue tape.

The double fan types have a plastic duct/cover snapped onto the inside heat sink and there's usually a baffle with a hole in it that a smaller computer fan can be mounted to. Use the original fan shaft hole to run the wires through. If there's no baffle the fan can be mounted away from the cover with bolts and nuts. If there's no cover at all then you'll have to fabricate something or leave off the inside fan.

The small six pack coolers and mini fridges (which can usually take 9 cans with careful packing) are a special case. They have a deep drawn aluminum tub making up most of the inner liner and the whole tub serves as a heat sink.

The tub metal is so thin it warps and makes extremely poor contact with the Peltier. The fix for that is to make a stiffener from 3/32" to 1/8" aluminum, with holes for the bolts, then bead blast it all around. When assembling the Peltier sandwich, apply heat sink compound to one side of the stiffener and put it on the inside of the tub, compound against the tub. That will hold the thin tub metal solidly against the Peltier.

An odd thing about those extra cheap mini coolers is some of them already have computer type "muffin" fans, most likely to boost the efficiency of the outer heat sink to compensate for the poor tub contact on the inside.

As for the heat sink compound, the ordinary white "grease" works well enough but if you're after the best performance, Arctic Silver or similar conductive metal bearing compound is better. Do NOT get them into the edges of the Peltier or onto any bare electrical stuff! Arctic Silver is electrically conductive and so are some other brands.

One trick you can do, even without any modification to the TEC, is to put the entire cooler into a refrigerator or freezer to 'cold soak' to prevent residual heat from warming up what you put in before the Peltier can cool it down. Preload with your food and it's ready to go the next day, all nice and chilled. Keeping the TEC in the shade is also a good idea.

When I travel, I load up my 9 can cooler (of course fully 'colded up' with all the mods above) and put it in my refrigerator overnight. The first thing I used it for after working it over was keeping a half gallon box of ice cream frozen on the way to a party, without any pre-chilling. It kept it at just the right degree of chill for easy serving. Keeping some Schwan's ice cream cones frozen? No problem.

To prevent draining a battery dead, there are automatic 11 volt cutoffs that plug inline between a lighter socket and the TEC. They'll turn back on when the vehicle is started. Easy to find online.

 

[Beecoach]

I use an old Dometic 3-way fridge, runs on 12V DC, 120V AC, or a disposable propane cylinder. Not very large but anything that must stay cold goes in there. When not camping, it's for my beer.