Electric coolbox

[scottymarano]

Hi I borrowed an electric coolbox for my first camping trip last year and it worked really well.
I am about to buy one for myself this year, the type that come with two leads one for the car / 12v and one for mains electric but I have been thinking about ocassions when i am unable to get power for the tent at some campsites.
Do you think those coolboxes would run for long on a 12 volt spare battery.
Also does anyone know anything about power inverters that convert battery power to 240 power to run aplliances and would i need one to run a coolbox from a battery?

Cheers

[Boris]

A quick search on google gives a power consumption of around 60 watts (which is 5A at 12v) so I wouldn't expect them to run for too long on a 12 volt leisure battery which are usually rated between 80-100 Ah*.

Assuming a 70-80% efficiency then you will be lucky to get 12 hours before the battery is dud and I would suspect it wouldn't even last that long. You will also kill the battery if you deep discharge it that much on a regular basis.

Using a 12v-250v inverter would just give even more losses as the fridge would just convert back to 12V so it would be worse.

Best thing if you have no hookup would be to take the coolbox with you if you go out in the car and the engine will keep the car battery topped up while you drive.

Of course you could just take less and buy as you need. A stream (or a bucket of water changed regularly) makes a good fridge

*In theory 80A for 1 hour or 1A for 80 hours but you get nothing close to that

[scottymarano]

I was wondering about those solar panel trickle chargers. They allegedly plug into the car cigarette lighter and trickle charge your car battery, i could run the coolbox from the car battery and trickle charge it at the same time, mmmmmm perhaps not, i dont fancy pushing the car! I did wonder about running a light of it though.

[Boris]

I was wondering about those solar panel trickle chargers. They allegedly plug into the car cigarette lighter and trickle charge you car battery, i could run the coolbox from the car battery and trickle charge it at the same time, mmmmmm perhaps not, i dont fancy pushing the car!

These solar chargers are usually around 1-2 watts so for every 60 you take out the battery you put 1 back in. It won't make much difference.

You could buy 60 of them and cover the car in them

[AndrewK]

An alternative to trying to keep an electric cooler going (difficult without paying for EHU) is to try a top rating non-powered cool box. Unlike the usual £5 jobbies these do actually keep the contents cool. Coleman Ultimate Extreme Cooler series or Igloo equivalents do the job for 3 or 4 days. At £60 for the 50 quart size they're expensive v normal cool boxes but don't incur the EHU daily charges that powered ones will.

[Boris]

Coleman Ultimate Extreme Cooler series or Igloo equivalents do the job for 3 or 4 days. At £60 for the 50 quart size they're expensive v normal cool boxes

And the annoying thing is I saw these cool boxes for a fraction of the price in the states. In fact a quick look at the walmart site shows the 70 quart one for $35 (£23)
Walmart.com: Coleman 70-Quart Xtreme Cooler: Camping

Bloomin rip off prices over here.

[rainroo]

Never used one but just brought one it came as part of an electrical set, cool box , cable with three plug sockets all with breakers , a 12 volt regulator, a lamp and a heater . I believe we paid about 100 pounds for it. It maybe better than getting stuck with a flat battery