Anyone got experiance of those 12v cool box things?
 

I'm looking at buying 1 to keep stuff cold on the way home from a holiday, Devon to Beds is a bit far not to have fish in a cooler, plus it will be a bonus on my trips up north later in the year.

Anyone got any experiances of them? Going to copy VW's idea and stick a 12v outlet in the boot of the car, flush mounted in 1 of the plastic side panels.

use one in the site office that you can plug into the car but got it on the mains at the moment.
seems to work ok, but takes a good hour to properly start cooling stuff though.

+1

a couple of friends have one that can cool or warm - been a God send on occasion (depending on the weather mainly!) but it does take time to get to temperature

I have one they are good for keeping beers cold as said above you can plug them in a car:)

Cheers guys, any suggestions on make? I think Coleman make my cool box, but its no where near big enough to handle what I need it to.

Don't think that paying more will get you something better.
I originally bought a Halfords job that was supposed to cool or warm, normally £100 but on offer at £70. Took it back for a refund when it packed up soon after. The warm function is a waste of time anyhow as it's no microwave and what are you really likely to take in the car that you want warm whilst also then stopping you having anything chilled.
I then bought a 12v coolbox from Champion supermarket in France for all of 20 Euros (£15 then). Made in Spain and still going strong 5 years later.
Check online and don't pay more than £30 ish, the only moving part will be the fan.

They work well, but get one with the option of a mains adaptor, then set it cooling on the mains before plugging into the car.

Friends have one, it's good but a bit noisy.

Some one gave us one but can't recall the make. We've not used it yet. Do they take much juice if left plugged into the car while the engine is off (eg, overnight)? Are you likely to end up with the flat battery?

Simon ,

I had a Halfords coolbox in my van for a long time with no problems. I too used to use it for bringing home fish from Cornwall and meat from farm shops etc.

A good tip is to ask the fishmonger to pack the fish in ice first. The box will keep the ice frozen for about 6-8 hours or more.

If using no ice then the box will keep it cool no problem and even freeze stuff if it is left resting upon the cooler outlet.

On offfer at the moment.

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/s...|sor||Price||1



Chip

Fish aint coming from a fishmonger, its coming straight out of a river on the end of my fly line :) Its a fishing holiday.

It will still be fine in the coolbox.

Chip

I've got an ezetil soft bag eletric cooler (just noticed Ezetil are the OEM supplier for VW amongst others) cost £30 from Makro, which I use to take camping for the fresh meats, milk and beer. It works a treat.

But there are limitations; For it to work best it needs to be pre-cooled. I stuff mine with ice packs which I prefrezes with teh freezer set on maximum for 24hours (four flexible gel packs and two large rigid slabs) and get the stuff I want to keep cool as cold as possible in a fidge set on maximum. So if anything warm is put in their, it doesn't wreck its cooling power (also don't block the fans inside or outside).

More importantly is its current draw. Mine draws about 7amps. That may not seem like much, but over a day that is quite alot juice to expect out of a battery. It gives me about 9 hours of running time on my 65Ah leisure battery (and then its totally flat).

Some electric coolers have a safety cut out which willl turn it off if the voltage drop below 12v, but sometimes (in the case of my mates cooler) that is still too low to be able to start a car if its been used in the car.

So on camping weekends I'll run teh box off the car battery whilst driving, then at teh destination either try to seek mains power or run on my leisure battery and thenput it back in the car when ever we go for a drive anywhere, that way it usually gives me three days of cooling without mains power.

I do have a split charging unit to charge the leisure battery off the car, but it only works when the engine is running. I really could do with a DC to DC converter with a bit more poke which will charge a battery off another one without the engine running, but they are quite rare and expensive.

I bought a box from Lidl about 5 years ago and it been great, cheap as chips. It's even strong enough to support my fat arris at shows :D.

Mine would run overnight in my Transit no problem though it did have an Aux battery fitted as well.

Chip

We have a good one we've used for years. One recommendation is to pack some ice packs in to maintain the temperature.

I have one and ice packs are not recommended. Not sure why.

Tranny with dual batteries. The way ALL transits should be: Two 80Ah batteries = 160amp hours! That'll run the radio for a few weeks :lol1:

Its quite simple;

Look at the current rating (in amps) on the cooler. Then look at the Ah rating on your car battery.

Divide the battery Ah rating by the amp rating on the cooler. This will give the amount of hours it run until its totally flat.

Knock off, say 30-40% of that run time to give you safety margin so that car will start the next day (or use a low voltage cut out device...test it first to ensure it does its job though ;) ).

You hope!

Les :D

Thanks. Will try that :thumb: