Extra Fridge

When I drove OTR I used the Coleman from Walmart. It kept everything nice and cold on 12 volt. The temp in your vehicle will determine how cold it will get. I never had any problems keeping my food cold. Just had to watch how you connect the wires. One way was hot and the other was cold.

meganjoe wrote:
I would like to get either a 12 volt cooler or a 12 volt fridge to keep in the car when travelling to supplement the fridge in the Travel Trailer.. That way we could have cold stuff available as we drive then we could plug it in the camper when we are set up..

Any suggestions??

Thanks, Joe

I have and use three additional refers/freezers to supplement the cheezy 6.0cuft one that came with my trailer. Additionally, the DW is a Diabetic and uses two types of injectible insulin and spare pens should be refrigerated before being used as a daily injectible. I need the extra capacity, because we typically take trips of 1 to 2+ months and like to eat like we normally do at home and not have to run to the store every other day. I have a Danfoss based NORCOLD MRFT-40 1.5cu ft unit that I operate as a freezer along with two of the Peltier junction based units. One Peltier unit is the Coleman 40qt you can get at WM and the other is a Koolatron P20 20qt compact unit. As I said I use the NORCOLD as a freezer and it keeps items at around -5 to -10 deg and the two Peltier junction units do well and we use the Koolatron for taller bottles and drinks and the Coleman for breads and Veggies like the head of lettuce and normally 1/2 to a full head of cabbage we normally take with us on our travels. One things you really have to watch is with the Peltier units the cooling fins tend to frost up which greatly reduces the cooling effectiveness and with the Coleman the frost hit's the fan blades and makes one heck of a lot of noise. I have found the best solution is to use a timer with those units and set the timer to shut the unit off for 1 hour out of every 12 since none of them except for some of the medical based Koolatron units have any sort of thermostatic temp controls. Since I run the Peltier units off my trailer's 12V system I had to buy special 12V timers, but with those the two coolers I have work really well to keep temps in the mid to high 30s as long as he ambient is under about 75 to 80 deg.

Larry

2oldman wrote:

meganjoe wrote:
I went with this... I'm sure we will get our use ouy of it..Joe

Good choice.. that looks like a nice one.

Thanks.. I'll let you know...

Joe

meganjoe wrote:
I went with this... I'm sure we will get our use ouy of it..Joe

Good choice.. that looks like a nice one.

I use a Coleman 12V. Ours will cool stuff down to the low 30's and will keep frozen stuff frozen as long as we do not let the cab temp in the truck get over around 70. If you put a already cold item in the cooler it will keep them cold. We frequently put in a frozen jug of water and cold milk, soda, eggs, etc. to drive all day in 100 degree heat and everything arrives as cold as when it started.

We also have a small dorm room size refrigerator that we use in the RV for vegetables, eggs, drugs, and things we do not want to freeze, since our propane refrigerator tends to freeze everything if the door is not opened for 24 hours. I have not tried using it on a 12v converter in the truck but I would not want to load and unload it out of the truck each trip. We have ran it on a generator and extension cord going through 110 degree deserts, but most of the time we just keep the door closed and things stay cool enough for one day worth of driving.

Bottom line is the 12V Coleman Cooler is great for having a cold drink or food item in the cab, or transporting groceries from the supermarket to the house, but is not a good solution to having a refrigerator in the RV.

ON a Holiday Rambler or any other rvs with the sink on the slider how are water lines both cold-hot-drain water plumbed Are there flexiable hoses for fresh an also for drain to be connected to sewer outlet?An are they trouble free?

I have an ENGL 12/120 volt model. This is a small chest freezer When run on batteries it draws 3 amps.. My Ceiling lights (Dual 1141) Draw 4 for comparison.

They make them in several sizes.. The one I have cna be dialed all the way to FREEZER.. Works that way too.. That is how I use it.

Unless you've got a generator running on your rig (probably don't considering TT), I'd probably just keep ice packs (those little gel things) in your RV fridge and rotate them out into a cooler (or that walmart dc box someone else mentioned). You know you're bound to stop every couple of hours anyways.

Engel makes a great 12vDC/120AC refer/freezer in many sizes. Like the Dometic menanjoe posted but with a different and arguably more efficient compressor...big bucks for the both of them

just a suggestion...

Look at regular "dorm cube" or "dorm fridge" and a cheap MSW inverter... fridge will run while the car runs, and hold the cold for a long while when the car isn't running. install the inverter under the hood somewhere and run a 120v extension cord to the fridge - easier and cheaper than running heavy gauge DC cables.

12v doesn't provide a lot of torque to run a compressor, you need huge wires. So a 12v compressor is gonna be expensive (brushless DC motor with rare earth magnets) or ineffective (that's why RV use ammonia instead and a propane flame.)