Electric Coolers

ARB makes a great one. Not cheap. The cheap units are good for about 20deg difference. Would be OK if on shore power or moving with vehicle alternator.

Yes, we have one. Use to use it a lot, but over the years use it less and less, as we are now only carrying enough food items for about 3 days out, and drinks in the refer door, take one out, put one in. But the cooler has held up for over 15 years now. We still use it every now and then, comes in handy more when we do not have the camper then when we do, for example day trips, or if we plan on traveling the area and sight seeing once at the campground.

a little late to the game but,


Keep in mind the fridge freezer and the cooler are two entirely different animals… the fridge freezers are compressor operated and temp controlled…

The coolers have no compressor and will keep contents about 40* below the outside ambient temp…

Both are good and do their intended jobs well…

There is an obvious difference in performance and price with the refrigerator type… but IMHO worth the difference to…

The better ones, it is just another name for a refrigerator, and they work as well as a refrigerator. Some I've seen offer option to use as either a fridge or a freezer, have not seen one to do both at the same time.

Others really are just coolers, with limited capacity (-20F to -30F from outside temp) and if you are in really hot weather, you are better off with an ice chest, which will bring the melt water down to 32 F so long as there is ice left, regardless of ambient temp. Yes, they do go through a lot of ice, when it is hot. I've kept ice for two days in Oklahoma summers, 5-6 days in Michigan with the cooler in the shade.

We have an Engel and it works as either a cooler of freezer. AC/DC and automatically switches. We use ours as a freezer. Not inexpensive though but worth it to us.

bshpilot wrote:
We've got a 63 qt EdgeStar - its been running in my basement storage for 3.5 years NON stop w/out issue (except the time i lowered the thermostat too low & froze a beer).

our edgestar runs on 12vdc or 120vac (automatically switches based on whats available).

I never empty ours & never turn it off - when the coach is in storage, the cooler is on shore power.

I have a friend that has the same cooler in the back of his van. The van sits outside his house in the TEXAS sun - his cooler is 2 yrs older than ours and it has NEVER been turned off, EVER, and its never missed a beat. My friend powers his off a single deep cycle battery (when he's not on shore power) and a single solar panel (on the roof of the van) to keep the battery charged when he's dirt biking int he desert.

I picked ours up from COMPACT APPLIANCES (free shipping).


our outdoor cooler is one of the best upgrades that I've ever made - even if we sell the coach ill buy another cooler. I love not having to search for ice or worry about how much ice is in the cooler.

We have the same one and love it. Been running for a year and a half. Pulled it out to take in the back of the truck for the 4th. Can run on 12 volt but took a long extension cord. It can be used as a freezer if wanted. When we have to defrost our refer on occasion it is great for holding the food. Without having to deal with ice and the water there is a ton of space. It cools quickly and to the exact temp you want. I use a small battery operated fan for even quicker cooling when loading a lot of stuff.

As said, this is the best addition to our rv. We are full timers. Ours is on a slide out so is even easier to use.

There are two types of electric "Coolers" one is the ThermoElectric solid state (Think Koolatron) units, I call them a -30 box because the best they can do is 30 degrees below "Room" temp so if it's 100 in the shade, they get you to 70, if it's below 70 they work. (70-30 = 40 which is the warmest you want a fridge)

The other is a high effiency compressor unit, these are way heavier, I know both Dometic and Norcold have offerings in this category, I do not know if Coleman does, they usually run on either 12vdc or 120vac draw around 35-40 watts running and the Engel next to me does a great job of keeping ice cream frozen even when it's 90+ here in the RV.

I have a 43qt Edgestar that uses a compressor. A stamp on the compressor says it uses 5 amps when running. To be sure its electrical needs are taken care of I wired it to a dedicated Group 34 battery then connected the battery to a 12v power outlet. I unplug the battery from the 12v power outlet when camped. It should run several days in that manner but I haven't camped long enough in one spot to find a limit. I also carry a 2000w Yamaha and a 30 amp battery charger just in case I want to stay a number of days in one spot.

We have one and really like it. This is our second one. We travel in a very small pop-up and this is what we use all the time. There is just two of us so limited space works pretty well for us. We have not used it in really hot weather since we prefer to camp in the Spring and Fall.

I WOULD NOT waste my money on any "thermo-electric" cooler - they'll never keep the goods cool enough on even the warmest days - and they run constantly / NON STOP !

look at the units that have compressors in them - they'll run less and they'll have no problem keeping up in the hottest (texas) weather !

Its amazing how much more room you have in a cooler when ice isn't consuming space ! The freedom of not having to buy ice or worry about where you're gonna get it is huge - no more over priced ice at the track etc.