Why I'm Done With Coolers! - And You Should Be Too!
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
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I make a point of unsubscribling from hidden infomercials.
Silly me thought this was going to be about planning for not needing refrigeration with canned longblife and dehydrated options 😂😂
When I go camping longer than 3 days I just plan for no refrigeration required stuff. That’s essentially free as we need food regardless
His channel is just one ad after another, one of the biggest sellouts for sure
@UnluckyCanadian not sure I agree with you tbh, many times he had a product before he was sponsored to talk about it.
And he has frequently made negative remarks on videos where he was given things for free to review. He comes across as a really genuine person, why shouldn't he also make money off it.
You're happy to drink warm beers? Or no beers? You are not normal.
I don’t think you did the math quite right to come up with 6 weeks of use to pay for itself. At $2 per bag of ice, accounting for just the $187 difference in price between the Yeti and the Iceco, it would take 14 weeks. At $3 per bag, 9 weeks. If you factor in the cost of the battery, it’s 9 months to a year to pay off.
From what I can tell, the $500 Yeti is 75qt vs. 55qt for the refrigerator. That may be a fair comparison given how much space the ice takes, but I don’t know for a fact. The 58 qt Yeti is $300. So that’s more like 6 months for equal volume cooler.
If you already own a cooler, it’s not just the difference in price, but the full cost that you have to save in ice before it pays off. That’s 6 months without the battery, or a year with.
This is a cool setup for the right person. It might be worth considering if you’ve decided to purchase a Yeti, but haven’t pulled the trigger. But, it doesn’t pay for itself in 6 weeks of use.
His math also requires the battery pack, solar panels, and additional fuel required to charge it from his car all costs $0.
This is nothing more than a commercial for another cooler, battery pack and solar panels. Don’t look at Yeti, don’t look at bagged ice, look over here at this.
@@AdamDrewthere’s no extra fuel cost. He charges the battery while he’s driving. He doesn’t include his $600 battery, though.
If you need to keep stuff cool for more than 3 days sat a time, the refrigerator would eventually pay off, even with the cost of the power supply. Just not as fast as Steven figured.
Didn’t he say 2 bags of ice per?
@@jonsanford2515the energy to charge it is not free, it comes from the vehicles alternator, which in turn uses power from the engine, which comes from burning fuel. The more power draw, the harder the alternator is to turn, and the more engine power it takes to turn it. It isn’t enough to be a noticeable difference in engine power when driving, but it does use more fuel to charge things than not.
I get that people want different things out of camping, but when I go camping, I’m perfectly fine not having ice cream lol
Yeah probably that pint of Haagen Dazs is just as unhealthy outdoors as it is sitting on the couch at home 😂
I don't think I'll be taking ice cream haha but the price of everything edible is just freaking skyrocketing so I decided convenience for a portable refrigerator / freezer for weekend road trips was doable. I want to be able to load up the fridge, put it in my car with a battery so it stays cold while I'm at work and then leave work and head out on my trip without going home. I don't know if I'll get the good out of my expense or not but the convenience and effortlessness of this appealed to me greatly. I ended up getting an Ecoflow Glacier after shopping everything for it being quite a bit smaller and lighter in Dimensions while still having pretty good interior capacity with the similar to this convertible Dual Zone capability. Love that it's so much bigger inside than most of its competitors with the same footprint and weight since they use those vacuum insulated panels (more efficient insulation).
the don't bring any
@@Circa760 yes, that is the implication...can't put anything past you =)
Sure it seems pretty cool, but can you use it to send a fax?
Who pays $500 for a basic $50 ice cooler?
First day in America? Lol
Yeti is the perfect example of consumerism run amok.
Rich youtubers
not poor ppl....
People who have been duped by the marketing that this is a much better cooler.
He literally explained why he doesn’t like using ice at the beginning of the video.
Please tell me it comes in other colours than Black in the Sun?
I have one in stainless (prob aluminum, but looks like stainless)
Yes! I have one in silver. Pretty cool!
I would use this for work. I sometimes have to travel, by car, 7 to 10 hours away from home. Turning the car off at multiple hot stops, then get a hotel with a tiny fridge. By the time I get there my stuff is soggy and gross. And I have to stay for like a week wherever I end up. So this would be a massive inconvenience taken away. No more soggy sandwiches
I don’t know if this company makes smaller fridges but I know that Dometic makes some very small fridges like lunch box sized and everything between. Dometic does have a sweet feature where if you leave the fridge plugged into your car; it won’t drain the battery so low that you can’t start it. Maybe iceco has that feature too, I’m not sure.
@@alaskabornheathen8902You're thinking of the Iceco GO20. Personally I think it's a little small, and a lot overpriced, because it's dual-zone for some silly reason. (Dual-zone doesn't make sense below 40-liters, IMHO.) I'd go for something like the BougeRV 23, which is single-zone and phenomenally cheaper, and more than adequate for roadtrips as described.
We have some allergies/medical limits to work around in our group ... all your reasons are good and really appreciate the breakdown on costs, too, but whether on road trip or camping I think the confidence of having our own foods we know we can trust for those people would be the best thing of all! Thank you!
I've only just gotten into camping the past year or so, and found your channel for recommendations on how to slowly upgrade my gear. This is probably the sort of luxury item i couldnt even dream of buying, but bringing friends along with me on my trips has motivated me to go out more. And while i can sacrifice the little luxuries if im solo camping, i want to make their experience just that much more enjoyable to share just how fulfilling camping can be
Back in the day I bought a cheap (under 100 dollars) coleman 5 day cooler. Would last for TWO weeks, IF you knew how to pack it, Dry ice, newspaper etc, and NO bags of ice to melt into a pool of floating wet junk. This was in areas like Death valley to Moab. No electronics, No smart sh*t, just good packing. Yeti is a sign of the times - their prices are an inverse reflection of, well, you know...
That was the one with the green metal sides and white top and rotating metal latch, right?
You can also take the cooler you already own and insulate it using refletix and HVAC tape. Makes it last much longer, especially if you go the dry ice route.
@@musubk The coolers were also awash with some very cold water! White water rafting in the winter??? Are you crazy!?!?!?
A great product
But I think the real issue is how on earth can Yeti charge $500 for their cooler!
Are all your post ads?
Definitely starting to feel like it. Pretending that a $500 cooler is what most people own or even consider is a wild way to justify an expensive sponsor product.
I don’t know, dude seems chill to me. Of course he pumps advertisers. But he has so often told us to stay away from name brand product he thinks under-perform, that I tend to trust his advice. I have bought a couple of products he recommended, and couldn’t be happier. I very much use this channel now, as a “Buy, or Don’t Buy” guide.
Ironically, I have been shopping for a 12V fridge for my 4Runner. Ice-Co would obviously pop up as a contender. This recommendation, makes me lean in that direction.
I’d love to have one of these and would use for camping and emergencies - but uh oh, wait- how would I get my workout in if I don’t have bags of ice to smash on the dirty concrete next to the ice machine?
You can get an electric cooler for less than $200 , sometimes as low as $100 if you catch the right sale. Admittedly at that price they can be a bit on the small side and lack the ability to keep things frozen but if you are on a budget you still have options.
Love versatility of frig, freezer or both! Plus we can use SUV camping, road trips, cruising on boat, and as emergency backup in power outage for medicines & essential food.
I used to buy block ice from a local fishing shop and keep 2 coolers. One for my food and one for the block of ice. Then I would just chip off however much I needed with an ice pick.
Lasted way longer that way than using bags of ice
I fortunately got a yeti fairly cheap. Own an old 30 dollar coleman cooler. Large bags of ice are 3 bucks. Fill the yeti for 12 bucks and use it to refill the coleman over a 4-5 day period. Drain the Coleman 1-2 twice a dice. Use drained water to rinse things off.
How much you bought your yeti for?
@@redesignedlife777 I literally just paid for a new plug and it was mine.
@@redesignedlife777 so like $12-13.
@@Jcs1aughter wow....too good of a deal. you sure it's authentic?? lol
@@redesignedlife777 It has all the logos and if it isn't it works as intended regardless.
Would love to have one of these for my daughter. She will be spending the summer "wolfing" across the northwest and living in her 1999 4Runner. This will make her so much more comfortable and save a ton of money.
I switched to freeze drying meals for our back country trip. Much easier to make food while camping, have meals my kids will actually eat and reduce the amount of time making food in less than ideal prep spaces. It’s not a cheap device, but I also use it to preserve food at home that I don’t or can’t can.
Throwing my name in the hat. My S/O and I are planning for a cross country trip in a low budget renovation of his late-grandfather's old touring van (he was in a small band and used it to cart the instruments and his fellow old fuddy duddies around). This would make a great surprise for my S/O since he has to make his own food about 90% of the time due to dietary restrictions and we dont have a good way of carting food around. We tried buying something like this in our budget range but the power drain was too high and it was basically just a small fan on the inside that kept it 'cool'. I'd feel bad selling that peice of crap to some other unsuspecting victim. I'm skeptical of these kinds of coolers/fridges given our history, but I trust your enthusiasm for the product and you haven't led us to any poor gear choices yet!
My theory is to spend less on the fridge and more on the battery. In my minivan camper I have a cheap mini fridge from Walmart and a huge bluetti power station. This offers more versatility in my opinion. First off, if the refrigerator breaks you can replace it almost anywhere. Second, having a bigger inverter allows more options to run other equipment like a coffee maker, or small water kettle, and third, a larger battery allows for longer runtime between charging as long as you keep power consumption to a minimum. The $100 dorm fridge only uses 55-65 watts when the compressor is on but requires minimum of 800 watts of inverter capacity to start it. My bluetti has a 1000w inverter and 1.5KW of storage capacity and you can get larger models from other brands for a similar if not lower price now. It’s also easier to keep it running at home if you wish, just plug it in. Dont be concerned about longevity either, I have had my Walmart special galanz mini fridge since August or September of 2020 and it’s still going strong even after tens of thousands of miles on NY’s abysmal roads.
That looks perfect... I am a scout leader and physician... not only good for food but we have had DIabetics who needed insulin cooled for a week camping..
I go camping every year with my girlfriend and anytime we go camping, she gets a little weird when it comes to food since we throw things into an ice chest. Her opinion is, “If it has been in there for longer than 2 days, the food is dead”. We’ve looking into getting a freezer like this but they are so expensive. This would be an amazing peace of mind during our camping trips and would open up a lot more options for food during long camping trips.
I'd definitely use a fridge like this, ice in the freezer for drinks and mixers in the side lol... Road trips are a pain w/ a cooler and the kids and the fact that this keeps a zone frozen.. Pretty sweet!
I'm doing the same thing [different brands though...] except I don't rely on solar alone... a small vertical wind turbine [400w] is my alternative power source...
I'm a truck driver and we don't have fridges in our trucks since we do medium distance trips, this would be amazing instead of the cheap electric coolers! Then I could use on my days off when I go car camping :D
This is what I've been missing for a successful car camp! Somehow pulled the trigger sooner on the roof tent than the yeti, and I'm glad I did since I got to see this video first. The new wife will definitely love to have some rocky road ice cream on the trail
I have unfortunately chosen work over getting doors for way to long! This year I am making it a goal to not only make weekend camping trips but multi day completely off grid trips!!
This would come in handy with a large family....I will need the shopping list for 4 lunches, 3 breakfasts, and 2 dinners for FIVE people!!
I would love to have an Iceco fridge/freezer. We use our truck with a roof top tent and travel out west on weeklong trips. I would mount it under my Diamondback cover. It would also be handy for frequent power outages we typically see where we live. Thanks for all your testing and review videos. I tend to watch your vids before I buy backpacking gear because of your truthful opinions. Keep up the great work!!
Those 12v fridges make all the difference in traveling with food. I would love one for my new teardrop I'm picking up this Fall.
I'm in, it would replace the cooler I use now to bring home frozen food during the long drive.
Is the APL55 Car Fridge sturdy enough to be used as a seat? You know, in case you run out of lawn chairs. But I would use the fridge when I go fishing. Great for food and drinks and if I catch any fish, to keep the fish cool/cold so it won't spoil on the drive home.
Big box store $100 coolers are 9/10 as good as yeti, and if you want to stop buying ice simply freeze gallon jugs of water. Added benefit due to the water being self-contained is that same volume of ice lasts much longer than ice simply dumped in cooler (ie when uncontained ice melts in cooler the liquid in contact with cooler transfers heat from outside much faster than liquid contained within separate container). In my experience frozen gallons last at least 50% longer than blocks and easily twice twice as long as cubes.
And it has a light .........Very Nice touch indeed !
I really like the idea of a fridge vs a cooler. If nothing else the same size unit provides more room for food/drinks because you don’t need the ice and not having to restock ice on longer trips means there’s more time for activities, less gas used etc. I’m starting to get into truck camping vs my beloved backpacking and would love to have something like this as part of my set-up. As always, great video even if it’s a little commercially. I know you gotta pay the bills!
I had my ICECO 40 liter for almost 5 years and it's been a champion! Nice rig, BTW!
This would be a game changer for our upcoming trip to Yellowstone this summer!
You really got me thinking about ditching the cooler.
Wife and I are homeless and living out of our car. We would use this fridge/freezer to keep our food cold without having the additional cost of constantly having to buy ice.
I get it, its your camping hobby, and thus your disposable hobby dollars. I can also see a use case as an emergency back up in the case of a power outage. However, with proper use and preparation using a rotomolded cooler like a yeti is far far far more economical than the video presents. We used one far larger than in this video and only bought 2 bags of ice for a total of 4 bags, for a 14 day trip. (Would have been even less if we had purchased larger bags from in town). 1. Precool the cooler - bring the cooler into your house from the attic/garage etc. then put some icepacks, like you put on a bruise, or some things are shipped with, to get the cooler to fridge temps. (later replace these with step 2) 2. Put frozen water bottles in the bottom, this is your first ice load, and by mid trip will be pleasantly cool fresh water for drinking. 3. Freeze ahead items you won't use till later in the trip, like the water it will be a huge block of cold until mid to late trip and by then will have thawed ready to be used/reheated. 4. pack the cooler as full as possible with items that are already chilled/frozen. 5 limit the times you open the cooler. 6. (optional but helpful) keep a separate cooler/container for beverages and other frequently used items. 7. If you really want ice cream in the field, have some fun and learn how to freeze it in the field. (Ice and rock salt old school, or dry ice methods new school micro gastronomy style).
As someone who lives in whistler and only has 2 mini fridges in my place I’d be using this daily in my house. Especially during the summer heat waves. Then there’s the fact that my Tasmanian girlfriend and I are planning on driving to Newfoundland this summer to meet my family I feel like this fridge would be the perfect thing for us. It’d be a great gift for me to surprise her with.
I went with a set-power but same concept and LOVE it! Best investment ever
I have been looking at purchasing one of these for awhile. I do a lot of camping with my family of 6 and one of these would work awesome. I also get sick and tired of purchasing ice only to dump it out only a few hours later. This would be a perfect addition to my families camping addiction.
I would use it for keeping film cool with my food so I could shoot film on a long road trip. I’m a film photographer and worrying about film in the heat of the desert, or the humidity of the Deep South is always on my mind. This is an amazing product!
I've got a 23 day backpacking road trip near the end of this year that would be really cool to have this in my kit. Would be a good way to avoid eating junk and peanut butter sandwiches on the driving days between destinations.
Nice but what about during the summer when vehicle is like 120 degrees…guess If camping you would remove it and when driving it would be the same charge backup
My 15 year old son and 13 year old daughter and I have always been tent campers. This year we are gearing up to try some backpacking and are currently working on setting up my truck as a basecamp. My son is also bike into mountain biking and we want to go farther out where he bikes with a buddy and my daughter and I chill at basecamp. I'm loving the no ice idea. I was thinking of a propane fridge...I think I like the idea of a no hassle, no pilot light, rechargeable, eco-friendly system better!
I would use this fridge at my family's cabin in central utah, where there is no electricity, making our family gatherings a whole lot more convenient!
I’m a single grandma who loves camping and prepping. I have two acres that I am trying to build on and would use it while I’m working and camping. I have ten hungry grandkids that will be coming with me some, ice cream bars and sandwiches would keep them motivated to cut brush. I have a tip for preventing soggy food in your regular cooler, I discovered that hinged plastic containers from Amazon kept cookies dry. They snap shut and are reusable. Happy camping!
I’ve been looking for a portable fridge for the longest time and this one is perfect! I love your idea of daisy chaining battery packs to keep everything charged as you move around each day.
I would use this fridge this summer as I road trip from Oregon out to Zion with a group of friends. I’m excited to get them all out there to hike the narrows and I know they’ll be excited to kick the ice and share an ice chest that we can keep powered by our car and solar energy!
This is truly the future 🙏
Our family of 5 would use it for long road trips from AZ to OR and TN, and for our camping excursions every year.
I'm looking to outfit my small SUV for more car camping and "base camping" for more distant backpacking trails, so this would be an awesome piece of equipment for that. It would also be great on cross-country road trips and as part of an emergency kit during power outages!
I pull around a mini camper a week and a half a year when my wife and I go on vacation to see the country. We do this on a strict budget to get the most out of our trip. This little fridge would be a game changer for us.
Super idea for getting out longer with young kids who require lots of snacks! Thanks for posting!
I haven't used bagged ice in a cooler in decades. I freeze plastic gallon jugs of water and keep them in the cooler. They last for several days and I always have cold water to drink.😊
I would use it to go camping and other outdoor activities but I could also use it at the grocery store to keep the food cold on the way home.
My kids and I would definitely use this cooler on a road trip to the East Coast. haven’t seen my family in over two years and want to do the trek from the West Coast home. Would definitely save me a ton of money not having to stop for fast food and allow us to maintain healthy eating habits on the road. We would definitely use it for our summer camping trips, last summer was a total bust, and we didn’t get to go out at all because of conflicts.
My wife and I, and sometimes our nephews, drive from Colorado to Minnesota. My wife and I also do some car camping.
I would put this in my car and it would solve most of my travel problems. I could get groceries and be able to camp all in one go. I love it
My family likes to go car camping, but we also do a lot of shopping out of town. this would make transporting frozen and refrigerated goods so much easier.
The math here is quite optimistic (especially not including the costs of the power banks) but I think it's a worthwhile point that depending on how you camp (and how frequently), it's worth considering these modern DC fridge/freezers instead of a cooler. They're shockingly efficient, and give you a lot more options as noted in the video.
If I was camping enough to be considering this, I wouldn't care all that much about the price difference between the two and would be entirely focused on the logistics benefits of not having to source and maintain ice inside a cooler on any trip more than a couple days.
This would be awesome for our overlanding. Don't own a jackery or anything yet but the external battery pack would be sweet, and I already have great solar panels.
I'd surprise my wife with it. We recently bought a new house and car so we haven't been able to close on a teardrop yet. We've been patiently waiting, but she feels bad for pumping the brakes on outdoor things to build the backyard and I keep telling her it's the right thing to do. ❤
3:12 thick wall I’m done with too, vacuum sealed panels are in EcoFlow’s Glacier refrigerator, so it doesn’t waste so much space. There’s at least one other company that I know of that has a stealthy fully vacuum sealed refrigerator coming out soon too, very thin walls and 1/5 the energy they claim. Exciting stuff on the very hear horizon.
Just booked several weekend camping trips for my family this summer and would be great to keep my toddler's milk in something this reliable! Cooler shopping is our last remaining gear to do.
Hey Matt, this is Steven. Go ahead and email me at info@mylifeoutdoors.com
I may get a fridge like that one day, but my RTIC cooler is just as good as a Yeti for much less $$, and I use bottles of ice and cold packs. Nothing gets drowned in melted ice.
Growing up my grandparents always had an electric cooler for us to use when we went camping, which was amazing for us kids to go get cereal without waking them in their trailer. It died a few years ago and I've been considering getting one for my parents to pass the torch. I'm hoping the modern ones aren't as loud!
I have the same fridge in the back of my rig connected to a 125ah AGM battery with 175watt solar panel on the roof. I've run it with freezer for 5 days straight while out camping, and battery stayed above 90%. The fridge is very efficient as it is, and with the large battery and solar, Im sure I can run it indefinitely. IceCo also uses the same compressors as the more expensive brands, for almost half the cost.
A couple years ago I splurged by upgrading from my $10 Walmart cooler to a $50 Walmart cooler. Maybe in a decade or two I'll be able to justify buying something like this. Super impressive product with a ton of cool features, though!
My wife and son go camping. We could use this when we go camping to keep our food instead of the Coleman coolers we have. Been looking for one.
I’ve recently bought a Hiker Trailer and I’m planning a 2 week trip out west. I would definitely use this on that trip. I hate dealing with the cooler and the melted ice getting into everything even if I double bag
Wow this is really neat! I would use this for my camping trips where it would be especially useful for the hot summers in California’s Sierra’s, where even Yeti coolers don’t stay cool for very long.
I would use it to take my sons camping. Due to one of them being special needs, running to the store for ice often turns into a much longer ordeal to move from one place to the other. Being in the woods is our happy place.
I made the mistake of cheaping out when buying my last electric cooler, looks like the iceco model is more reliable and has more space, would be a big game changer
June and July I am doing 6 weeks in my van, and kayaking Maine and Nova Scotia. I wont use NEAR 60 bags of ice. That’s ridiculous. I may use 10. Plus my yeti, which is actually bigger than the one pictured isn’t wheeled so it costs substantially less than that $500 wheeled cooler. Let’s just say, the math here is slightly exaggerated.
I am going to travel down the National Seashore by Port Aransas and it’s one of those trips you can’t make a quick trip back to the store for ice. This fridge would definitely come in handy!
I am definitely in the dream mode of thinking through all the ways to make my 13 year old minivan convert into a mini camper for myself and my family. This ICECO APL55 would go a LONG way to filling in a foggy area in my brain on how to upgrade in the cooler department. I especially love the idea of the slide!
I would have loved to have this on our spring break trip last week! It would have been so nice to have for food/drinks on the 8 hour drive and camping on Peanut island in Florida. We had to ferry twice to get ice for 2 nights, and the temperature didn’t get above 80!outside. It was also my son’s birthday, so on the second ice trip we brought back ice cream in the cooler and ended up with wet ice cream mess before we could serve it.
My son, fiancé, and I do a good amount of car camping and we get two or three big camping trips a year. With a fridge/freezer/cooler for the car, my son would want to have something like ice cream, otter pops, or popsicles. My fiancé and I would incorporate more foods we can prepare, instead of instant backcountry meals. The biggest help would be insuring the food we take is staying cold enough. As a foodie, a car cooler/fridge/freezer would heighten the food experience while car camping.
Awesome, I'd use the fridge to keep food longer than for two night camping.
I paid $270 for my Alpicool TW35 and it is extremely efficient 11.54W per hour on averaqe across my 2.5 years of ownership and yes, I've kept it running 24/7/365 with its optional snap-in battery (wont disconnect and fall off from a small bump, unlike a magnetic afterthought battery), AC, or DC from an Ecoflow. You get a lot for your money with Alpicool... dual zone, with drain plug, wire baskets, reversible lid with built in cutting board, and internal light all for less than the Yeti
Our family would use that for camping, road trips, and dinners at friend's houses. We have...some dietary stuff and it's almost embarrassing the hoops and extra steps and such to eat somewhere else. Warm or soggy car food, limited space, or shopping day of before we get to their house and then the unused stuff just sitting for hours in the car while we try to enjoy our visit... We try to travel via car for visitations (9-12 hours one way) and vacations and being able to bring real food would be such a blessing. I usually don't eat or can only eat fries. Then we're spending a few hundred on eating out the whole time. Lastly, camping/hiking. With so many different needs between the 3-4 of us we end up having two coolers worth of wet food at the end of the day. Haha.
It'd be an awesome thing to have!
I am going hiking for Spring Break with my three sons for 5 days. I would slide this right into my van and use it to keep my bacon, eggs, and milk cool for the week so we could have some nice pancakes and bacon every morning! Great review!
I would use this camping, days at the beach, and road trips. I might just keep it in my car so that I can always have some basic cold stuff at hand.
I would love to have one of these fridges. We backpack and camp at State Parks and it is a pain to run in to town for ice every couple days. It would be great for road trips as well! Not to mention, ice takes up space in the cooler. I hope I got this comment in before the contest ends.
This would be a dream in our old camper van. So sick of water getting into our food after the kids toss all of my perfectly arranged and organized food. Great to see prices coming down to a more affordable range
For those who use regular coolers I recommend saving a few milk jugs and filling them with water and then freezing them instead of buying ice. They will last a little longer than ice and won’t make a pond inside the cooler.
In regards to a powered cooler like this I have borrowed in the past for road trips and found them quite helpful. I’ve used the milk jug trick instead of a battery bank for powered coolers as well when I don’t need the entire inside space. The nice thing is you can refreeze the milk jug by putting the divider in and setting one zone to the freezer setting. I’ve thought about buying one for myself in the past for road trips and camping but ruled it out due to price and just used milk jugs.
Lastly you can always pack non perishable items for the later days in a trip if you don’t expect ice to last the entire trip. Maybe you think you can make it 3 days with milk jugs based on the forecast and have a 5 day trip. You can just pack food that you would backpack with or even heavier options like canned food that won’t expire from heat exposure.
Edit: grammar/spelling errors
Great the bots have found the video… thanks CZcams for letting these scumbags continue to steal from people
What is the average hourly usage in amps of your 12V fridge ? Do you use a deep cycle battery? In Australia, we use a lot of different 12V fridge brands and some are better than others. I have a 45 liter Engel fridge powered by either the car as I drive or a 120 AH (amp hour) deep cycle battery hooked up to a 200 Watt solar panel. My battery never goes flat and gets recharged every day by the sun ☀️
For the longest runtime you should definetly not daisy-chain the batteries as each battery has a charging and discharging in-efficiency. You loose a lot of charge to that.
I'm doing the same thing [different brands though...] except I don't rely on solar alone... a small vertical wind turbine [400w] is my alternative power source...
That is exactly what I am looking for. Could you post which wind turbine you are using?
How’s the turbine working out? Everytime I look at them people say it’s kind of a narrow window you can use it in and solar is easier. But of course the sun isn’t always shining…
I love these things so much. Picked up an Acopower on sale a few years ago and I've never looked back, I finally gave away my old cooler. It burns about 33 watts roughly 1/3 of the time, or a continuous consumption of roughly 11 watts, while holding 10°F in a 70°F room, considerably less if it's just 'fridgerating, not freezing.
I replaced the obnoxious proprietary power connector with a nice standard Anderson Powerpole which is already on all my other 12-volt gear. Find the 3d-print files on Printables. As far as I can tell, the Iceco, Whynter, Acopower, Alpicool, and countless other brands all come out of the same factory, they have the same power connector and their Bluetooth apps all work with each other.
One more thing about the e-cooler: Because it can do real freezing, I use it as a backup at home. Like if I go overboard when grocery shopping and can't cram everything into my normal freezer, just fire up the camping freezer for a few days until I eat my way back to size. It's useful in ways that a normal cooler would never be. Plus of course it's great on roadtrips.
Sometimes in summer even if I'm not traveling with refrigerated food, I'll set it to 60° and use it to keep chocolates from melting. Just a hint of chill takes just a tiny bit of power to maintain, but it makes all the difference in the world.
This looks amazing!!! I have a little candy company on the side that I run with my two young kids, and we started selling snow cones this year, and keeping the ice frozen in the truck through the day at an event is a serious logistics challenge. This unit in freezer mode would be perfect! I'm super impressed with the eficiency on that batter! Thanks for the video, will definately check this out.
I’d love to use it for our car camping trips! I could also use it for the campervan conversion I am planning as well. This would be great to move from the Camper to the car when needed.
That is an amazing invention. We're a family of 6 and go on adventures throughout the summer in my off season from work. I hate wasting food as the ice runs out, and you can guarantee there will never be ice in the state parks.
I would use it for summer trips to lake, vacations to the beach, camping trips and road trips
I travel for work in my car all around the west. This would be wild to keep drinks and food with me instead of eating out so much.
I would use this to extend my son and I camping trips. Want to start to do longer trips but the need for ice just makes it hard.
I own a nice cooler and a bunch of highend ice paks. It works well but my next one will be a fridge, likely Dometic.
I’ve been looking at upgrading my cooker set up to a fridge. I go on frequent road trips and I think a fridge would be a game changer for the reasons you stated.