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Going away for a couple of nights simple camping in a modern diesel car - would I be able to keep it plugged in from Tuesday lunchtime until Thursday morning without it draining the battery? Thank you!
Without doing any sums. No.
But a decent Coolbox and some ice packs should stay cold for that long.
A 60 amp battery would last just over 10 hours before being flat.
No, use ice / ice packs
Coolbox + wrap in duvet or similar, then fill with as much ice as you can.
No. Likely to have to bump start the car in the morning.
Options are hookup and a 240-12v converter.
A 12v compressor coolbox (expensive)
A 2 or 3 way fridge that will run on a gas cylinder (can't be kept inside a tent or car when running on gas)
Traditional cool box
Definitely not, as I found out last year!
It will have ice packs and frozen stuff (milk etc)
A normal Coolbox would be fine, besides, it’s nearly august and the school holidays. It’ll be 11deg and raining which will help keep it cool..
Not a chance. If you get a proper mobile compressor fridge then fine, they can go a couple of days on a car battery without draining it beyond starting levels. But a 12V absorption coolbox. Not a chance. 8 hours maybe, if you're lucky and it isn't too hot outside
You can get a cooler box that runs on gas, called a 3 way because it does 12v,mains or gas canisters. But thats about all i know about them.
I think theyre expensive though.
The other thing to remember is that most food, milk included, especially for two days camping, is perfectly fine being stored cool, like the temperature in the shade under your car, not cold.
Obviously there's caveats if it's baking hot like it was last week, but you don't need a camping equivalent of your domestic fridge.
I have a cool box from go outdoors seems like a pretty ordinary box nothing special.
We managed to keep it properly cold for around 4 days last year in pretty warm weather, high twenties.
We pre chilled/frozen everything at home beforehand. Pre chilled the box by putting ice packs in and plugging it into the home mains electricity.
We froze anything we could. Eg spilt milk into two bottles one chilled and one frozen that could defrost slowly and be ready to use in a few days. Freeze a bottle of water so that once defrosted in a couple days you can use it as drinking water.
Pack out the cool box with cool things as much as you can. We had loads of room left over so just put a few frozen water bottles to take up space.
It would be plugged into the van for a hour or so each day as we traveled to places but other than that it was passive.
We found no problem keeping things cold and fresh. It stayed properly cold for 4 days. And I think could have stayed cool for a day or two longer.
Just be sensible and keep it in the shade and limit the number of times you open it and I think you’ll be fine.
That will cane the battery. My Dad did that on holiday once when I were a lad and the battery was drained overnight. It was a big bettery too.
They're not massively efficient.
Better suggestions above re. coolbox/ice blocks etc. You could freeze some of the milk prior to the trip and they'll act as the ice blocks for the rest of the goodies and have thawed in a couple of days. I've done that many times before.
Another thing that helps is using plant milk, it still tastes nicer cold but it won’t make you ill like milk can if it properly goes. Plus the hazelnut stuff is way better than the cow stuff on cereal and in coffee IMO
Bit the bullet and bought a Dometic compressor box. For man-maths purposes it draws 1amp so a battery with 70ah written on it will power it for about 40 hrs as wisdom seems to be, not to flatten the battery completely.It ranges from -15 to + 20 degrees so colder settings will obviously draw more current.
Using an old car battery in a plastic box with a lash up ciggy lighter on the top takes away all the "will it start" anxiety.
Our 12V coolbox draws 4A, so even an 80Ah battery would only last 20h, and you wouldn't be able to start the car afterwards.
yep, except I cheaped out and went for the Chinese brand Alpicool - but they're very well regarded, and it's been brilliant. I also have mine attached to an additional battery. Those Jackery type things are cheap enough these days, especially on Prime Day/BF. Proper fridge makes the whole experience WAY more civilised 😃Bit the bullet and bought a Dometic compressor box.
Just make sure you don't run it past 11.3 volts
