Powerchill Thermoelectric Cooler

[Fantail]

Over the last weekend in July I tested a Coleman Powerchill cooler. It's a thermoelectric cooler. If your not familiar with these units they use a peltier element with heat sinks and a small fan on each end. Koolatron & I think Igloo market different versions & wine coolers.

They are not refrigerators, in fact they have no thermostat. They simply plug into a 12v plug or cig lighter socket. They can be usefull for road trips & a way to get away from using & waisting ice. Hence my interest, if you pop 5$ in ice every other weekend from spring to fall plus whats needed for hunting trips it adds up. They are also much cheaper than true 12v-dc/120v-av portables such as an Engel or Edgestar. If you have solar or generate power at camp it starts to make more sence.

The findings;

Fairly well insullated, lost 7-8 degrees unplugged from 11pm to 6 am over an 80 degree weekend.

Outter fan is 92mm, and so it might sound like a computer running in the background.

Unit can chill down to avg. 38 degrees below the surrounding ambient temp.

With the unit down to about 37 degrees, if used-opened for a few moments the inside temp may go up to 42-43 degrees. But will recover in under an hour.

It is not solar friendly, meaning it's a bit of a power hog. It's rated for a 4 amp draw, I found it seems to draw a steady 3.65 amps. However, if you have a 200 aH or parallel banked* reserve 200 aH or more you can safely use such a unit over a weekend for about 2/3rds of the day. How do I know this? - I have a pair of 105 aH marine batteries in parallel feeding the camper. I should also mention I'm able to generate about 5 amps of charge for about 5-6 hours a day. But, I was also running lights, using the radio/cd player, & charged some aa's. And at no time did the systems LVD* kick in. On the other hand neither did Overcharge* like it normally would. I also used an Acu-Rite Thermometer* (Lowes) to monitor the cooler inside temp and camper temp.

40 qt. Powerchill units are about 100$ and up. I found this one in great shape & clean on craigslist 50$ 

Bottom line: neat unit but not going to cut it for replaceing a fridge at camp. Again ok for weekend use if you have the reserve, or travel use but remember unplug it if the vehicle will be off a while. A 4 amp draw will drain a car battery down in a few hours. Was looking for an inexpensive way to keep things cold, as do many people. I guess it's back to ice once I'm there for a few days in a row at least for this season.

*parallel - 12v deep cycles will give you more current or amps per hour not changing the voltage.

*LVD/Overcharge - solar charge regulators have a Low Voltage Disconnect that prevents your battery or bank from low voltage damage. Typicaly 10.4 to 11.4 range. The idea being to prevent battery abuse or damage below 10 volts, yes even on a deep cycle. Simply know your avg amp draw & compare that with your aH reserve and what you can generate.

*Acu-Rite Thermometer - Simple digital unit with a probe for in/out readings. No alarm or clock. Inexpensive, only way to turn it off though is remove the aaa battery.