Rubbermaid large picnic coolbox

[Refueler]

I have a large coolbox .. Peltier ... that can eat amps ... I have known it to gobble up 8A and more but usually settles to about 6 - 7A once it has cooled a bit.

Internal size ? 50cm x 36 x 36 ...

Its old ... I inherited it with the boat many years ago ... over 20 yrs. I eventually fitted a headlight relay to control it and stop it draining my on-board batterys. So now it kicks in when alternator starts outputting from engine. With provision to switch to 12v when I have shore power.

Today decided to check it out ... fired it up on my 10A simple car charger ... In / Out temps were 25.8C at start .... Amp was shown as 6A on the charger but TBH - its a repaired charger and I am not so sure ammeter is accurate ... its used more to show its working.

After 1 hour following ...

Which I think is not bad considering no ice bags or anything in there to assist. It is a test completely empty.

For anyone interested - I have those Blue Gel Ice Packs and I also freeze bread to put in there as cold agents. Some people say freeze bottles of water - but I find the bread easier to stow in there.

 

[sarabande]

The amount of 'cool' that you are storing with frozen water is far in excess of that with bread. Latent heat, phase change, thermo dynamics blah, blah.

Bread would seem to act as an insulator though. Hmm, nice idea, a mix of the two.

 

[Refueler]

One of the advantages of using frozen bread - you will eat the bread when thawed ...

The water can be drunk of course - but the bread with cheese and wine serves me better !!

 

[sarabande]

How about frozen wine, then ?

 

[Refueler]

How about frozen wine, then ?

Wouldn't it break the bottle ?? Or pop the cork ?

 

[sarabande]

No, but all the alcohol in the wine migrates into a small mushy core in the centre of the ice.