anybody got experience with little electric coolers?

[solarbird]

Anybody got experience with those little 12V electrical in-vehicle 12V coolers? I can get this one with credit union rewards points. The maker has a smaller model (really tiny) which has a small number of reviews that are highly mixed, and a larger model (substantially larger)which has a large number of reviews and is thought well of overall.

This model, though, lacks reviews. It’s 14L (a little over 3.5 gallons?) and… um… well, it looks like this:

Cooler than … what, exactly?

I don’t expect miracles, but it’d be nice to keep things cool in the Raptor without hauling around ice and/or burning uselessly through cold-packs. Mostly because let’s face it, after day one, all of those things are dead, while this thing would in theory keep going.

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Comments

[arethinn]

I don't have personal experience, especially not with a specific model, but in general... a while back I was considering buying one of these things as an alternative to cooler+ice for PantheaCon. Reviews I read gave me the idea it might not be suitable for my purpose, because they can't achieve and maintain truly refrigerative temperatures; so, not good for keeping e.g. milk and meat safe to eat for 3 days. If you only need to keep sodas chilled or keep some food cool for a few hours while you drive somewhere, it might be suitable. I also seem to recall people complaining that supplied adapters that went to 12V car systems were not always adequate and talking about dropping extra money on a better one, or something (we were planning on plugging it into a wall, though, so I didn't pay a lot of attention in that arena).

[solarbird]

Oh, yeah, I checked the power requirements vs. supply first thing. We're fine there.

(Not so much with the USB supply, which is only 1A. Honestly, Honda, what? But at least now I know and have bought a 2.2A USB power adaptor for the 12V power port so I can safely charge my big tablet.)