Cool Boxes

[The Great Wallsendo]

Anybody heard of battery powered cool boxes?

You can get them that run from the cigarette lighter - but does anyone know of any that run from their own power source?

[mark]

just bought one as it happens - united british caravans on sandy lane, £29.99

we're going 'nomad' for a few weeks island hopping in the boat in scotland so that what its for, can't be doing with warm beer beer on an uninhabited island, oh yeah and apparently wor lass has requested some room in it for her insulin, these women, its just self self self

you can get them that run on their own power source, think they are known as cars, you just plug it in to one or something

you can also run them from something called a 'shed' which is what I tried as soon as I got it home, seems to work ok. If you just plug it in it takes a few hours to get really cold, but according to the manual, if you give it a head start by shoving some ice packs in its lots more efficient

best bet, if you want totally self contained is a 3 way one that will run on gas as well, you can get them that you put camping gas canisters in but they ain't even a little bit cheap the one we looked at was £165

[The Great Wallsendo]

Saw those at UBC myself yesterday...will prob go and get one this week as it's only round the corner from my work.

Back to power sources though - take a look at this....this, I reckon, is the way forward for a pure portable power supply...

http://www.solarequip.co.uk/acatalog/6.5W_Sunlinq_Portable_Folding_Solar_Charger.html

[mark]

bit pricey!

there's a guy in whitley bay sells solar panels on ebay, I got a 13W one for 30 quid

got one for the boat to keep the batteries topped up, works great

those boxes at UBC though - 60W power consumption! (5A @12vDC)

a small 12v motorbike battery, or one of the sealed lead acid larm batteries should keep it running for 5 or 6 hours till its flat, after which it'll just be a normal cool box

[The Great Wallsendo]

schoolboy error

that's where I was falling down...I was struggling with the maths...I thought because it had a 12v output it would be OK for a small coolbox requiring a 12v supply....

That website is good though - got me thinking about the whole solar power thing....expensive to set up but it'd pay for itself within a few months!!

I may go green yet.....?!

[mark]

my shed's green! green paint and a turf roof!.... but also have a look at ebay item number 200127127151

he also does em but it now for £39.99 which is cheap for that amount of power

I've one of them in my shed. it will fully charge a flat car battery in around 24 hours. I've 2 big car batteries which are kept charged by one of them

then look at item number 110146770572

or do a search for 'inverter'

one of those connected to the 2 batteries keeps the lights going when ever I need them, and runs most of my power tools for a few hours before the batteries are flat, only been a couple of occasions wen I've been tinkering in me shed that I've need the mains!