12 v Cooler Electrical Questions From A Driver

Go to the plastic container section at Walmart/Family Dollar etc and get a wide mouthed container and fill it with ice and put it in your cooler. It will keep your food cold in a hot truck.

 

Look at Alpicool. Legit cooler, fridge. Not thermoelectric. It can heat, or freeze to like -4. Mine holds about twelve bottles of water, and the truck starts fine after sitting four or five days. Plugs into the cigarette lighter.

 

All I know about thermoelectric coolers is that they are junk. Get on Amazon and get yourself one of the real DC fridges that are available nowadays. All sizes and types. Names like IceCo and Alpicool. They are all cheaper knock offs of the high dollar camping DC chest fridges and they are working really well for people. Great deals too.

A DC fridge should draw no more than an average of about 4 amps for the smaller fridges. If your 3 batteries in your truck won't run that overnight then you've got some charging system/wiring issues.

 

Looks like we're typing at the same time GpD.

 

Great minds think alike.

 

If you buy a compressor fridge / freezer that runs on 12 volts it also comes with 120-volt plug you can just take it in the hotel room with you and plug it in

I've got two in my truck that I got on Amazon Alpicool (cheap) and Dometic (expensive).

 

12 volts is the same as 13 volts. Most vehicles run somewhere between 13.6 and 14.2 volts. Batteries will show a higher voltage when truck is first shut off, but will settle under 12.6 after a short while.
Then battery voltage will deteriorate overnight with a load on them. When it gets much under 12.0 then you can start to see starting issues.
Three batteries isn’t enough reserve capacity, add a fourth battery next time you change them out.

 

A bag of ice in the electric cooler I bought 15 years ago, never plug it in, keeps everything cold as can be for 2 days in summer, 3 even 4 in winter.