mini fridge

LOL. yes, yes we do.

 

I have the small dorm fridge Walmart sells for $79. Had it for almost 3 years. Works great. It's 120 volt and it's plugged into the built in inverter.

 

I bought mine at Walmart also, has 100,000 plus miles in the truck, no problems. It is the one thing I did buy an extended warranty on.

I also strap it down tight, they last longer if you can keep them stable as much as you can. I also put two zip ties on the steel lines and compressor in the back to keep them from bouncing around less.

 

I don't use the 120V units because we can only have small inverters in our trucks.

The best 12V cooler is the Coleman.
It costs a little more than the other brands, but is far superior.
It is larger and keeps things colder (sometimes frozen in the area closest to the fan duct), and you can stand on it without any damage.

They will usually last a couple years, barring the main fan or the plug burning out.
The performance of thermo-electric coolers goes down over time.
But fans do burn out, usually before then.

The Coleman is the best option when you need to replace the fan.
It uses a standard computer fan mounted to the heat sink.
The stock size is 92mm, but a 80mm fan will do in a pinch. It won't cool quite as well in the summer heat though.

If you want to go all out, you can fit a 112mm fan taken off a CPU heatsink/fan.
That would be one with a circular housing, as opposed to square.

The Coleman is the only cooler that I know of that mounts the fan to the heat sink fins, and that gives many options for size.

I did have a plug burn out on one unit.
If that happens your options are none too many, because there are not too many options available to replace it with something suitable. In the end I just replaced the cooler.

 

I can keep salmon and chicken for many days without a problem, and those are things that need to be kept cold.
It doesn't keep them frozen, but I don't want it to.
A 12V cooler is just as good as a fridge at home, if you don't want things to stay frozen.

 

My coleman is coming up on 5 years of service. Only 1 fan replacement. Keeps what I want cold, cold. Star came with a fridge, but don't work real well anymore so been looking to replace it when I have the time. Looks like the ones you find in a truckstop, haven't looked at the dorm fridge, may be the same thing.