Refrigeration in Your Van Part 2 (keeping beer and insulin cold)

This vanlife solution involves a cooler with a built-in compressor refrigerator from Alpicool, who makes 12V units for in-vehicle use.  I chose the C15 (https://amzn.to/2S0hIWg) as a good compromise between size, efficiency, and cost.  It's an awesome solution for cooling your insulin, or just having a cold beer when you are boondocking.

Special thanks to a viewer who suggested that you velcro a filter over the external vents to help keep the dust out if the inside of the compressor compartment.

NOTE: this unit has an automatic shutoff to protect your battery from running down.  I did not use it in my test because I wanted to see the runtime without the limit imposed. 
I will state up front that I do not like to use "dorm" style refrigerators in a minivan.  The footprint is usually large enough that you can't find a level spot to place one, without some additional mods.  They are also high in profile, which means you can't tuck one under a bed.  You can make them work and that's fine if you want to, but I think the cooler style refrigerators are a better idea.  These dorm fridges do not seem to be very well insulated, the ones under $300 will not run off of 12V, and all the cold air spills out when you open the door.  Of course, you COULD by an RV style "Dometic" or another brand of 12v fridge, but they tend to be more expensive and you still lose the cold air when you open the door.

▶ Check out the gear I use on Kit: https://kit.co/odysseycamper

On the cooler-style refrigerators, the cold stays inside when you open the top and settles to the bottom where the food actually is. They are also portable.  Unplug it and bring it over to the picnic table.  It's still a cooler, even when it's not plugged in!  You can even put ice in them, in a pinch.

The Alpicool C15 refrigerator cooler uses up to 60 Watts when running.  On a 12 Volt system, that means it can draw 5 Amps (60W/12V=5A).  In one hour, it would use 5 Amp Hours (Ah) of your battery reserve.  However, the compressor only runs about 50% of the time.  So that means you are using about 2.5A per hour.  My starter battery in the Odyssey is 44Ah (I THINK).  I never want to draw it down more than 50%, so theoretically, that would give me 8.8 hours of runtime without starting the van to charge the battery.  I wanted to err on the side of caution and used 6 hours as a reasonable amount of time that you would run off of the starter battery without starting the car.  That's probably close to how long you would be away from the vehicle or asleep.  However, as you will see in the video, I was able to run the cooler/refrigerator off of the vehicle battery for only 3 hours in a real-world test.  The Alpicool worked flawlessly and drew the exact amount of current that I was expecting, so something else must be to blame.  I've narrowed in down to one of three possibilities:

My battery is not as large as I thought, or (just as likely) it's five years old and on its way out.
The compressor ran more than anticipated due to it being 80 degrees out and the van being parked in the sun (still, it doesn't fully explain the limited run time).
I've overlooked something else.
Based on my test in the video, I can't suggest running this solely off the starter battery without running the vehicle.  However, if you are working up to a battery system, I would plug in when you are driving and then let it run off the battery for an hour or two before bed.  If you pack it full, the thermal mass should keep things cool until morning.

If you have a house battery system or solar generator, you could run the Alpicool fairly easily.  A 100W panel could run it during the day and if you keep the cooler full, it would probably stay cold all night, using 25Ah in ten hours of use.  If you want to "coast" for the last couple of hours of darkness, you could use a timer switch to shut it off until sunrise.

Well, that's what I was able to learn by testing these systems for a couple weeks and then shooting video all weekend.  I'm now going to focus on the rebuild of my bed system (I was not satisfied with the first attempt) and getting back out in late September or early October.

Remember, if you use the links below, it won't cost you a penny more, but a portion of the sale will go to keep the site running and to our giveaways.

All items featured in this post are on my KIT page. The complete post at http://odysseycamper.com/odysseycamper/refrigeration-in-a-van-and-keeping-insulin-cold/

#minivancamper #cheaprvliving #vanlife #insulin

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