#12 volt mini fridge portable#

This unit can have two chambers at two temperatures, commonly to have a fridge and freezer. A lead-acid battery could do it for a much lower price but products of this sort are not readily available - the fridge makers would do well to make it an option to connect a standard battery to their fridges, both in gasoline cars and EVs.Ī surprising option also worked with the fridge I bought, an Alpicool T-36.

#12 volt mini fridge portable#

Portable battery packs are popular but cost around $200 - a large fraction of the cost of the fridge. This also can work but is pretty stupid in a car where you have a giant battery just sitting there. The battery would charge when the power is on, and power the fridge when it’s off. Problem is that most hotel mini-fridges aren’t able to freeze ice packs.Īnother solution would be to have a backup battery with about 200 watt-hours in it, enough to last the night and other long stops.

You can also freeze water bottles and ice packs, placing them in a plastic bag to capture the condensation. You can fill bags of ice at most US hotels and motels, but you need a very sturdy one or it will leak and they all get condensation on them. You can buy bags of far too much ice at stores. The problem is, you’ve just eliminated one of the core benefits of the fridge - not having to fuss with ice. You don’t need to put in as much as you do in a cooler, and you only need it when you will have these longer sleep periods. The simplest solution is to put or keep some ice in the fridge.

That’s not an issue if you’re plugged in, or you are on the way to the charger in the morning, but sometimes you are conserving range and this is not a good idea. This is also true for other methods like “Camp Mode” and the Summon Standby mode. Leave it on overnight and you will lose about 15 miles of range. The trouble is this draws all this power. The simplest is to turn on its “Sentry mode” security system, which watches suspicious activity near the car and logs video of it. There are ways to command the Tesla not to go to sleep. It is of course also a well insulated cooler, so it can handle an hour or two, but not much more. In that mode, you can’t just leave the fridge sitting in the car for long periods. The Tesla is designed to go to sleep when it can, and turn off most of its systems, including the 12v port. 300 watts to allow you to turn on a fridge that averages 15 watts. The problem is that Tesla’s system is designed so that for the accessory port to be on, the car computer system must be fully on, and that draws around 300 watts. Tesla’s DC Power ProblemĪs noted, only using up 2 miles of range in a day sounds great. Part 3 will be on general remote-area charging. See part 1, about using the CHAdeMO charging adapter in a Tesla.