New Cooler Idea

[jimicliff]

I have a PELICAN Case cooler, It is very well insulated etc. I looked at some small counter top ice makers, the power draw is 100watts. It will produce 26lbs in 24hrs. With a cost of $170 on Amazon it looks like a good Idea any opnions ?

 

[Robert H. Wilkinson]

26 pounds is a fair chunk of ice but 100 watts for 24 hours is a fair chunk of power as well. Also I would be skeptical that it would be able to produce its rated output on a boat under a summer sun.

Regards, Rob

 

[Ray]

From what I read on forums, these are anywhere from 150-300W in real-world scenarios.

Even if you had 100% efficiency converting to 120V, 150W at 12V = 12.5A. 12.5A for a day is 300 amp hours! That's a lot of battery!

That assumes you're not using 12V for ANYTHING else.

Likely, however, the inverter would be maybe 90% efficient, so add 10% to the consumption number and/or 10% more battery capacity.

Maybe I'm missing something......

Ray

 

[thataway]

It is a lot more efficient to run a cooler, such as the Ingle, Dometic etc, than an ice maker. These little ice makers work, but not very efficiently. The above estimates are correct. Even 150 amp hours (half) is a lot!

 

[Aurelia]

I ran the numbers on those units a while back and found the same thing, they are power hungry. My current plan would be to run a small engel or similar freezer for a bit of frozen storage but also to freeze plastic bottles of water for use in a cooler. I would just rotate them every day or so and maybe use a solar panel to assist with the power needs. I think it could be the best of both worlds.

A 15 quart unit could be mounted in a few different places on the average c-dory and pull this duty. Maybe serving as a mounted entry step in the cockpit under a camper back.

Greg

 

[Foggy]

I've had this idea for some time but never tried it.* Use 2 coolers:

FROZEN COOLER: DRY ICE + hard frozen foods. Open only briefly every other
day.** Over insulate.

WORKING COOLER: BLOCK ICE + hard frozen item(s) added every other day
Use up thawed foods first.

Whaddya think? Good for a week, maybe 2?

* I kinda do this in my home fridg
** Not good for some as it requires thinking ahead

Aye.

 

[jimicliff]

I've used dry ice for my cooler prep and left it in to find everything frozen solid. So dry ice is only for prep.
Back to my Ice maker idea, I'm sure it would drain a battrie quickly how ever I'm thinking about only running it off the alternator or shore power. I currently use a 200 watt inverter that is powered from the lighter outlet. I was thinking of up grading to a 400 watt inverter and use clips directly to battrie terminals.

 

[Foggy]

I've used dry ice for my cooler prep and left it in to find everything frozen solid. So dry ice is only for prep.
SNIP

For the FREEZER COOLER, freezing solid with dry ice in separated packages is the
whole idea.

Aye.

 

[Aurelia]

It looks like you are running a Honda 40 or 50 but not sure which year. Your motor is putting out anywhere from 6-17 amps of charging potential which could be inadequate to keep your battery charged under the load of the ice maker through an inverter, especially if you factor in the other loads at the same time as well.

If you have only 10 maximum amps of charge coming off your engine, and your ice maker takes about 10 plus whatever your chartplotter or other accessories are drawing, you may be going downward in charge even with the engine running. Maybe that's ok for you depending on the duration of the trip, or if you run the motor significantly longer than you run the ice maker and allow some time to catch up.

You could try it of course but I would suggest you carry a jumper battery or one of those new snazzy compact jump packs if you go for it. If you only have the one battery and run the machine too long and pull your battery down too low, you might shut down the engine and not be able to restart it.

Shore power would be an easy solution if you have it available often enough. But where there is shore power, there is usually ice, so not sure its worth carrying or waiting for at that point. If you go to a marina for the shore power to make ice to save bucks on that, you are loosing the battle by paying the marina fees.

Greg

 

[thataway]

I've had this idea for some time but never tried it.* Use 2 coolers:

FROZEN COOLER: DRY ICE + hard frozen foods. Open only briefly every other
day.** Over insulate.

WORKING COOLER: BLOCK ICE + hard frozen item(s) added every other day
Use up thawed foods first.

Whaddya think? Good for a week, maybe 2?

* I kinda do this in my home fridg
** Not good for some as it requires thinking ahead

Aye.

This has been done in the Transpac for some time. We did this in the mid 70's. Food is good for 2 weeks with a well insulated built in ice box. One of the boxes we built had 6" of closed cell foam. Some of the smaller boats still use this technique. There are light weight refer/freezer systems, with holding plates, and solar panels, which the larger and more expensive boats tend to use.

 

[Lizarry]

Our TomCat has the refer that came with it , by accident we found that it would when turned way up that it would freeze things ..... so when we planned the trip to Pender Harbour and Princess Louisa , that we would take advantage of that . So we only put into the fridge things that were already frozen , like meat ect . soda beer milk things like that went into the ice chest , now the ice chest is nothing fancy just an old Igloo , but I have found that load it up with what ever put in one big ice block and then small bag of ice over the top of it all ....every thing stayed nice and cold only had to add a new block every 2-3 days , now I don't ever drain all the water out of the chest , for as long as there is ice in it then the water is 32 degrees . Worked great for us we were gone on that trip for about 2 and 1/2 weeks and everything in the fridge stayed frozen until we took it out to defrost .

 

[Foggy]

I've had this idea ....Use 2 coolers:...SNIP

This has been done in the Transpac for some time. We did this in the mid 70's. Food is good for 2 weeks with a well insulated built in ice box. One of the boxes we built had 6" of closed cell foam. Some of the smaller boats still use this technique. There are light weight refer/freezer systems, with holding plates, and solar panels, which the larger and more expensive boats tend to use.

Thanks, Bob. Two weeks sounds good enough to give it a go.

Aye.

 

[hardee]

For a way to monitor the cooler temp onSleepyC I use one of the digital electronic weather sensor displays that has an outdoor temp sensor. the out door sensor goes into a pair of small ziplock bags then into the cooler, at the top. then I know everything in there is at least that temp or below. The outdoor temp is displayed right there beside the indoor temp and the barometer record the the last 24 hours.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[jimicliff]

Hey thanks for all this input, I sure as Hell didn't know the numbers for the alternator on a Honda 50. Your also right about Ice in the US it is always at fuel stops. I'm working on my first trip to the Bahamas so I'm trying to figure things for a longer term than I have before. All my local Fl boating friends are counciling me on my small craft and where to enter the slands since they have crossed before.
I just got my new real flush mounted compass, I've only owned the compass that sits on a pedistal and quivers when you look at it.
Hey do I wanna go PL or EPERB ? I'm going to do the Keys before I leave to shake everything down. I also cant afford a kicker yet. Since I have Honda 50 I was thinking about Honda 9.5 with an extended tiller. Ok everybody lets hear your views, what really movated me is my age and hearing about all you North Western Brats going to Alaska which is incredible but I've got the Bahamas in my "Back Yard". Been to the islands many times just not on my own, I'm a skilled diver as well as free diver.
In the words of "Captian Ron" "If it's gonna happen it's gonna happen out there"

 

[anchorout]

As an aside, I had an Adler Barbar on my sailboat. I could make ice with it, but it took a lot of energy and time. The only thing we used ice for was in our "sundowners". We found it more sensible to buy a bag of ice and stash it in the freezer section. It would last until used and there was little drain on the batteries.