On Jan 13, 9:21*am, "Jack." wrote:
On Jan 13, 9:14*am, I am Tosk wrote:





In article 73abd3ef-c7ca-48ac-b45a-
,
says...

On Jan 13, 7:53*am, Tim wrote:
On Jan 13, 5:56*am, Harryk wrote:

On Jan 12, 10:21 pm, *wrote:

The more I read, the more I'm convincing myself that i dont' need a
refrigerator on my boat.

http://forums.sbo.sailboatowners.com...ad.php?t=95807

for my purposes, it would be a draw in weight, *finances and energy.
A well insulated cooler and a couple of bags of ice available at any
port or marina would be a better benefit. and I'll drop back to one 8-
D and one automotive battery and go back with a smaller and lower
powered alternator for better efficiency due to less drag and flywheel
effect. still gotta have the microwave and coffee maker, though.

I'll get it figured out

Wayne, I'd thought of investigating one of those types of boxes too..
but I look and figure on what all we've actually used a cooler for
throughout the year, and for our needs the expense is kinda
unjustifiable for an extremely high quality unit.

It would be different if we were going on outings for a week+ at a
time, but not so is the case.

besides I do have a Norcold 12v refrigerator that came from a older
wrecked camper. and I had ideas for that, but it's just too heavy and
bulky. so.....

And these things?

http://www.nextag.com/car-plug-in-cooler/products-html

Eh...

For how long are you planning to go out? *Any decent normal cooler
will last the day, especially if you don't store it in the sun. *Doing
anything beyond that, and you're paying for the convienence of not
having to buy ice as often. *If you're on a lake with marinas, it's
not that big a deal.

I've gone through the same thing debating an ice machine at home. *To
get one that will keep up with us in the summer, I'll have to spend
about $1400. *That will buy a *lot* of ice. *So instead, we buy a 20lb
bag at the grocery store every week, and the spare fridge in the
utility room has the freezer shelf pulled out and a vegetable bin
under the ice maker, so I've about quadrupled it's capacity. *It
doesn't recover quickly, but it provides all the drinking ice we could
ever want, and the bag ice does the rest. *Problem solved!

My cooler is huge, I have this one for camping.

http://www.rivermarinesupply.com/xca...81_Coleman_100
_Qt_Xtreme_Marine_Plus_Cooler.html

Usually we camp in the open, mid summer, and I have seen the
competition. These reflective coolers work, period...

It says it will keep ice for five days, I believe it.. if you didn't
open it and kept it in the shade, I believe it.. For my purposes, I can
fill it with ice and food on a Friday night in mid summer, and it will
still have "some" ice floating by Sunday night when we drive home from
the races. Now that includes moving and hiding it from the sun all day,
and probably being opened a hundred times or more as I usually help the
crew with drinks while the "track mom" makes sandwiches... I betcha' on
a boat, on a 90 degree weekend, if you kept it in the shade and were
careful about opening and closing, you could get 3-4 solid days of ice
in the thing. Of course camping I have a bit more room so if it's
gonna' be a particularly hot weekend, I bring an extra smaller cooler
just for drink ice so we don't deplete the food cooler of it's stock.
Like I said before, spending 750 on a cooler that you have to plug in,
unless you are living on board for extended periods, is a waste in my
opinion... I guess if you have the money to blow, it's ok... I mean,
if you tend to do a lot of 2-3 day trips, like every weekend, you might
get tired of fooling with the ice too, but still, $750? The chip and
heat sink cost them about ten bucks... The plastic, another ten...

See my other post. *Wayne's "cooler" isn't a Peltier chip and heat
sink, it's an actual refrigeration unit with a compressor and
everything. *The real deal, just miniturized and very efficient.
Those "chip and heat sink units" you're talking about are about $100.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The Peltier chip units have never gotten very good reports, They have
trouble keeping things cool when ambient temperatures are greater than
75 to 80 degrees. The Engels on the other hand will keep things at
zero degrees when sitting in tropical sunlight and they draw less than
5 amps of power at 12 volts. I first heard about them from a guy who
has been living aboard for many years.

Another alternative, much less expensive, is to buy a college dorm
type fridge at one of the big box stores and run it from a small
inverter. They are typically less than $150 and small inverters are
in the $30 to $40 range.