Allen, When I sailed our trailer sailor we used a portable cooler that plugged into the cigarette lighter. It worked BUT, some things to consider: The ones I've seen use Peltier plates for cooling. It drew about 5amps There was no thermostat It would only cool about 30 degrees below outside air. Most of the time that is fine but some times not cool enough and other times you would get frozen food. The portable cooler will obviously take up precious space. We had already removed the "table" so this went in it's place and tripled as a nav table, kitchen counter, and dinner table.
Many of the installed systems use very similar aldour-baurber compressors. When I talked to the nova-cool rep he said that a 100amp solar panel should be able to keep up with the refrigeration needs. So you figure they are drawing an AVERAGE of 4-5 amps. Though, while mine is cycling on I see about 10-12amps. You might find deconstructing a portable cooler and removing the peltier plate and installing it in your exsisting ice box to be a cost effective solution. I would try to find a thermostat (maybe from a an old refrigerator) to control the temperature. Remember a single 90-100 A/Hr battery sould be discharged no lower than 45-50 A/Hr so you would get about 9-10 hours of refrigeration. You can also combine ice and refrigeration to extend both. Good luck, Josh Muckley On Dec 15, 2013 5:11 PM, "allen" <allenmi...@earthlink.net> wrote: > I had difficulty getting block ice on my trips around the NC sounds. > Now that we're finally ready to cruise the Chesapeake, I'm strongly > considering adding refrigeration. > Our ice box kept block ice solid for days and cubes usable til the bar > closed, so I am fairly certain our insulation was pretty good, but then > that performance was sailing in the cooler water of LI Sound and points > east. > > Any recommendations from sailors in the Chesapeake would be appreciated' > > Allen Miles > *S/V Septima* 30-2 > Hampton, VA > > _______________________________________________ > This List is provided by the C&C Photo Album > http://www.cncphotoalbum.com > CnC-List@cnc-list.com > >
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