Coleman 40qt Thermoelectric Cooler & Warmer, Keeps Contents Up to 40F Cooler or 140F Hotter, No Ice Required, Plugs into Vehicles & Trucks

Engineer here - These thermoelectric coolers work perfectly, AS LONG AS YOU KNOW A FEW IMPORTANT THINGS. Save yourself alot of money (and weight) and buy these over a compressor based unit if you're willing to follow some best practices. First - Prechill your cooler, and any food or drinks you may place in here for a few hours. Thermoelectrics are not great at removing heat quickly compared to compressor units, if you place a bunch of warm objects in here, you won't get the cooling you think you should. In order to pre-chill the unit, purchase the optional AC wall adaptor before you use it in your car. Second - This unit cools about 35-40 degrees F below AMBIENT temperature. If you place this in your trunk in the middle of the summer (where your trunk is 100+ degrees), this unit will only cool to 60F. If you bring an infrared thermometer with you, you can scope out placement for this unit and get the desired fridge (40F) or Freezer (10F) temps you're looking for. you also need to make sure the heat exchanger on the outside of the unit has some "breathing room". I've found in the summer time, that I can place it on my middle back seats, with the heat exchanger side sitting inbetween the driver and passenger front seats, and if I point my A/C vent directly at it, I can achieve temps as low as 15F inside the cooler. You can basically make small adjustments to your vents to raise or lower temps at that point (once again, having a cheap 15-20 dollar infrared thermometer makes this possible/easy). Third - Realize these units use about 3-4 more electricity than their equivalent compressor based counterparts. This means you can probably run one for about an hour or two off your car battery before it's dead, but that's it!!! If you plan on using something like this long term at home/office, or especially if you plan on using it off-grid a lot, you may be better off with a compressor based unit so you don't run out of/use too much electricity. This unit hooked up to the AC wall adaptor will pull 72 watts of power continuously, if you leave it running 24/7 at a standard rate of .12cents per kWh, it'll cost you 6 dollars a month to keep it plugged in. I only use this unit on trips where I'm in our car a lot. Alternatives - If you need something that uses less power for off-grid or long term use, and you don't mind the extra 10-15 lbs worth of weight, I recommend that you get a compressor based unit instead. They are pricey, but I did find a Massimo 50qt unit at costco for only 300 bucks (so only twice the price of this thing). Compressor based units also generally involve auto-shutoff battery saving features, and better temperature control that you don't need an infrared gun to monitor ;-). Bonus tip - Amazonbasics sells some Large rectangular ice packs that fit on the shelf mounts PERFECTLY. I purchased some of those to create a mini-freezer within this cooler. Worked great on a 12 hour long road trip. Frozen food only got up to 15F, and the refrigerated side stayed around 30-35F for the whole trip. Makes this unit quite versatile. Have fun!!

Used twice. Was on continuously for 10 days. Had thermometer inside was in the 30s with occasionally up to 42° degrees Fahrenheit. Recommend placing cold items inside the unit first. Also, she had to disconnect power source about 4 times for an hour as the fan starting making a noise, froze up. We also purchased two universal 120 volt wall adapters to rotate them and try avoid overheating them as she uses this for 7 to 13 days of continuous service. Ambient air temperature can not be in the 90s, I our case ambient temp was 75 to about 82. Anything higher than than 82 outside temperature will be mid 40s and higher inside cooler temperatures. This works great for inside car, camping if temperatures are below 82 and inside house ( in our case inside climate controlled tent. For the price it does as advertised. This can only keep food cold with the right ambient(outside air temperatures) and you need to monitor for internal fan freezing, you can hear it. Just unplug it and it will thaw. In our case for about an hour. Highly recommend a good thermometer to monitor inside temperatures especially if you try to store perishable food. Going to use inside my truck as inside temperatures will not be about 80 and the alternator can handle the load.

I took this cooler on a week-long canal boat cruise bookended by five-hour car drives. It just kept cooling for days on end. My car is small, so it sat on the passenger seat plugged into the 12 volt along with several other devices via a splitter. Mid-way through the drive all my 12-volt items went dead. Turned out the load had blown out the splitter, which blew the car’s 12-volt fuse. Oops! A visit to an auto parts store and limiting the 12-volt to just the cooler and we were good. On another trip, on a sailboat, the cooler went dead one day. It turned out to be the fuse. The boat had probably experienced a power surge when we turned on the AC power system when plugged in at a dock. I ordered a pack of fuses and now keep them in the cooler in a zipper bag. Note, though that you must not put ice in this cooler—the melted ice will damage the mechanism. You can use pre-frozen sealed ice packs. I have also used ice in zipper bags and the cooler kept it frozen for quite a while. Point is, if it won’t cool, its utility as a cooler is limited. It becomes a storage box. The canal boat had an inverter so the cooler was plugged in to a 110 outlet. A couple times during the week it made a vibrating sound so I unplugged it for a couple hours. The box’s insulation retained the cool while it rested. We stored fruit, vegetables, dairy products, salsa, end a crew member’s medication in it. It doubled our refrigeration capacity. Tips: buy the AC adapter and some spare fuses. Be sure everyone knows not to put ice in it, and be careful about spilled liquids.

Great cooler. More than expected.

Producto de muy buena calidad, cumple su función al 100, solo hay que tener cuidado con el conector que va en el encendedor del vehículo, es muy endeble y frágil, además de tener un buen lote de fusibles del 8 porque se quema uno por semana aproximadamente, estoy por el aumento de temperatura en el conector.

Really great fridge it’s a little noisy and it drained my battery when I left it plugged in overnight. Really should have known not to do that. It’s good for a few hours just not overnight. I really like it I’ve had it plugged in almost for a month now and I only unplugged it a few time to defrost. All you have to do is put a cloth inside or paper towels to absorb the water then plug it back in.

Excelente producto

Took this with me over a three day drive one province over during a heatwave. Kept my medication, milk, and juice cool while driving. Had no issues and was easy to set up and use. Removable rack allowed me to customize the inside to my needs and the cooler retained the coolness very well when not turned on for a while. Definitely a great buy!