I could spend more time giving you great accolades but I will be succinct and not verbose. Great video. Highly educational from a “how to conduct a test” perspective. The areas you are testing are areas of interest for myself as well. Thank you for being thorough.
Thanks. Personally, I REALLY appreciate all the data you presented. You're right, it's very hard to get solid data about these frig's. harder still to test them, or find any results of tests that have been done. Because, as we all know, vendors lie.
Illuminating test. The spec I saw on the iceco unit you linked previously talked about an annual kwh usage. (maybe it was 115kwh?) For residential refrigerators the test conditions are specified. I don't know if the portable frig test conditions are standard or what they might be. :( never the less, I'd expect power usage to range from something more than 0 watts, thru (I'd bet room temperature conditions) the spec'd annual usage mid-range ballpark accurate. Then up to the worst case is when it is hot enough that the frig is running continuously. This can be measured (how many watt-hours used while it runs for X minutes?) and calculated (average usage = watt-hours used / runtime, of course, then 24 hours X watts for watt-hours per day). Now knowing the boundary conditions, you can make a plan for the battery capacity needed. I still think a battery (100ah LiFePO4, 1280wh) is a better starting point than a power station. For such, expect $200-300 for the battery, $50 for an A.C. charger, $80 for a wired up battery box with USB, lighter and anderson SB50 outputs (also terminals) for a good foundation. Could add solar charge controller or DC:DC charger to recharge in the field (or skip the A.C. charger, etc). Wiring everything with SB50 connectors (same colors mate - keyed!) makes it easy and foolproof to use a modular system, or mount things to the battery box to keep it all together with "permanent" wiring. Licitti has some interesting + economical products along these lines. I have both large and small of their "D.C. control box" which make a nice addition to a generic $10 plastic battery box. All those years in Idaho doing EV battery test procedures... Nice!
Given the likely intermittent usage of portable fridges for most people, I'm not sure how much an estimated annual usage number would tell anyone, but possibly anything is better than nothing.🙊 What came as a surprise to me is that the "ECO" mode power consumption was significantly lower than 'MAX' without any obvious penalty (except for probably slowing down the recovery time.) As a long-time participant in standards development (in an earlier life), I think defining a meaningful performance standard for portable fridges would be difficult - you'd have a lot of arguments about what a typical use case is. ICECO did specify the power draw in MAX mode, which is helpful, but that doesn't give you a clue that (for example) room temperature operation in ECO mode uses only a quarter of that max power on average. The bottom line is, manufacturers almost certainly have the test data to provide much more meaningful information, but they don't have an incentive to do so. The absence of any standards gives everyone license to claim whatever they want, leaving us at the mercy of 'influencers' and fake ratings on Amazon.
Yeah, I was expecting the energy consumption to go up a lot with temperature, and it was better than I expected. But the fact that the internal temperatures were so little affected was actually a bit amazing - if you can provide the power, it will provide the cooling pretty much regardless.
@@anoldretiredguy i’ve not bought a 12v fridge yet, but thinking about a smaller one. I’ve 0.5kwh battery and 200W of solar. based on a few of your excellent videos i’m hoping it will be just about enough, but as you rightly say we just cannot know since there is no industry standard test condition which this industry uses. Thanks again for providing a ball park expectation 👍
I think that it is important to note that these results can be expected for compressor-driven coolers while thermoelectric coolers with Peltier devices will not fare so well. They are entirely dependent on a reasonable ambient temperature. As a theoretical example, 100 deg.F - 36 deg.F differential = 64 deg.F inside the cooler. thanks for the video!
You are correct, of course. The thermoelectric ones are okay for keeping things cool (especially inside an air-conditioned vehicle), but the compressor ones are capable of freezing stuff pretty hard if you set the thermostat low enough. My ICECO will definitely freeze food with the thermostat in the mid-to-high-20s, except in the smaller upper compartment which doesn't get below the 40s. (Still handy for stuff that doesn't spoil.)
@@anoldretiredguy I am setting up a DIY battery box to be charged from my Prius while running on long-distance trips for beverage cans. The TEC cooler came from a yard sale. The battery is for pit/meal stops. So it is all very light duty. The Iceco is definitely on my wish list!
I could spend more time giving you great accolades but I will be succinct and not verbose. Great video. Highly educational from a “how to conduct a test” perspective. The areas you are testing are areas of interest for myself as well. Thank you for being thorough.
Thanks. Personally, I REALLY appreciate all the data you presented. You're right, it's very hard to get solid data about these frig's. harder still to test them, or find any results of tests that have been done. Because, as we all know, vendors lie.
Illuminating test. The spec I saw on the iceco unit you linked previously talked about an annual kwh usage. (maybe it was 115kwh?) For residential refrigerators the test conditions are specified. I don't know if the portable frig test conditions are standard or what they might be. :(
never the less, I'd expect power usage to range from something more than 0 watts, thru (I'd bet room temperature conditions) the spec'd annual usage mid-range ballpark accurate. Then up to the worst case is when it is hot enough that the frig is running continuously. This can be measured (how many watt-hours used while it runs for X minutes?) and calculated (average usage = watt-hours used / runtime, of course, then 24 hours X watts for watt-hours per day). Now knowing the boundary conditions, you can make a plan for the battery capacity needed. I still think a battery (100ah LiFePO4, 1280wh) is a better starting point than a power station.
For such, expect $200-300 for the battery, $50 for an A.C. charger, $80 for a wired up battery box with USB, lighter and anderson SB50 outputs (also terminals) for a good foundation. Could add solar charge controller or DC:DC charger to recharge in the field (or skip the A.C. charger, etc). Wiring everything with SB50 connectors (same colors mate - keyed!) makes it easy and foolproof to use a modular system, or mount things to the battery box to keep it all together with "permanent" wiring. Licitti has some interesting + economical products along these lines. I have both large and small of their "D.C. control box" which make a nice addition to a generic $10 plastic battery box.
All those years in Idaho doing EV battery test procedures... Nice!
Given the likely intermittent usage of portable fridges for most people, I'm not sure how much an estimated annual usage number would tell anyone, but possibly anything is better than nothing.🙊
What came as a surprise to me is that the "ECO" mode power consumption was significantly lower than 'MAX' without any obvious penalty (except for probably slowing down the recovery time.) As a long-time participant in standards development (in an earlier life), I think defining a meaningful performance standard for portable fridges would be difficult - you'd have a lot of arguments about what a typical use case is. ICECO did specify the power draw in MAX mode, which is helpful, but that doesn't give you a clue that (for example) room temperature operation in ECO mode uses only a quarter of that max power on average.
The bottom line is, manufacturers almost certainly have the test data to provide much more meaningful information, but they don't have an incentive to do so. The absence of any standards gives everyone license to claim whatever they want, leaving us at the mercy of 'influencers' and fake ratings on Amazon.
After doing F to C conversions i was surprised, i really thought performance would have been worse. Many thanks!
Yeah, I was expecting the energy consumption to go up a lot with temperature, and it was better than I expected. But the fact that the internal temperatures were so little affected was actually a bit amazing - if you can provide the power, it will provide the cooling pretty much regardless.
@@anoldretiredguy i’ve not bought a 12v fridge yet, but thinking about a smaller one. I’ve 0.5kwh battery and 200W of solar. based on a few of your excellent videos i’m hoping it will be just about enough, but as you rightly say we just cannot know since there is no industry standard test condition which this industry uses. Thanks again for providing a ball park expectation 👍
I think that it is important to note that these results can be expected for compressor-driven coolers while thermoelectric coolers with Peltier devices will not fare so well.
They are entirely dependent on a reasonable ambient temperature.
As a theoretical example, 100 deg.F - 36 deg.F differential = 64 deg.F inside the cooler.
thanks for the video!
You are correct, of course. The thermoelectric ones are okay for keeping things cool (especially inside an air-conditioned vehicle), but the compressor ones are capable of freezing stuff pretty hard if you set the thermostat low enough. My ICECO will definitely freeze food with the thermostat in the mid-to-high-20s, except in the smaller upper compartment which doesn't get below the 40s. (Still handy for stuff that doesn't spoil.)
@@anoldretiredguy I am setting up a DIY battery box to be charged from my Prius while running on long-distance trips for beverage cans. The TEC cooler came from a yard sale. The battery is for pit/meal stops. So it is all very light duty.
The Iceco is definitely on my wish list!