12V cooler ventilation

Hi Tonester,

my step father has a waeco unit which he built a timber(craft wood) box for. It's about 8" high and about 2" longer and wider than the cooler. He has it fixed behind the front seats in his troopy and uses a couple of chocks of wood to keep it secure in its box with the extra length & width for ventilation. The box is secured to the vehicle and the cooler just slips in and out as required. They use it in conjunction with their fridge to keep drinks and snacks handy as the fridge is secured way down the back out of reach from the front seats.

Make a "chimney " out of 4" by 2" PVC downpipe so air can in/out of the vents while things are packed around the fridge.

It sounds like one of those 15litre fridgemasters (green or blue I think). I have a green one.

Because it is an upright you are pretty limited to what you can do. Mine sits in the shed with a couple of coldies in it. That is about all I could find to do with it.

My Waeco Cooler has both vents on the lid, in fact all the electonics are in the lid which mean you can chuck ice in it as well which is cool.

You would need to keep the vents free so it can exaust the heat. These coolers are ineffeciant and produce about the same amount of heat as they move. ie if it cools by 5c it generates 10c of heat.
I use mine as a fridge, I modified it by putting bigger faster fans and put fans on the exaust as well as the intake, I upgraded the peltier chip to a 6 amp instead of a 3 amp, sealed it better (with siliocne) and put a digital thermostat (off an air con) in it so I can pre set the temp and it cycles like a fridge.
You'd be amazed how much better they perform with a little tinkering, if you're any good with basic electronics it might be worth a play. Mine will actually freeze now if I set the thermostat so, but I normally leave it at about 4c and it cycles about 50/50. Mines a 45L. I run it off the dual batteries while we are camping and with the new calcium batteries (2 x 105 amp hr) it'll run all weekend with the stereo, lights and water pump without a problem.