Has anyone used a portable 12 volt compression fridge in their Prius C? I’m driving cross country and would prefer to avoid the need for ice in a standard cooler.
Those little tiny fridges in the coolers like the igloo and all that with the cigarette lighter plug on them are inverter type of very small compressors that shouldn't really hurt your 12 volt and certainly not while the car is running you'll be fine if you turn the car off and you want to leave it in ready mode or accessory mode with that plug running that might not be very smart idea unless it's for 20 minutes maybe something along those lines I wouldn't want to have it run the 12 volt down but once the 12 cars are ready then the 12 voltage is at charge voltage. Should be no issues whatsoever
We have one, works great. Like many others, ours has an internal low-voltage cutoff. This means that if the fridge is left to run on the 12v when the car is NOT running, it will automatically shut itself off once the battery hits a certain threshold. This is to guarantee that you have enough power left to start the car again. In a Prius, the 12v battery is pretty small, so that means a short run time before you hit that cutoff. In our other (non-hybrid) car it goes a lot longer. So if you are doing a real road trip with a few short stops it'll be great. If you were hoping to keep the thing going all afternoon while you explore on foot... think again.
If you want backup power for when the car is off you might want to look into a portable power station like an ecoflow or jackery. They usually have a 12v outlet + standard plugs and usb. They’re great for traveling and camping, should have no problem powering a low power fridge or cooler, and they’re nice to have around at home for power outages.
I think the OP knows this already, but for others who might be reading, those little refrigerated coolers come in two flavors: the thermoelectric kind (works because of the Peltier effect), and the compressor kind (has a motorized compressor pumping a refrigerant, just like your A/C or your fridge at home). The thermoelectric ones are mechanically simpler, lighter, way cheaper, and more power hungry, like on the order of 4 or 5 amps pretty much continuously. (You can also get tired of listening to the pretty much continuous drone.) Your car's aux battery can't hold that up for more than a few hours when the car isn't READY. The compressor ones are more complex, heavier, expensive, and much more frugal with power. After the first long run to pull the inside down to temperature, once it is just cycling to maintain temperature, it can be averaging just a fraction of an amp. The battery can keep that up for several times longer. I use one of these in my Gen 3 liftback, which also has a 60 watt solar panel mod to feed the battery. (It also still runs the cabin vent fan a little, to keep it cooler in there, which isn't bad for the fridge either.) The panel output is enough to more than run the fridge during the day and bank up some juice for overnight. The arrangement has held up through a long weekend no sweat, given I parked out of the shade, but I did have it shut off on the battery-protect feature in a four-day visit once. So it needs to be checked a bit more often than that, or more if it's been overcast. Of course a hardwired connection (with appropriate fuse) needs to be arranged, to get around the way the 12 V outlets turn off when the car's off.
Install a pure sine wave inverter and bring a mini fridge from the garage. HF has pure sin wav around 3 bills. Hook it up w golf cart connector and 2 AWG. I just got a 1y old inverter minifridge from my neighbor. He didn't know how to fix it and warranty just ended. Youtube says Capacitor is mc and diagnostics w dig meter confirms. $9 part from CHINA is on it's way. Gonna bring the Lavazza cappuccino machine on next camping trip. 2000 Watt Continuous/4000 Watt Peak Pure Sine Wave Power Inverter
You can buy a lot of ice for what some of these suggestions would cost. A simpler and less costly solution would be dry ice for infrequent trips.
I found pure sin wave inverters cheaper on Amazon. Do that and you can bring your mini fridge, coffeee pot ,etc
That's complicated and expensive. The one I got was barely $200, fits both cars well and works great. It even came with spring clamp terminals to take raw battery power if I feel like it. It's just a single fully encased item, no exposed coils or sharp heat sinks like cube fridges. Door on top like a cooler, instead of on the front or side. That matters when you hit the brakes or turn. The payoff- not having to stop and buy ice, and never having to deal with an icemelt spill or even cleanup/dryout time. It's real.
