Portable power packs for camping.

Can anyone help educate/ advise me about portable battery packs for camping. Would want to be able to run a 12v mini fridge plus usual recharging of devices . I know electric hook up is an option but don’t really want to . Thanks in advance .

Recharging devices will just take a regular pocket sized power bank. Just get one big enough to cover the number of days away. Running a fridge is a totally different prospect. That’ll need a car battery or two.

Mini fridges are pretty power hungry. Even a big leisure battery only powers one for a few days, I think. I think it’s about 40W for a small electric coolbox (not even a real fridge, the minimum you could get away with camping) which would mean 3.3A current draw. A decent sized leisure battery is about 120Ah so that means 36 hours of runtime.

Depending on when or where you are going you might be able to turn the cooler off at night – in fact, you might need to if it’s springtime as it might freeze your milk – ours didn’t have a thermostat.

Solar panels are an option for that amount of power, but you’d need a 200W panel at least I’d imagine to be comfortable.

I know electric hook up is an option but don’t really want to .

Why not? Will you be at a site with hookup?

One of the best things we’ve added to our camping setup was hookup. Originally for a fridge/coolbox but discovered that plugging in an electric blanket for luxury winter camping is the greatest thing ever!

Why not? Will you be at a site with hookup?

Can’t speak for the op but it is usually very expensive, either included in an expensive pitch or as an optional extra. It also often puts you in what I consider less good locations. We only tend to go for it if we are camping for an event, ie the camping isn’t the activity, just a place to stay.

Granted can be expensive.

Fridge, buy a good cool box and several freezer blocks. Most of the campsites I’ve been to have freezers so you can keep the blocks on a rotation. It’s not fridge cold but it’ll keep milk/butter and the like fresh for a few days.
Power packs from Amazon for devices.
My battery pack will do 4-5 days of phones/kindle,
Hookup is ace in a tent. We quite often go away mid/late September and a heater and light is lovely!

Can’t speak for the op but it is usually very expensive, either included in an expensive pitch or as an optional extra. It also often puts you in what I consider less good locations. We only tend to go for it if we are camping for an event, ie the camping isn’t the activity, just a place to stay.

I think the other thing with it (having camped with hookup for the first time last year) is that it can drop you into areas with the “late night stereo *******”. Who think that the 10pm cut off for noise means being Ravey Davey until 9:59:59 and then yelling at each other for a couple of hours about where did you put the ***** pump for the ***** airbed and **** Oi’ve spilled moi beer, going for a lash etc. I’m exaggerating for effect (a bit) and it may not be to do with the hookup itself but possibly the EM radiation from the nearby power cables and it makes you think. To be fair only one of the two sites suffered from this on our main summer trip but antisocial, no camping etiquette cretins are far worse if given electricity!

I’m also keenly watching for a solution 🙂

I think you’d need a leisure battery and it would only last for a night or two max.

Look up jackery dont have one but could be a solution

Not for camping, but we have a 3 way fridge that runs on 240v/12v/gas
12v is a waste of time but you could get it cooled down on 240v before you left and then swap to a smallish BBQ gas cylinder which would last quite a while (certainly longer than 2 days) and run a BBQ.

Camp by a river, the moving water will keep everything(especiasly beer) cold.

A radio !!! You’re there to enjoy the stillness of the day and the quiet of it, leave the reports of the modern world behind.

Option 1 – standard (cheap) thermoelectric/peltier coolbox with a really expensive (lithium) or really heavy (standard) battery that *might* get you 48 hours use. A standard leisure battery will do about 24 hours and will be discharged to the point of permanent damage.

Option 2 – Compressor (expensive) ‘coolbox’ i.e proper fridge, you might get 2-3 days from a standard leisure battery setup.

Option 3 – A gas coolbox. Most sensible option but needs to be in a very well ventilated tent or outside. Recommend outside with a rain cover. Plugs into car 12v whilst driving.

As said above 3 way fridge on gas.

Electric hookup at camp sites is only a few quid extra, never paid more than 4 quid which isn’t end of the world considering the ease it brings.

Just learn to plan without a fridge. It’s pretty easy. Even in the summer

I have a 3 way fridge and run it off gas when don’t have a hook up. It works a treat. Big and not cheap but very good.

I got a dometic coolice box last year and it’s amazing how long stuff stays cold in it.
As mentioned previously.. most sites have access to a freezer to refreeze blue blocks.
Plus it also doubles up as handy little seat.

Proper cool box (we have an icey tech one) and refill with ice from the shop every 2-3 days depending how warm it is. We can do a week camping with that technique

This might be what you are looking for, other manufacturers do the same thing cheaper but these guys seem to be the best at marketing themselves.

Think Machine Mart have their own range

portable elektrikary

Weve got a really good Coleman cookbook but Mrs Alongo has seen the Jackery type power-packs and has been thinking if we could use a fridge . Quite often the hook up areas are on gravel or in a less attractive area . Personally I think it will be a lot of expense for little gain really .

Show here the prices of those power packs in the link above! That will change her mind.

I agree about the hookup things, usually not the best campsite / pitches.

Ice packs for the campsite freezer (say six, three in use and three freezing) and a cheapish power bank for your phone. You could top up the power bank with a portable solar panel if needed. Anker are good.

Just get a decent coolbox and buy food to last 2-3 days locally. A few Ice Packs rotated as mentioned earkier. We bought a decathlon self-inflating coolbox for easy storage and that has been brilliant. Coleman boxes are superb.

Keep the hookups at the other end of the campsite!

out of interest, is there any way to ‘retrofit’ a cooler to a coleman coolbox? We’ve got one which is ace, but occasionally end up somewhere with a hookup, and it’d be nice if we could cool the coolbox without replacing it..

What you want is one of these – silent battery charging from magic (well methanol). Never seen or heard of such a thing until I stumbled across it on a virtual sailing adventure.

https://www.my-efoy.com/en/efoy-fuell-cells/efoy-comfort/

Not cheap but what price for a cold beer or nice Chablis!

Coleman coolbox, not cookbook 🙂 . Last year the campsites weren’t refreshing ice packs because of Covid, thats why I think wife is looking into this .

Have a look for jackery.
Someone mentioned them above ^^
There’s a guy on youtube ‘softroadingthewest’
He’s partly sponsored by them i think.

Most of the campsites I’ve been to have freezers

Most I’ve been to don’t.

Those Jackery things are ultimately powered from the solar panel. So ideal for evening use for lighting/charging etc, as you can let it charge up all day and you discharge at night. But a fridge needs to be on all the time, so this would still need a solar panel with enough juice to power it all the time and charge the battery enough for overnight, which is going to be 2-300W easily.

TBH I was sort of wondering how you attach the fridge to the bike.

Seems a lot of hassle thou a funky power pack with solar panels and a proper pump based fridge not going to be cheap and a farf,a long power cable or just going glampings gotta be easier/cheaper.

Most I’ve been to don’t.

IME most of them do have some facility for letting you keep/change freezer blocks, at least in non-covid times.

I made myself a little 12v battery box for camping. Couple of 12v 15Ah mobility scooter batteries in an old plastic toolbox with a 12v socket, a few USBs, a couple of LEDs mounted on the side. Works great for charging things, running some lights in the tent, etc.

We have a little 12v compressor fridge (one of the chinese C20 ones), it’s fairly power efficient but it won’t run for more than about 24 hours on that setup. Considering doing a bigger ones but a chunky leisure battery means 25+kg to lug about to get enough to run it for a long weekend. May go down the route of putting one in our camping car instead and keep the fridge in there too.

As others say, hookup is nice if the site offers it but there’s loads of lovely sites that don’t.

Gas or solar is the way, I think.

Or just do what everyone’s always done and buy meat and milk daily. Milk is already cold when it goes in so if you buy your dinner in the evening, a coolbox keeps it cool in the evening, it’s cool enough overnight, and you use it up in the morning.

I have a big Waeco compressor fridge/freezer from our Landrover overlanding days – it works for a few days on a large leisure battery and has a selectable low voltage cut off so it doesn’t kill the battery. Brilliant bit of kit but really expensive nowadays compared to when we bought ours ~10year ago.

Or just do what everyone’s always done and buy meat and milk daily. Milk is already cold when it goes in so if you buy your dinner in the evening, a coolbox keeps it cool in the evening, it’s cool enough overnight, and you use it up in the morning.

In non Covid times I’d tend to agree but we found that campsites last year had stopped freezer block refreshing and in some cases had closed on site shops.

Having read the thread I think the short answer to the OP’s question (and mine to a certain extent) is that the fridge is the killer problem, spend a lot of cash on gas/clever solar, spend a lot more time shopping (so choose your site carefully) or accept the other limitations of a hookup.

The other big bonus to a hookup is an electric kettle and lighting. Especially if you generally prefer gallons of tea to beer or wine and you want to read a lot later at night.

Some places have been great but a campsite we used was a couple of old freezers on their last legs in a tent on the edge of the field. Assuming you could find space, no chance of getting them frozen. Was topping up with supermarket ice just to keep stuff reasonably cold.

If you’re serious about keeping stuff cold and not relying on hookup I think it has to be one of the 3-way (mains, 12v, gas) fridges.