[mabrodis]

A Coleman cooler is a thermo-electric cooler, which uses energy to move heat. Basically there are electric components attached to 2 aluminum chunks. On one side of these electrical parts it gets cold because heat is being moved from there to the other side, where ofcourse they get hot. When in cool mode the inside gets cooler and the outside gets hotter, when reversed just the opposite happens. The idea is cool and as far as cooling they do ok, but the catch is they use alot of power to move that heat. So let's say a Coleman one draws about 4-amps continously (my wall plug that came with mine is rated to put out 5.25A at 12V, so it must draw less than that). That is 48 watts of power it's using, but alot of that power is being used to move the heat, and in moving the heat, it generates heat, all that heat has to be removed from the heat-sink on the outside of the cooler. The actual watts of cooling power the cooler gets is probably around 15-20 watts (guessing here), so they do not cool fast and will not ever get really cold. They will cool to something like 40 degrees below ambient temperature (since the cooling is based on a temperature differential between the heat-sink on the inside of the cooler and the one on the outside of the cooler, it's just moving heat from one of those to the other).

I have a Coleman and it's ok, I used it alot at first, it would keep things cold enough that they wouldn't go bad, so I was happy. It is not a replacement for a ARB fridge by any stretch...I think mine is broken or something, doesn't really get cold much anymore, so I haven't used it recently. It's neat that it's dry, no ice/water, etc. But it's so slow to get cool that at many times I would have just preferred to buy a $1 bag of ice and call it good for a day or two. I will get an ARB fridge at some point, but a $20 cooler and a few dollars in ice is WAY cheaper than either the Coleman or the ARB, so that's what I think I'll do in the near future...