Hilux 4x4 Forum

Hi guys.

Ive seen quite a few ads on gumtree for thermo coolers going for a few hundred rand compared to camping fridges for a few thousand. Are the coolers any good or are they simply a waste of money? I suspect that the proper camping fridges are far superior or there wouldn't be a market for them when prices are compared to the coolers?

Going away for the first time this year so im not a frequent camper, not yet anyway.. So if the coolers work okay then id be keen to buy one for now and then upgrade at a later stage.

All advice welcome.

Total waste of money, they draw to much current and do not work, a block of dry ice wrapped in newspaper in a coolbox will take you much further

Hoppy wrote:Total waste of money, they draw to much current and do not work, a block of dry ice wrapped in newspaper in a coolbox will take you much further

+1!!

Agreed, they are useless!!

Ja i figured.. Hate it when people try sell you bad products..

I like that.. 'A block of ice rapped in news paper will get you further'.

You were selling a propper fridge a few months ago. Do you still have it? Im waiting to see how big my 'envelope' is from my office and then I can maybe take it off your hands.

A fellow traveler told me that he places a blue ice block on the bottom of the thermo cooler and that helps to drop the temp inside the cooler. He swaps them with a frozen one from his fridge in the back the van.

sorry, sold, i've never had a fridge for sale for longer than two days, phone Danie, 021 9827120, he repairs, buys and sells 12v fridges, he should hve something to suit your pocket.

Also look at the Waeco fridges on takealot.com. They have some nice specials from time to time.


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Thanks guys I'll check them out.

Duane do you need a fridge for the 4 day trip?

Hi Thys.

My girlfriends dad is going to lend us his. Do you need a dual battery system to run these or will the single csr battery be able to handle it overnight and still be charged the next day?

Duane I wouldn't take the chance of running a fridge overnight on my only battery...

I suspected as much.. I have an extra battery from a citi golf. Would I be able to set that up as a dual battery system or will the bakkies battery just bugger it up because its bigger?

You can since you are only going to be on the road for a few days.

Cool. Ill give it a go and keep you guys posted.

Thanks again for all the advice.

I have a thermo cooler I use when doing trips for work.

Coldrinks must be cold, then I also add 4 ice pack blocks in, those blue ones you gooi in the freezer.


After 4 days, the cold drinks are stil ice cold, and the blocks still frozen.

Mine is a Campmaster R799 jobby.

I'm impressed with it.

But it wont make a warm colddrink cold, even if you leave it inside for 4 days

For Camping I wont use it, for day trips it is an option without breaking the bank.

Hi Duane
Had borrowed one from my brother, a Black and Decker type. I'd plug it in only in the morning, say for three hours. The rest of the day the water was very cold till the next morning. It can only take 8 500ml bottle at a time. It really worked for us on the Dec 2014 Richtersveld trip where an average temperature was 35 degrees.

We ended up borrowing a friends one and it worked okay. The lighter socket burnt out on day 2 so it made me think of Hoppys comment on drawing too much power. Could have been the sockets fault but no way of telling. I also saw that you cant put any ice or water(melted ice) in it because the motor and fan are at the bottom of the cooler so the water can get to the electronics. So I thought that was quite dum. But I must say that when it worked it did a good job. I think once you compare it to a fridge freezer the fridge freezer is just in a completely different league.

We also have a Campmaster and it works fantastitactic. We've even been in the Rightersveld with it and our meat was slightly defrosted by day 3. As long as it's in a shady spot you'll be fine. If you can swop icebricks or even through in a bunch of ice you'll go a long way. While on the road, I plug it into the 12v and if there is power at the campsite I run it on the 220. This has been our only form of "fridge" till this year so we've tested it well over the last 8 years. Even though we had a fridge/freezer this year we still used the Campmaster as a fridge and the Snowmaster as a freezer.

Hope that doesn't mess up your thinking to much

In the Campmaster all the electronics are also in the lid. So no problem if you have water inside.