Homemade 120 Watt Peltier Thermoelectric Cooler 12vdc Mobile Refrigerator

 This was an old project I made a few years back, just never put it on my geeky page.   Modified it today, could never find a good reliable high current plug for it and my car.  I had a "high current" heavy duty cigarette adapter plug on the cooler but it melted lol.     Finally decided just to order some of these PowerCon plugs, really nice plugs actually. I started using them on many other projects after testing them with 20A DC for extended times..       

Anyway I bought this Yeti knock off cooler from tractor supply.  Really nice cooler by its self, kept ice in it for like 4 days in the summer..   

Then while surfing the great net, I found this Peltier Thermoelectric cooler, it was much larger than the low wattage ones found in commercial coolers...   I impulse bought this thing, with the mindset, if the the cooler I have can keep ice from melting after 4 hot days I can probably make a decent iceless cooler with this thermoelectric thing.          So I bought it! 

I know I probably already have more money into this little project than a 12vdc cooler would actually cost me, but every time I buy one of those coolers, they suck..  They never get really cold, they often have custom fans that end up failing then start screeching, you can't replace them.  So I figured hell, build my own, one with replaceable parts, and one that has enough oomph to get cold fast and stay cold.   

I got out the hole saw,  drilled two large holes where the two cold side fans were located.   I then marked the outside edge of the hot heatsink on the top of the cooler.   This way I could cut down into the insulation foam a bit, to make the thing mount relatively flush.    Had to cut a bit of the foam from between the fans so I didn't stress the wires too much.  I drilled through the heat sink so I could run the wires up through and into the hot side and keep them hidden.  

Side view of the cooler assembly.....   and my messy work bench in the garage. 

Here is a shot of the top with the cooler installed, stainless steel screws hold it in. The PowerCon plug newly installed, the lid opens without messing with the connector, it can be unplugged and moved around without a tail hanging off.   

Inside view of the lid.    fans are up in the lid so goodies in the cooler wont mess with the fans for the cooling. 

As I said before, I tried the best of cigarette outlet (standard 12v plugs for cars) and I melted one, and another one got really hot.  I didn't trust leaving them running if I was not in the car.    That said, at 10A draw you probably don't want to leave this thing running long without some kind of charging happening.  Thankfully our travel car is a plug-in hybrid, so while parked and on an EV charger it will maintain the 12v battery allowing me to leave this running for extended times..    But it is so well insulated you really don't need to.     I'm supper happy with this thing.   I might add a little coin cell LCD temperature display, just so I don't have to open it up to feel the temp.   No more cheap 12v coolers for me!  Though a little expensive, building my own was well worth it!     This could even be used on off-grid solar systems as long as your solar/battery budget can handle the 10A draw (more like 9.68A).    Oh here is the info on the PowerCon connectors..  

 

As with all of my posts, I hope this gives others ideas, or saves someone from not being sure if they wanted to try to do something similar..    Do it!     

Thanks all!