So pretty soon it’s going to be 100-120 in Vegas, which means it’s going to be 150+ in my hot car. I’m going to be carrying a few electronic devices with me and leaving them in my car. My GPS, sometimes a camera, misc other stuff. So far I’ve kept them in a cooler I always keep in the car - not with ice or anything, just enough that with the current heat levels they only get warm. But that’ll change.
Can I just add a sealed ice pack like this one to the cooler to keep those devices cool, or is that going to cause issues with humidity and condensation? Or possibly even keep the devices too cold.
What’s the best way to keep them in a temperature range that’s health for Li-On batteries?
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. My wife keeps her GPS in the car year-round, and it’s survived just fine. I wouldn’t leave a camera sitting on the dash, but in a shaded area (or the trunk) it shouldn’t be damaged by the heat.
Exposure to high temperatures will reduce the life of Li-on batteries, and I don’t want to keep a fairly expensive camera at temperatures of 120+ all day, so I need to come up with some sort of solution. Mostly I’m wondering if a sealed ice pack will end up creating humidity and condensation or some other negative effect.
Given you only need to keep things cool, not cold, you might find that wrapping the icepack in a thin layer of insulation may be the right answer. Not so thick that all you do is keep the ice frozen, but just thin enough that the overall heat flow is such that the inside of the icebox stays cool, and the surface of the ice pack does not drop below freezing.
Condensing humidity is the big worry. For that the simplest is to just do the experiment, without the camera. If you get any trace of water condensation inside then you have a problem.
Buy a 12 volt mini fridge and put it in the trunk. Amazon has a lot of choices around $50. This way you don’t have to remember to switch ice packs every day.
I think they’d be fine in the cooler without any added ice or cold packs as long as you keep the cooler out of direct sunlight. Maybe throw a thermometer in there one day to see what temp it reaches just to make sure.
How about a cooler with ice packs and a Rubbermaid/Tupperware type container? You can put the batteries inside the container, seal it, and put the container into the cooler.
Keeps bread from molding when camping, and keeps it from getting soggy, so I’d think it should work for batteries.
The newer ziploc type bags with the plastic zipper seem pretty sturdy.
I use them for food storage all of the time and have had no untoward accidents with spillage.
You might use them to encase your electronics before putting them into cold storage.
Toss in a couple of absorbent paper towels and I think you’d be safe.
Given the low humidity in Vegas, I wouldn’t think that condensation would be too much of an issue (the condensation, after all, would be pulled out of the air). As someone suggested up-thread. Give it a try one day with a paper towel in there or some other way to see if there’s condensation accumulation.
The electronics inside sealed containers within the cooler sounds like it may be a winner.
And yeah, the desert conditions make condensation rarer - but - and I’m displaying my ignorance as to how exactly condensation works - does the ice pack itself give off humidity which would then be turned into condensaton?
Would a paper towel test be conclusive? I mean - is it possible that for whatever reason, the condensation won’t form on a paper towel but might inside the glass elements of the camera or something like that?
Not very. We bought one of those units several years ago to use on camping trips, and the first time out it drained the battery so quickly that it’s been sitting in the garage ever since.
I couldn’t find specs, but the portable ones come with a little inverter to run on 120v. I think you can safely assume it draws less than 50 watts peak. Even assuming 100% duty cycle, 24 hours would use 0.120 kwh.
I think most every car battery is rated for more than 30 amp-hours. 30x12=360watt-hours, or 0.360kwh.
If I calculated that correctly, it’s safe to say it would be fine to leave overnight or even longer.
No. Cold things draw the humidity out of the air. So if you put an ice pack in a cooler with your camera and your camera gets cold, humidity will condense on it (and the ice pack and anything else cold…just like a cold glass of water). More of a problem in the midwest then in the desert, but I’d still be concerned.
If you’re really worried, I’d say toss the stuff in a cooler, keep it in the shade and any time that you’re driving (with the AC on) open the cooler up. But millions of people travel through Vegas and leave their stuff in the their cars and you don’t hear about it breaking all that often, so I probably wouldn’t be that worried about it. Maybe just let it cool off before you use it.
You can also get one of those folding sun screens to put in your windshield, and if possible leave the car windows open just a tiny crack. Both of those will help reduce the inside temperature of the car.
Definitely not safe always. Like FatBaldGuy, I killed my car battery when camping using one of those fridges. Maybe four hours. Had to call AAA for a jump.