I keep my batteries, car flashlights, camera, and electronic delicates in a soft sided cooler in the trunk, and either under my sleeping bag or inside a hard sided cooler.
What I don’t understand is the accumulative effect this has over the days, do the batteries reach top heat by the evening and then the insulation trap the heat during the night, or what? In other words, I don’t understand how this passive insulation works over a series of 24 hour periods.
Would keeping a gallon bottle of water in the same ice chest serve as a heat absorber, and like the above, does this matter over the course of time, since these items remain in the car permanently?
In the desert is this enough, and for the stuff that is stored in there permanently, is it keeping things cooler, or is it all balancing out to really make no difference between being stored that way, or not?
Anything in a cooler is going to equalize to outside temps but will just take longer to do so. It’ll take longer to heat up, and longer to cool down. Yeh some ice could help things stay cool as long as you’ve got enough in there so it doesn’t melt. I don’t think its a major problem. Check battery storage temps.
There are lots of things like this I ask myself, I have a thermometer which shows max and min values but this doesn’t help to investigate the temperature/time thing.
For example I have a refrigerator which has temperatures between –14 and –19°C and I am wondering if that is because I open the door or if it is because the nofrost technology zips melting the ice and rising temperatures with that…
That’s why I ordered a temperature logger http://www.aliexpress.com/item/USB-Temperature-Data-logger-Datalogger-Recorder-with-External-Sensor-KK-Y/1933949959.html
Thermodynamics. Thats the subject you are talking about.
Imagine the cooler as a capacitor, and instead of electricity, imagine it a temperature: it will help minimise the big, quick temperature spikes, but let the slower ones through.
The cooler in this case just acts like a semi-permeable thermal barrier. In the heat of the day, the outside is hotter than the inside, but will, given time, equalize temperatures. But by the time that starts to happen, it is night. In the middle of the night, it is generally cooler, so that the (slightly) warmer cooler will eventually equalize with the cooler outside air. By the time it is morning, the cooler cooler will start to warm up again, and the cycle repeats.
adding a water bottle will just add thermal mass, (analogy: adding more capacitance to the circuit) and will help to average out the temperature swings.
The main thing is keeping it out of direct sunlight, since a lot of heat can be transferred that way. A water bottle inside a platic bag or two (in case it leaks) is a good thing, jut incase, seeing as you are in a desert.
If I an wrong on any of this, feel free to correct me.
Thanks, if I read you right, it does pay to store them that way, and even if the temps exceed the optimum for the batteries AND electronics, camera etc., it will at least shorten the exposure to those temps and will be beneficial over using no cooler.
As far as my water, I always keep it so that bursting is no problem, when traveling I sleep in the car and prefer to pull over in mountain passes during winter, so I store my water thinking in terms of freeze, burst, thaw.
Any speculation on maximum temps reached under my storage during summer?
Do you think that in the desert, that it would keep the maximum peaks lower?
I guess I’m asking if these efforts have the effect of having the batteries and equipment stored in a lower temperature than without, and any guess by how much?
If the trunk gets to 150 degrees F or whatever the desert causes, then does my stuff also reach 150 at some point, or might it always stay below 140 or so?
I can tell you from personal experience being stationed in 29palms for 11 months for MOS school and having it be 120 degrees in the shade (read on a temperature gauge IN the shade)…and then having 80 degree nights feel “cold”
Probably not…direct sunlight and the desert plays HELL on thermal limits on alot of materials
In the desert you can create something called a “swamp cooler” based on evaporative cooling a padded fluffy material in water and as the water evaporates in the very low humidity of the desert it will cool considerably…heck get one of those pressurized atomizer bottles and give yourself a spritz some time in the desert…cool cool cool
I used to dunk my 2 quart and 1quart canteens in a bucket of water saturating the fluffy canteen carrier liner w/ water…the water in the canteen after a few hours was noticeably cooler than the ambient air, once it dried out however it quickly heated back up
Have a bottle of water in there is not going to make a tangible difference to keeping things cool I reckon. Plus after the midday sun when everything is as hot as it can get, the bottle is going to retain all that heat for longer and then keep your box from cooling. These are all theoretical considerations and I think for all practical purposes just keep it at the bottom of your car in a quality cooler insulated by other items in your boot.
I just avoid keeping Lithiums or any rechargeable in the vehicles during the hottest days of summer. Just Alcalines, but not left in the lights, i place them in a bag under the seat to get them to the lowest, coolest place possible during the day.
( P.S., i like the movie in your icon. If the people of that town had some of our powerful lights they would have been safe from the vampires.
I wonder what temps my electronics and batteries would reach in the trunk, in the desert, unshaded during summer, if they were permanently kept inside a soft pack cooler, and that kept inside of a hard walled cooler?
I guess they would reach temps in excess of 110, but by how much.
The best way to approach this would be to leave the cooler in the trunk during the day and take it out overnight. If it would fit under the car, that would be even better as you could just slide your gear under there, open the lid and let it cool off in the evening and overnight.
At some point, the inside of the cooler is going to reach the outside ambient temperature, but how long this takes will depend on the quality of the cooler and the time spent in the high temperatures.
If you are driving and have aircon, the cooler would be better in the cabin with you.
Warhawk's "Swamp Cooler" is a good idea if you have plenty of water to keep it wet. I've used a similar principle on my water bottles during long summer bicycle tours.
Down-under here we used to have a thing called a "Coolgardie Safe" which works on the same principle. Before mains power was widespread (pre 1950s) butter and the like was stored in a box with hessian sides and a water tray at the top. Water would slowly work down the hessian and when sat in a breezeway, the contents of the safe would be kept cool. Not practical unless you are in some kind of base camp I guess. If you are travelling all day this wouldn't be an option. (And the humidity might not be good for your camera unless you sealed it in a bag.)
The problem is that these are items for permanent storage in the trunk, it is my prepper gear that I only want to touch once a year when I recharge the batteries and replace the food and water that is with the chargers and batteries and the car inverter.
By the way, when I was a kid, one of these hanging from the hood ornament, was part of our desert travel.
Is it the thing to place inside my cooler in the trunk, and put the extra sensor outside the cooler, or inside of the car’s passenger compartment, or glove compartment, so that I can fully track these car storage/heat questions?
