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Keeping food warm at the car "baselodge"

Uncle-A

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Yes, you'd need an inverter that converts 12V to 110V. You'd have to be careful about the wattage of the hair dryer though.

Incidentally, the experiments in "Kim's car in the parking lot" (which is being emulated by a beer cooler packed with ice packs) will take place. I am awaiting a new 12V battery to replace the one in a jump start battery. Once received, I will redo the experiments with lunch in a partially insulated container using said 12V battery (also in beer cooler to emulate real world temperatures when it would be used) and will post photos and temperatures. I'm pretty confident gourmet delights will be able to await skiers at their cars, even without bringing one's butler from home to prepare the repast ...
Some of the newer vehicle come with both a 12V and a 120V outlet. To use the 120V you do have to start the vehicle. I guess that there limits to how much current you can draw, just check the owner manual for the info. Maybe you could run the vehicle and plug in a small cooking device, a hair dryer might be a different story.
 

raytseng

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On this point, some batterypacks do have both dc and ac inverter output as well, same as cars that have as inverter. But as far as useful for cooking they (or more specifically the underlying battery) are typically limited to 10amps which is 120watts total power and after inversion losses is more like 75 to 100w usable watts. The intention is this is for small devices such as charging laptops. This limits you more to easybake oven cooking vs imagining you had a microwave/hairdryer.

Bootwarmers even fan-driven powered bootwarmers that run at 30w-45w, need like 30min+ to get room temp boots (70F) up to body temp (100F); In a ice cold car, this 30w is not enough to keep boots warm, you need to keep the boots insulated in a bag and even stuff your gloves in the top otherwise they lose heat faster than the 30w the heaters are putting in..

On the point for hotlunch, The ac inversion would be very inefficient and typically 30%+ of the battery is lost in the process to heat. Using a powerpack for dc it will also still lose maybe 10%+ to heat too. But if the idea is you are using this electricity power solely to maintain temp anyway, heat is not a total loss, so just throw the battery pack into your warm bag too.
This is the same concept as on the slopes with cellphones that dying in the cold to use a batterypack charger; the charging process also provides heat as a byproduct in both the batterypack and the phone.

Do keep in mind these are all lithium batteries have a risk of blowing up or spontaneously catching on fire, especially when left unattended in an enclosed hot environment, at higher drain settings; and if it is some random thing you found on amazon.

I'd still suggest your biggest loss is via the container and insulating and keeping this hot thing hot; so using a purpose built insulated small cooler/lunchbag to hold heat IN is where you will get the most bang for your buck. (You can test by putting this lunchcooler contraption into your freezer or refrigerator). To round out the above parallel example, this is also the same as if your iPhone is in a phonecase, it also won't freeze up as fast, and holds the heat from the charger trick longer than a naked iphone.

The heated ski gear bag I do not believe is focused on insulation vs its secondary use as drying things and letting the steamy air out.
 
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kimberlin

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Yes, you'd need an inverter that converts 12V to 110V. You'd have to be careful about the wattage of the hair dryer though.

Incidentally, the experiments in "Kim's car in the parking lot" (which is being emulated by a beer cooler packed with ice packs) will take place. I am awaiting a new 12V battery to replace the one in a jump start battery. Once received, I will redo the experiments with lunch in a partially insulated container using said 12V battery (also in beer cooler to emulate real world temperatures when it would be used) and will post photos and temperatures. I'm pretty confident gourmet delights will be able to await skiers at their cars, even without bringing one's butler from home to prepare the repast ...
If you think I am going to permit the reheating of the good ol' British fish pie in my car you've got another thing coming...............:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:
 

mister moose

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There's a reason this isn't easy or practical. It's a lot of energy to pull out of a car battery or 18V lithium tool battery.

  • Most 12V devices anticipate a fully charged battery or a running engine as the 12V source. A new, fully charged 12V battery is actually 12.8 volts, when the car is running the regulator will keep the voltage higher for charging, 13.8 to 14.4 volts. A 12V appliance is rated for this, so a 40W appliance is going only put out 40W with the engine running at 13-14V.
  • Your not-new real world battery will only be at 12.8 for a few minutes. Under load, it will drop to 12.4, and then 12.2, and then 12.0 or even lower. Your 40W is rapidly going to be 35W and then 30W.
  • Car batteries are chemical, the colder it is the slower the chemical reactions and the less power available.
  • Car batteries are built for high current for short periods of time. Many thin plates. You want a deep cycle battery, fewer, thicker plates.
  • 120V outlets in cars will never run hair dryers or microwave ovens. You need 900 to 1500 watts for that, which is going to pull 70 to 120 Amps of 12 V current. That's huge. That's thick as your thumb welding cable, plus a huge inverter, plus a battery the size of half your trunk. Or with the engine running it's a custom large frame alternator.
Even though 3-4 amps for 4 hours isn't that big a drain, I'd be cautious about getting a start on a cold day after draining out 16 amp hours. A better solution is a second dedicated battery to run the lunchbox. A marine deep cycle would be a good choice.

I think a low tech solution is better. A bunch of high quality thermos jugs inside a big enough cooler. For extra heat line the bottom with a cut granite slab shaped to fit the bottom of the cooler that you heated to 200-250 degrees in your oven before you left. Maybe have the granite guy will have a sink cut-out he'll cut to fit and sell you cheap. Add some 3/8 holes on both sides for rope handles to lift it easily in and out of the cooler.

In a prior life, I was a 12 volt man.... with a big alternator.


Now I know this Joe down in Mexico
He went there to work on his tan
For years he's been plugged into blenders and songs
They call him the Twelve Volt Man
He don't need no charge card
Just give him a Die Hard
And he'll makes sparks fly 'round your head
 

Uncle-A

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Learned this lesson back when I was an eighteen year old. Thawing out PBR using the defroster was miserable.
When the beer was frozen it was only the water in the beer I don't think the alcohol would freeze. If you drank it when slushy you would have had a stranger brew.
 

David

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Around here so many people bring their crock pots and plug them in so all you really need to do is bring a big spoon and you're all set!
 

Popeye Cahn

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Forget DC for the tea kettle, a JetBoil camping stove is perfect for heating water in my scenario mentioned earlier. The problem with boiling water is caloric energy requirements. To boil X amount of water you'll need Y amount of energy and it seems that to boil say a liter of water with electricity you have several options, some are very expensive and some take a very long time. But with a camp stove like a JetBoil it takes 3-4 minutes and no concern of draining a battery or draining a wallet ;-)

And for the more intrepid basecampers, a 2 burner standard camping stove using propane would be a good choice (as posted earlier), you can simmer a pot of soup or stew and grill a steak if you choose.

I'm down with this auto basecamp idea, granted I'm in SoCal and our winters up in the mountains close by are not the stuff of Jack London or Admunsen...
 

raisingarizona

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I car camp way more days a month than I spend at home and I’m a big fan of a small, single burner camping stove. I try to keep my meals simple as in one pot, heat and eat out of it then you only have one dish and one utensil to clean. Less is often so much more imho. I’ll bring a grill for dogs and burgers too sometimes. After that all you need is some camp chairs and a cooler.
 

Itinerant skier

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Immersion coil water heater. Won't quite get it to boiling, but plenty warm enough for some of the "just add water" lunch options available now. They make 12-volt car ones, but I have a 110 volt AC one that I'll try with the inverter.
 

Wendy

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YETI thermos keeps hot stuff pretty well. I had a thermos of hot coffee that kept pretty well on a drive to Maine (6 hrs).

I have a 2 quart YETI that keeps hot chili pretty hot for several hours, enough for a morning of skiing followed by a warm, comforting lunch.
 

Andy Mink

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I think a low tech solution is better. A bunch of high quality thermos jugs inside a big enough cooler. For extra heat line the bottom with a cut granite slab shaped to fit the bottom of the cooler that you heated to 200-250 degrees in your oven before you left. Maybe have the granite guy will have a sink cut-out he'll cut to fit and sell you cheap. Add some 3/8 holes on both sides for rope handles to lift it easily in and out of the cooler.
I like this idea. A solid cooler (Yeti, Rtic, etc.) will work both ways. Get it warm and put hot stuff in it and it will keep things hot for hours. Thermos/vacuum bottles in a warm cooler (warmer?) and you're golden.

If your're really wanting to run an inverter, go with a the very least a marine/rv type starter+deep cycle battery. A true deep cycle battery would be even better, or two 6v golf cart batteries run in series to provide 12v. Now we're getting into lots of money, weight, and space requirements. Plus you'll need to charge those batteries overnight. Perhaps a PB&J...
 

JohnnyG

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Perhaps a PB&J...

Even better; for warm food, seal your food you want warmed in foil, then put it in the hottest part of your engine bay, and got for a 15-30 minute drive for it to warm.

If Gordon Ramsey has done it, you can too!

 
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RobSN

RobSN

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Ok chaps and chapesses! Heads up. The 33Ah battery replacement for my telescope will arrive tomorrow. It might also be used as both a 12V and an 18V input into the food warmer. While @mister moose's idea is, frankly, excellent, heating the granite block beforehand may have me up too early - my usual 4:45am time to get up for a ski day is quite early enough thank you. And to repeat something I said earlier in the thread, the type of day I am thinking of is NOT a nice spring day when one can fire up an outside propane or butane camp stove and heat something up a la tailgating - it's the kind of day that's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey when in non-Covid times we would all head into the lodge for lunch and a warm up. So, expect the scientific measurements over the next few days. The food warmer will be put in a insulated lunch bag which will be set on top of freezer packs, as will the battery, to emulate the back of Kim's Subaru on the nasty cold days. Oatmeal (emulating a lunch type consistency of something) will be chilled in the fridge beforehand and I'll take temperature readings aiming for the idea that gourmet repast time will be about 3 hours in.

Regarding @JohnnyG's Gordon Ramsay idea, the problem is that on a Brass Monkey day, the engine will have cooled way down by lunch time, and who wants to drive around, having had to take one's boots off, for 15-30 minutes and lose one's great parking spot?
 

Seldomski

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Oatmeal (emulating a lunch type consistency of something) will be chilled in the fridge beforehand and I'll take temperature readings aiming for the idea that gourmet repast time will be about 3 hours in.

Why does the oatmeal have to be cold going into the warmer? Couldn't you microwave whatever you are eating that day and load it into the warmer with the food already warm to give it a head start? Less work for the warmer to do.

1 minute in the microwave at ~500W is about 2 hours of heating in the 40W warmer.
 

mister moose

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Ok chaps and chapesses! Heads up. The 33Ah battery replacement for my telescope will arrive tomorrow. It might also be used as both a 12V and an 18V input into the food warmer. While @mister moose's idea is, frankly, excellent, heating the granite block beforehand may have me up too early - my usual 4:45am time to get up for a ski day is quite early enough thank you. ... The food warmer will be put in a insulated lunch bag which will be set on top of freezer packs, as will the battery, to emulate the back of Kim's Subaru on the nasty cold days.
On the granite block idea, many ovens have a time bake feature where you set the time for the oven to come on, no early wake up needed.

On your trial run, you need to address the effect of cold on the entire lunch bag, not just the base. Maybe you could find a willing walk in freezer owner.
 

JohnnyG

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Regarding @JohnnyG's Gordon Ramsay idea, the problem is that on a Brass Monkey day, the engine will have cooled way down by lunch time, and who wants to drive around, having had to take one's boots off, for 15-30 minutes and lose one's great parking spot?

Easier solution, take one of the bricks you have in the back of your car (for added traction obviously, not for looting), leave the car in park, and put said brick on the gas pedal. Comes up to temperature faster! Opposite of a slow cooker. Also works well on turbo's. :roflmao:
 

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