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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Portable Power and Cooling for Surviving the End Times (or camping)
 
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Harvey Baldman
Jan 11, 2011

ATTORNEY AT LAW
Justice is bald, like an eagle, or Lady Liberty's docket.

 I'm a type 1 diabetic who lives with an insulin pump. My wife and I go outside sometimes, but outside is scary because it doesn't always have places to charge my life-giving equipment or to keep my insulin vials at safe temperatures. I also know that if the world ends, my rear end is toast because of how dependant I am on said refridgerated insulin and hardware keeping me alive. I'm interested in trying to find a battery-powered portable cooler and some kind of solar-charging battery bank/power setup that I can use to power it to keep my insulin reasonably stable in the event we're somewhere without power for long stretches of time. I'm picturing something like an earthquake (I live in CA) or a hurricane (my family lives in FL) taking power out for a number of days, and I want to do the prepper thing and get the hardware for that potential disaster set up now. FWIW, this isn't just a thought experiment - last February we were without power for about two weeks and I managed by hauling ice around to keep my insulin cool, but that solution still seems to depend on functional infrastructure nearby. I'm curious if any goons have experience with this kind of thing - it seems like it might have some crossover with campers/survialist/tailgating demos who probably want the same kind of thing.

I am thinking about :

  • Portability. Ideally I'd be looking at a setup that I can hike somewhere with. A lot of the solar-based setups I have seen require an array of pretty large panels, which is great if you're setting it up on a lawn or something but doesn't look like it'd be fun to move from point-to-point.
  • Versatility. Solar charging to keep a cooler running is great. Solar charging that I might also be able to run a laptop or other equipment off of is a nice luxury.
  • Cost, but with an understanding that the setup I land on might be several thousand bucks of hardware. I'd rather spend the money and, you know, not die in an emergency.

A lot of the portable solar coolers that I have been looking at don't actually incorporate any of the solar elements into the cooler - with only one exception that I have seen so far they expect you to buy freestanding solar panel setups elsewhere, or lug what is basically a folding-table-sized panel separately with the cooler. Most of the coolers with batteries seem to need a 12V power source to charge. I'm not averse to the idea of having a solar-powered battery hub/charger setup that a cooler can plug into to charge as long as that is also potentially portable. I know the portability part of things might be tricky because there are just physical limitations to how much power you can get per square foot of solar paneling, but I'm also hoping there might be some better options I haven't come across yet that folks might be able to point me to.

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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Portable Power and Cooling for Surviving the End Times (or camping)