I bought one of these Breg medical cooler units used on eBay for $50. It runs off 6 volts, so I added a DC adapter. I'm using a real Cool Suit T-shirt and converted the adapters from the ones I got with the unit. Seems to work well. I'm going to try it out at LRP this weekend in a DE.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Breg-POLAR-C...item1c3506f6e8

 

What's the pad material and what's the cooling surface area inside- tubes or honeycomb?

 

Honeycomb. You really need to hook it into a shirt, but I think the pad would work also.

 

What if you sat on it- or leaned against it with your lower back- would the water still flow through it?

 

I assume you guys are looking to save weight over a 12-13qt cool shirt cooler (since you can build the exact cool shirt cooler for about 100 bucks)? We run block ice in our 13qt coolers and get about 4 hours of ice cold water before having to swap coolers. Block ice is the key.

 

No question about. it. A block of ice is key. Even in hot 'lanta (now wet 'lanta) we can do a 4 hr enduro from say 1-5pm in 90F+ weather, put the car away for the night and in the morning there is still some ice floating around in the box.

But the ice needs to frozen right threw. In my freezer that means at least 48 hrs and pref 72. 24 hrs won't do it.

 

On our cruising sailboat, to keep ice a lot longer (this was in an ice box), we used to use something called a Cold Blanket, which was nothing more than a closed cell foam pad maybe 1/2" thick and lay it over the ice.
It was amazing how much of a difference it made. Even though the box was well insulated, the air gap on top of the food got larger as the food was consumed. The blanket 'closed' that gap. The cooler in the cars wouldn't have as much air space but I bet this would be useful.
We could keep block ice on a 7 day trip to Bermuda (from Rhode Island), for example, during June/July. Arrive Bermuda with at least half of the blocks left.
Might be worth considering. Not sure if its made anymore but I didn't find it in a quick search. Easy enough to replicate, though - just a simple closed cell foam pad.

 

I've tried using 4 to 6 of thise Coleman (re)freezable blocks maybe 6" x 4" x 2" in my cool suit cooler and they don't seem to work that well. I get cool for maybe 30 minutes and that's it. If a big block of ice is ideal and cubes are least why isn't this working for me? Any ideas?

 

Are you using the coolshirt cooler (made by engels) or another cooler? I build my own by buying the engels cooler through another source and they have been great with the block ice. I know some guys use a cheaper cooler and don't have good luck keeping ice solid.

 

I had a Coolshirt, then a 986 and now a box that some guys (Coolzu) on RL here were hawking.
The 986 was by far the least effective even though it looked like it should have been the dog's *****.
It wasn't.
The current box basically is a Coolshirt box with different pump. It works well enough but I wrapped it in insulation tape to add another barrier although I doubt it does very much.

Apparently this cooling stuff is rocket science because it seems to elude all but NASA scientists.
Or like NASA hardware, the cost is prohibitive.

 

Ugh. Thanks for your comments but was hoping, from other posts, that the 986/Momo was the shirt. Not doubting you or those that said the 986 was much better than cool shirt. just wondering how/why what works for one is terrible for someone else.

 

My comments were about the boxes- not the shirts.
I had the orig 986 shirt which was great and better than than the Coolshirt but not FR.
The 986 FR shirt was **** poor fit and quality- really bad.
I don't know how they are now that they have Momo on them. If they kept the bladder and reworked the shirt itself its worth checking out.

I ended up with a hybrid system; the box described above and the 986 bladder sewn inside a Stand21 FR Porsche shirt. I also have have cooling tubes (water) in my helmet as the box has a 2nd set of outputs.

I race because its fun, but if I'm melting, it sucks the fun out. So I'm slightly OCD when it comes to keeping cool.

 

One of the problems that I have with block ice is travel. I have a first gen/early cool shirt and the cooler is pretty small ie inefficient. Unfortunately, hotels near the track often don't have freezers to maintain my ice blocks. I'm sure with more planning, foresight, whatever - I could start with a large block and on day #3 when needed, it'll be the right size. Still looking for the most efficient way to improve cooling starting from my current system.

 

You can buy block ice at most grocery stores.

 

Let's put it this way - the material I came across completely eliminates the need for ice. It also would improve the change-out time needed swap out the cooling medium. The size / weight of my design has cut the footprint less to less than half of existing systems.

Proly should make this thing. I have shown the concept to some folks in the Racing Industry - all were very interested in the concept.