Back in 2015 I decided to try to create an ice-fueled cooler that could make tailgating at Arizona Cardinals games tolerable in the stifling, triple-digit heat. The collection of misters, fans, and misting fans we had been using just wasn’t cutting it.
My first attempt consisted of an ice chest with a top-mounted battery-operated fan blowing air into the ice-filled chamber and expelling the cooled air through aluminum ducts. It actually worked pretty well for the 10 minutes it took to completely melt the 40 pounds of ice. As we needed at least an hour and a half of cooling, it was a miserable failure.
What followed was a progression of modifications incorporating a pump and radiator, then radiators, variable-speed motor controller, as well as marine blowers in place of the lethargic fan. While this revised cooler produced much colder and stronger airflow, it still went through ice too quickly to be useful. Lastly, I segregated the ice/water area from the airflow and finally created a design that pumps out very cold air for hours instead of minutes. I built two more, and we became one of the only tailgating groups to party in the heat in comfort : )
A couple of years later out of boredom (I’m retired) I made a short YouTube video about building my first cooler. The resulting popularity of the video and unexpected volume of requests for plans and kits prompted me to create both and the aptly-named Frankencooler™ company was born.
Since then, I have spent countless hours evolving this basic design into several forms, the most popular being the Blowbox™. The single and dual blower Blowboxes are much easier and quicker to build than the ice chest-based design and offer tremendous performance in a compact package – producing 50-degree temperature differentials in 100-plus-degree heat. Because the blower unit can be used remotely if desired from the ice/water supply, this design has become very popular for a number of demanding applications – especially for cooling small aircraft – which has become by far my biggest market. Brand-name commercially available ice-fueled coolers on the market are far more stylish, but none come close to performing like my Frankencooler™.
In short, I never intended to go into this business but as an old guy closing in on 70, I’m grateful to have something to do and the best part has been meeting literally hundreds of really nice people – many I consider friends.
