Can a temperature-controlled case replace a cold room?

Answer: No. It is strong over hours, weak over months; storage beyond three months belongs in a room.

How wide is the cost gap against a truck?

Answer: Near 18 CNY per trip against 1,200 CNY per run. The truck wins per unit only past roughly 1.5 m³ on a fixed route.

Is the 36-hour holdover believable?

Answer: At a 25 K gradient, 70% load and two openings, yes. At 40 K or a third of the load, expect about 20 hours.

Why not simply use dry ice?

Answer: It stratifies by six degrees in a 30 L box, and it is class 9 cargo capped at 2.5 kg by air with a venting requirement.

How do split deliveries stay inside tolerance?

Answer: Time each leg, restart the clock at every opening, and swap panels when the estimate runs out.

Temperature-Controlled Case Comparison: Where It Differs

Quick answer: A temperature-controlled case competes with a cold room, a refrigerated truck and dry ice in a plain box. All four hold temperature; they differ in mobility, load threshold and cost per trip. Compare route shape, not headline numbers.

Three Axes to Compare First
Against a Cold Room: Mobility
Against a Refrigerated Truck: Load Threshold
Against Loose Dry Ice: Evenness
Turning the Gaps into a Decision Table
FAQ

1. Three Axes to Compare First

A comparison starts with structure, not a datasheet. A temperature-controlled case is a foamed body, a swappable cold or heat source, and a sensor. A cold room has no portable body, a truck's body is the cargo box, and dry ice in a plain box is a cold source with nothing around it. Different structures set different limits.

Three axes decide the rest. Range: swapping panels covers −20 °C, 2–8 °C or 15–25 °C inside the same temperature-controlled case. Holdover: the usual 36-hour claim assumes a 25 K gradient, 70% loading and two openings, and at 40 K it falls to about 20 hours. Cost: spread across 400 trips, a 62 L unit lands near 18 CNY each.

Axis	Temperature-controlled case	Cold room	Truck	Dry ice
Cooling	Eutectic panels	Compressor	Vehicle unit	Sublimation
Holdover	Yes, scaled by gradient	None	None	Yes, fading
Entry	One unit	Floor and power	Per-trip minimum	One unit
Evenness	Channels and dividers	Best	Good	Worst

The dividing line is rarely temperature: rooms and trucks bring goods to equipment, a case brings equipment to goods.

2. Against a Cold Room: Mobility

A cold room wins on paper with 12 m² of floor, 3.5 kW installed and ±1 °C control. Its weakness sits between the door, the loading bay and the handover, where nothing is controlled at all.

Temperature-Controlled Case: orange hard case with lid raised, black foam cradling a handheld screen device, a black clip and a round cap beside it

What a temperature-controlled case offers is one shelf of that room, carried: a 45 mm polyurethane wall at 0.022 W/mK, 21.5 kg empty, liftable by two people. Across a 40-minute handover the room drifts 1.5 °C per door cycle while the case climbs 0.8 °C.

3. Against a Refrigerated Truck: Load Threshold

Truck terms set the threshold: 4.2 m body, 5.5 kW unit, eight-hour minimum, from 1,200 CNY per run. Twenty 62 L cases hold 1.24 m³ and split into four routes without a full load.

There is no active cooling in a temperature-controlled case, though. A load generating its own heat exhausts the panels early; insulation only buys time.

Item	Case, 62 L	Truck, 4.2 m	Cold room
Volume	0.062 m³	about 18 m³	by pallet
Entry cost	per unit	1,200 CNY per run	floor plus power
Swing	ambient and load	±0.5 °C	±1.0 °C
Split drops	yes	same route	no

4. Against Loose Dry Ice: Evenness

Dry ice reaches a lower floor than any panel, −78.5 °C at sublimation, and burns 2.8 kg per 24 hours in a 30 L box. What that number hides is stratification: about six degrees between the top and the bottom of the same box.

With −21 °C eutectic panels at 70% load, a temperature-controlled case holds wall-to-centre within 1.2 °C because internal channels force air to move. The ceiling is the material, since common salts stop near −30 °C. Dry ice also carries class 9 rules: 2.5 kg per package by air, and packaging that vents.

5. Turning the Gaps into a Decision Table

Judge batch volume, then longest transit, then drop count. Cross any limit and the method changes, not the panel count.

Scenario	Method	Why	Watch for
2 km on-site transfer	Temperature-controlled case	one unit, no minimum	pre-chill panels
300 km, full load	Refrigerated truck	volume, continuous cooling	door-open losses
Four city drops	Temperature-controlled case	separate signatures	restart the clock
Storage over 3 months	Cold room	tightest control	last mile
Below −30 °C	Dry ice inside a case	extends the floor	venting

The reverse case is just as sharp: beyond 72 hours, above 15 W of internal heat, or over 2 m³, extra panels only make the unit too heavy to lift.

Conclusion

No method is better in the abstract; each is bounded. A room sells stability, a truck sells capacity, dry ice sells a lower floor, and a temperature-controlled case sells the hours after the goods leave the building. Measure batch size, transit time and drop count, then let the route choose.

This article discusses only the container (case body) side of specifications and design intent, and does not cover any handling, loading or use of the contents.