Help with refrigeration decisions...

[Beersmith]

Originally Posted by StormBay

Hay Erick,
( I met you once with my wife.. we currently live here at Oasis Marina ) You may want to talk to J.D. He is on the teal boat on the right as you come in. He recently installed two very small re-fridge units on his boat that i believe he got for a great price; one for re-fridge and one for freezer. he also made up his own vacuum insulation witch from what i have seen works really well. If nothing else he is a really nice guy and having just completed the same project may a good person to bounce ides off of.

Frank

Thanks Frank! I haven't met J.D. yet but know which boat you are talking about.

By the way, I tried walking over to the docks a while back looking for your boat, but never figured out which one it is. I'm sure I'll run into you again sometime so I can check it out

edit: Just checked out your blog and now I think I know which one it is

[mgraham49]

We are trying to leave shortly for the bahamas, and are replacing our existing system, which was a combo 110 / engine system from 1992. The engine driven system is kaput, and the 110 will work on the inverter, but draws 7 amps 110, which converts to about 110 amps 12v dc. (And I wonder where the battery went!)

I have had a frigoboat system bid for about 5k including installation and removal of old system, and an alder barber cold machine for about 3k. We have to do a quick haul anyway to do some welds on our swim platform so the haul is being done anyway.

Is anyone able to help me with why the frigoboat is worth 2k more than the AB system? And I am concerned about diminished capacity as the keel cooler gets marine growth.

Thanks, need to decide this weekend.

Mike Graham

Mike

[WanderingStar]

Mike, my "refrigerator" is just an ice box. But you may get more replies if you start a new thread. Good luck.

[fallard]

I installed an Isotherm system with coldplate about 10 years ago. It has the automatic speed up feature (when you are running your engine, it speeds up the compressor to freeze the coldplate more quickly). The refrigerant is circulated through a heat exchanger in the water side of a special through-hull fitting that replaces your galley sink drain through-hull.

The system is pre-charged with refrigerant and the installation is straightforward. The worst of it is taking out your old sink drain through-hull and replacing it with the special heat-exchanger/through-hull, but this is not rocket science.

Bottom line: Ultra-reliable and effective. I left it on at the dock, running on the house bank (no shore power connected) and it went for 4 days before I needed to charge the batteries, so I would say it is fairly efficient.

P.S. If you seal your icebox lid, using a gasket to minimize air leaks, you should minimize frost build up on the cold plate and thereby maximize your efficiency.

[-OvO-]

How big is your house bank? And what was the ambient temperature like during that experiment?

[fallard]

OvO: House bank then was 3 ea. 27-series gel cells. It was summertime in southern New England with the highs in the mid eighties (if memory serves). I probably decided to end the experiment when the bank voltage got close to 12V.

About 12 years ago I replaced my original (1990) Guest regulator with a smart regulator (MaxCharge) made by Balmar. It made a huge difference in the charging process and now I find the battery bank is getting more fully charged with less engine time.