[kaakre]

On an average 45 foot boat, with an average sized refrigeration system- how long will I have to run the engine to freeze the cold plates?

 

[mike dryver]

Why not call the MFG. They should be able to tell you right away,no!? with no information of mfg no one can say in real world

 

[kaakre]

At any rate- Grunert and Sea Frost appear to post specs except for average run time. Likely due to variations in box size and insulation as well as climate issues.

Did some more digging in forums and the short answer is about one hour every 12 hours in the tropics and less in cooler climes. Initial cool down will take longer. A rough average rule of thumb.

 

[Maine Sail]

At any rate- Grunert and Sea Frost appear to post specs except for average run time. Likely due to variations in box size and insulation as well as climate issues.

Did some more digging in forums and the short answer is about one hour every 12 hours in the tropics and less in cooler climes. Initial cool down will take longer. A rough average rule of thumb.

They don't publish that because there are so many variables. Installed pulley ratio, engine RPM, cold plate size, box size, insulation etc... I can take our Sea Frost plate down to -18F in about 35-40 minutes at fast idle. Or about 30 minutes at cruise RPM.. Every plate and install will be different.

The best thing to do is install a temp sensor directly to the plate so you don't over run the engine as that just becomes wasteful... With longer runs our plate will get colder than -18F but we have found -10F to -18F gets us about 12+ hours... Our Sea Frost shore assist was also custom converted by Cleave to run on DC (Danfoss BD 80) instead of on AC so we have both DC and engine driven all in the same holding plate..

 

[ctl411]

Maine, on the same circuit or two sets of lines?

 

[Maine Sail]

Maine, on the same circuit or two sets of lines?

My Sea Frost plate has two separate coils inside it one for the engine driven and one for AC or DC... This is a system Cleave offered for when on shore power to supplement the engine driven system and was called Shore Assist.

It was a 120V compressor feeding one coil and the engine driven compressor feeding the other coil. I had him convert my 120V AC compressor to DC as I can easily run DC at the dock if needed but can't really run AC when off the dock without horrible efficiency losses..

With the DC I can set it on low and supplement the engine driven system and we can get many, many days more quiet time before needing to run the motor...

 

[ctl411]

Thanks, I thought that would be the case. I have one circuit 110 v so I have to run the gen away from the dock.