Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 08:49:14 -0700
Reply-To: Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Westy Fridge Conversion questions
In-Reply-To: <33400.1348065644@roadhaus.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Larry,
I have a Vitrifrigo in my van. It's a fine unit. Here are a couple
things I've learned.
1. It is set up to protect your battery. If the voltage at the reefer's
input terminals drop below a preset value, the reefer shuts off and it
won't restart until the voltage rises above another, higher, preset
value. The values are in the manual in the Danfoss section and I don't
have mine in front of me. But the point here is that if you have skinny
wire feeding the reefer, resistive losses will cause the voltage at the
reefer to be lower than at the battery. This can result in the thing
shutting down prematurely. So use fat wire.
2. The reefer is set up very conservatively for the low-voltage shutdown
and restart values. If you want to hit your battery more aggressively,
the Danfoss section of the manual describes how you can lower the
trigger points by use of a resistor between two terminals. It can even
be set to ignore battery voltage and just keep running. I personally
find the values too conservative and prefer to manage power manually
(I'd like to be able to make the choice between protecting the battery
or protecting a week's worth of food in the refrigerator myself) so I
set it to a lower value. My van has good metering for voltage and
battery state of charge.
3. On some models of the compressor you can set the compressor speed,
and thus its cooling and its current draw, with another resistor. See
the manual. It's unclear to me how this affects overall power usage over
the period of a day; by that I mean you can dial back the compressor
speed which results in less current being drawn while the compressor is
running but of course the compressor has to run longer to achieve the
same cooling. The default value might be at some sweet spot where
compressor efficiency is best, or maybe not, the manufacturer would
know, I don't. Someone would need to do some tests in a
temperature-controlled environment.
4. On a recent trip Mrs Squirrel and I were driving in some darn hot
weather, reckon it was about 100F inside the van. When we got to camp we
found that it was 70F inside the cabinet and that the compressor was
only coming on fitfully. Cycling power did not help. Then it seemed to
recover and start cooling. Whew. Anyway, the compressor has a terminal
on the back which can be hooked to an LED, and if the reefer goes into
one of five fault modes, the lamp will flash in one of five different
patterns. I mounted an LED to the facia of the reefer and pasted the
flash/symptom chart inside the door so the next time it gets its panties
in a bundle I can at least see what it's unhappy about.
5. The distributor is useless. I have emailed them twice with tech
questions, one about a dead terminal on the compressor which is meant to
provide regulated +12VDC for operation of the interior light -- the
other time about some other thing, I forget -- and they never got back.
Maybe they don't read so good and a phone call would have given results.
Hope this helps.
--
Jack "Rocket j Squirrel" Elliott
1984 Westfalia, auto trans,
Bend, Ore.
On 09/19/2012 07:40 AM, Larry Chase wrote:
> Volks,
>
> Getting ready to pull the old Dometic Fridge and install one of the new DC units.
>
> Leaning towards the Truckfridge T-49 because I understand it's a little quieter than the Vitrifrigo C60i.
>
> Input, suggestions and/or data from current Truckfridge& Vitrifrigo users would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> larry chase
> roadhaus.com
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