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Date:         Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:47:11 -0600
Reply-To:     Steve Williams <steve@WILLIAMSITCONSULTING.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Steve Williams <steve@WILLIAMSITCONSULTING.COM>
Subject:      Solution - Re: Dometic fridge (external) fan replacement...
In-Reply-To:  <5e1dc97d-70b4-e1e7-eb6e-ebf6cd5a3602@williamsitconsulting.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

Hi,

I used the approximate specifications from the GoWesty fridge fan replacement & bought a 120mm computer fan from my local computer store. I went for a good quality, quiet fan with slightly less cfm's than the GoWesty fan. Theirs is 85 cfm & I got a 78 cfm fan (to get something very quiet - 27 db and a "reasonable" current draw - 0.16A, 1.92W.

Other people have mentioned the computer "muffin fans". They come in so many sizes/capacities the "muffin fan" designation was a bit ambiguous which was bothering me.

Thinking about volume... 75 cubic feet of air seems like a reasonable amount of air to be moving! That's almost 3 cubic yards of air moved per minute (assuming no restrictions). The fan I got was a 4 wire fan and after a bit of research found that pin #1 is ground, pin #2 is +12v and the other 2 pins are for speed control & speed sensing (feedback to a computer which I don't care about).

I butchered an old power supply to get a piece of tin with a big round hole in it to make a 90 degree bracket. I used the same mounting holes as the original fan but made the bracket the full width of the fan. I isolated vibration sensitive components as much as possible using bike innertube rubber. I did use 2 screws to attach the fan to the bracket & 2 of the rubber isolation mounts that were included with the fan. I didn't like the idea of having 4 corroding piecies of rubber in the back of the fridge so compromised with 2 screws.

The fan does stick out a bit from the back of the fridge, but given it's the same size as the GoWesty one, I'm hoping it all fits back in :) I've washed all the fins & waiting for everything to dry.

I also opened up the combustion box and cleaned it out. It wasn't in too bad of shape. I also removed the jet & tried to clean it, but it's such a TINY jet, I really didn't do that great of a job. Just poured some solvent through & flushed with brake cleaner & compressed air.

Here's a photo to how I set the fan up. The photo is hosted on my home server so might be a bit slow to load... not the "instant" Internet we are all so used to :)

http://www.williamsitconsulting.com/misc/DometicFan.jpg

Thanks for everyone's input. At a bare minimum, I won't be woken up in the middle of the night by a squealing fan :)

Cheers, Steve Williams

http://www.williamsitconsulting.com/misc/DometicFan.jpg

On 28/08/2016 12:08 AM, Steve Williams wrote: > Hi, > > The fan on my Dometic fridge started squealing quite loudly when it > starts up. Not so great in the middle of the night ;) > > I am just going to replace it with a computer fan. I've got a few old > PC's that I can butcher. I figure I can cut up the metal from a power > supply to make a suitable bracket. Looking at the orientation of the > existing fan, I'll have to make a 90 degree bracket which isn't too > challenging if I use a power supply to cut up. > > I can't be the only person that's had to do this. What size fan (cfm?) > did you use? What RPM did you use? I'm going to try to find a fairly > quiet fan, but really don't know what the cooling capacity should be. > > Thanks, > Steve Williams


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