Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2019 01:08:13 +0000
Reply-To: David Boan <dboan@OUTLOOK.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: David Boan <dboan@OUTLOOK.COM>
Subject: Re: Dometic Fan
In-Reply-To: <433a6bec-d3bd-c582-68b1-65845d19e80b@cox.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I wonder what "working well" means with a dometic fridge, so I gathered some numbers. ...
Running on 12v from the house battery, engine not running, for one hour, the temp of the cooling fins inside the fridge is 49 (measured with an infra-red sensor). The outside temp, both in my garage and inside the van, is 98. The temp on the outside of the fridge door is 96 (an indication of marginal cooling loss?).
During that hour, the house battery went from 12.5 volts to 12.3 volts. I do not have resistance or amp data to know if this is reasonable. I anticipate running this from my solar panel, which will keep the battery charged during the day, but obviously not at night. I am curious to calculate how much the battery will be drawn down after 12 hours.
I think that, for this fridge, cooling 50 degrees in hot weather is running fairly well.
I then switched to 120v. Understanding the fridge was already cool, I wanted to see if 120v would get it cooler. After an hour the same spot (cooling fins) were 40. The outside temp was 97.
Tomorrow I will start again and run it on gas.
Does that compare well with what people think is good performance from a dometic fridge?
Dave B
Boise
________________________________
From: vw_van_fan_Mark <madvws@cox.net>
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 7:22 PM
To: David Boan <dboan@OUTLOOK.COM>; vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Subject: Re: Dometic Fan
I've done it to several vans in my family over the years. It helped all
of them, when camping in warm weather. It also reduces the amount of
running of the main fan. It isn't a fix for fridges that aren't already
working well, it just lets well working fridges do better in hotter
weather than they otherwise would.
Mark
David Boan wrote:
> I just came across Frank Condelli & Associates article on fridge maintenance (See http://www.frankcondelli.com/fridge.htm ), and one of the upgrades they recommend is to put an exhaust fan for the fridge in place of the city water hookup (or cut a new hole if you use that hookup). The idea is that this will vent the heat from the fridge outside rather than inside, which is the current setup. My questions is has anyone done this? What size fan did you use and where did you find it? Was it worth the effort?
>
>
> Thanks
> Dave B
> Boise, ID
>
