Caribbean pricing.

[john_morris_uk]

We have one of these controlling our fridge.

Amazon.com.

Amazon cost $12.99

It works extremely well but as I’ve posted in PBO a wire on the thermistor is broken. I’ve just been in a marine store in Sint Maarten where they offered me a whole new unit.

Sit down.

Price $344

Exactly the same unit…!

 

[mjcoon]

Now you realise that at that (original) price buying a second one as a spare would have been a good investment...

 

[john_morris_uk]

Now you realise that at that (original) price buying a second one as a spare would have been a good investment...

Problem is I bought the first one in Martinique for just over £100 with gritted teeth as my mechanical thermostat had packed up.

 

[GHA]

even way back a while ago the UK price was too much so I made one from an arduino, cheaper & v2 now talks over wifi
Lasted longer as well, though cheap enough to have spares for such a useful thing as a fridge.
Tricky thinking of all the little bits where spares might be hard to get when cruising.

 

[yoda]

We have one of these controlling our fridge.

Amazon.com.

Amazon cost $12.99

It works extremely well but as I’ve posted in PBO a wire on the thermistor is broken. I’ve just been in a marine store in Sint Maarten where they offered me a whole new unit.

Sit down.

Price $344

Exactly the same unit…!

I can get one out to Granada if that helps?

 

[john_morris_uk]

I can get one out to Granada if that helps?

Thanks Yoda; that’s really kind. Unfortunately we’re in Sint Maarten atm and going to lay up in St Kitts (keel in a trench) so nowhere near Grenada. I’ll see if Doug (RumPirate) can get Amazon deliveries. Otherwise I’ll epoxy over the solder joint to provide mechanical support and heatshrink sleeve over that. It’ll hopefully survive like that until we come out again next winter. In the meantime I’ll climb in the cockpit locker and get the multimeter on the connection to the thermistor and try and work out which one it is.

 

[john_morris_uk]

PS. There’s nothing unfortunate about being in Sint Maarten.

 

[KeelsonGraham]

I assume you know about these guys?

https://westtechshipping.com/

Buy your stuff on Amazon.com and have it delivered to you in the islands.

 

[geem]

I assume you know about these guys?

https://westtechshipping.com/

Buy your stuff on Amazon.com and have it delivered to you in the islands.

I was going to post the same. We have used West Tech a lot in the last 12 months. Get stuff sent to their warehouse in Florida. They will airfreight to St M or in our case Antigua for very little money. We ship stuff in to Antigua on the basis of yacht in transit. The smallest item airfreight, custom cleared and delivered is €16EC. Lithium battery cells x8 shipped were £40. Fly time from Florida is about 3 days including customs clearance from Florida.
It's far cheaper than even the duty free St M

 

[john_morris_uk]

I assume you know about these guys?

https://westtechshipping.com/

Buy your stuff on Amazon.com and have it delivered to you in the islands.

Thank you. I’m sort of aware as a local business (called ‘Business Point’) runs an similar scheme. Problem is Business Point’s deal is you get the item delivered to Miami by a Tuesday and they then get it shipped here five days later. We can’t wait that long as we’ve got to get the boat to St Kitts and laid up by 11 May as I’ve got a delivery job I starting in Nassau on 15 May.

In the meantime, I’ve re soldered it and then encapsulated in epoxy plus put a heatshrink sleeve over it. Hopefully it’ll hold together until I fly out with a new one next season.

 

[john_morris_uk]

Here’s my repair.

I’ve measured the resistance and it was approximately 22k ohms at the temperature it was at so I’m assuming a 20 k nominal resistance thermistor will be a replacement.

https://amzn.eu/d/fbkVlkj

Just got to work out if I will need to recalibrate the electronics box for what isn’t an OE thermistor… There’s bound to be a calibration pot in there somewhere.

 

[john_morris_uk]

Of course in the finest tradition of DIY & PBO, now that it’s working again I can just leave it well alone.

 

[harvey38]

We know Jef and Lou who run Ocean Explorers dive centre on Kim Sha beach, if you drop by there, I'm sure they'll order it through their Amazon account.

 

[john_morris_uk]

We know Jef and Lou who run Ocean Explorers dive centre on Kim Sha beach, if you drop by there, I'm sure they'll order it through their Amazon account.

Thank you. I suspect the wait time will be too long. We need to move on in a couple of days.