Fridge cooler unit recommendation please

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The thirteen year old fridge unit on our boat is noisy and a mate reckons that a new one would be quieter and maybe more efficient as well. I'm not at the boat so can't measure the fridge compartment but I guess it's no more than about 15 cubic feet capacity.

I'm not looking to do water cooled (I'm not keen to cut more holes in the hull!) so it will be an air cooled unit. Obviously the lower the power draw the better.

If anyone has any experience of good units and/or good helpful suppliers I'd be most grateful.

rob
 
I would have recommended Penguin until a few days ago when the electronic unit packed up on mine after two years.
£90 for a replacement! No repair or part exchange /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif
Having got that off my chest, the units are compact quiet and efficient.
 
I have just completely rebuilt my fridge from scratch as the old one was hopelessly under insulated. New unit from Penguin - who are really good and helpful.

Before spending any money ask your self the following questions:

1. Are you likely to be going somewhere hot? - If so get a keel kooler - only a tiny and dead easy hole in the bottom - best solution.

2. What is the insulation like on the current fridge - should be around 3 to 4 inches especially if going somewhere hot.

3. Charging - if the fridge is inefficient, how much are you prepared to run the engine to replace charge?

Mine will run constantly on solar panels with no external charging.
 
Are you keeping the original box and just replacing compressor+control box+plate? If so then I believe the bits are actually all made by Danfoss whether you buy brands Isotherm, Penguin, Frigoboat etc. That's not meant to be in anyway a criticism. The compressors are an ingenious design.
 
I've just changed the innards of our fridge. It's surprisingly big at about 200L and with the old unit devouring nearly 6A when running on a duty cycle of 60% on, it was a big draw on the domestic batteries.
I replaced it with Waeco units (new compressor - CU85 and VD 09 evaporator plate) bought from Marine Superstore in Port Solent and am generally pleased with it. The current consumption is now 2.6A when running and the duty cycle appears to have dropped a bit (although I haven't been using it long enough to properly monitor it).
It's almost silent and at about £400 including the autochangeover when plugged into mains, seems to have done what I wanted.
By my calculations 15 cubic feet comes out at 420Litres making that one biiiiig fridge. I could have reduced the size of ours as others have done to make it more efficient or possibly used a isotherm with a hull cooler but that bought the cost up to nearly £1K and a bit out of my budget.

Hope that helps

Piddy
 
I'm wondering about getting the auto mains adaptor thing. Do you know if the 12v is isolated from the mains? Is it even earthed? At the moment my shore power is simply an RCD protected double socket in the saloon. So not connected the batteries in any way. I'm happy with that but not if the fridge transformer connects the mains earth to the 0v!
 
Hmm... I've had to think about that. IIRC the supply from the domestic battery is attached to one set of terminals. The other terminals are taken to the compressor. A further lead with a continental style plug is then plugged into the mains as per the instructions.
I have to confess I haven't finished the mains side of it yet as a new spur will have to be added, so at present it is just a 12v fridge.
I can't find anything that gives a clue as to isolation from anything. It talks about the "rectifier"connected to 230v - I think it is too small to use transformer technology to step down to 24v (which is what it is) bearing in mind there has to be relays etc. within the small box.
As it's a unit designed for marine installation, I guess (and it is a guess) it is isolated.
The idea really appeals to me so all the charge from my charger goes into the battery banks rather than the fridge.
Hope that helps

Piddy
 
having been using the Isotherm ASU unit for nearly 20 years I'd recommend that.

For oldsaltoz, it has a computer fan supplied pushing air over the heat exchanger.

Ironically both the the Waeco and Isothem unit use the same 230v ac compressor.

Mine draws 5.0 amps @ 12v on start up and 4.5amps @ supercool (when more than 13.5 v in system) on non-charge conditions it draws 2.5 amps.
Mine is cooling a 48 litre chamber, runs about 20' every 5 hours in 28Cambient.

How much power they use is down to how often you open the lid and how well you insulate the compartment.

Mine is fairly well insulated except round the door.

IMHO the ac changeover is a superfluous gimmick, if you're on shore power and have a switch-mode (pulse) charger that's supplying the power, not the battery - if you're not on shorepower....

For my money the original Freon12 unit was the most efficient, it drew the same power but only needed to run about 60% of the time of the new unit (but that's environmental progress).

Back-up from Anders @ Thermoproduktor AB in Kalmar has been 2nd to none # 0046 480 15080. Telephone advice in Portugal, air-shipping to Spain and Croatia... They're the manufacturers and real enthusiasts.

PS If you duct the fan, water cooling is irrelevant, contrary to the preaching from theoretical pulpits, the unit has behaved faultlessly in ambients in excess of 32C.

PS The one thing they won't stand (Waeco included) is getting drowned, either salt or fresh water.

PSS I'm a 8/12 liveaboard so it's really working...
 
[ QUOTE ]
For my money the original Freon12 unit was the most efficient, it drew the same power but only needed to run about 60% of the time of the new unit (but that's environmental progress).

[/ QUOTE ]

And what a good job they did, took us off R12 refrigerant gas because it was not at all good for the environment.

Replaced with a much less efficient mix of gasses that need 10% more energy to achieve the same amount of cooling as the old gas.

So how much more pollution are we now producing from fridges, air conditioning, cold water dispensers, ice manufacture and the list goes on and is growing.

Yes very smart move, and all because 'some' R12 was being released some times, but the 10% increase in demand is going on every day and all night.

No, I'm not a greeny hater, but I sometimes wonder.....
 
Ever wondered why the hole in the ozone layer disappeared from the news? Because the hole disappeared as CFCs have gone out of use. A problem solved doesn't make a good newspaper story, but it helps us to contine living above ground.
Derek
 
The hole has disappeared from the news but it's almost as big as before. It's not getting bigger, though, which is due to the new refrigerants. It'll take decades to actually get smaller. The hole over the North Pole, on the contrary, has been getting smaller.

On the subject of fridges: installed Waeco CU55 with ASU unit and am genuinely pleased with performance, price and ease of installation. 90L fridge box and much less battery drain than 55L Engel fridge - about 25%!
 
Think about it, the volume of CFC's from your average fridge after being dumped at around 10+ years old would be nothing compared to the volume used as propellants in spray cans.

Removing this was a good green move, but making cooling need 10% more power and most of the power coming from burning coal is madness.
 
<<Ever wondered why the hole in the ozone layer disappeared from the news? Because the hole disappeared as CFCs have gone out of use.>>

Such faith does you credit sir. Perhaps the fact that one of the holes started reducing before the ban came into effect was due to the same cause?

But you're quite right about good news being no news - perhaps we have the press we deserve.
 
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