Refrigeration.... the topic makes me HOT!

When we bought Volunteer she was set up with what I thought was an ideal combination of refrigeration, She has a Dometic ( I can hardly say the word anymore without adding a cuss word to the sentence) and a built in huge freezer with a danfoss compressor and double cold plates that also has some " spill over" refrigerator space. The damn ( oops there I go ) dometic unit is a PITA, in 8 years I have changed the cooling unit, 2- main circuit boards, 2- igniter boards. I have kept the unit because it is a 3way rv style unit and at anchor we run it on propane, so no battery draw= happy captain. The unit is above deck and can gravity drain so I have not been real concerned ( I know some will disagree with this ). My rant is because the newly rebuilt cooling unit ( last year) crapped out last week and it involves removing the damn ( oops) thing again to replace the luckly still under warantee cooling unit. The unit is roughly 55"h x 23"w x 23"d. do the compressor norcold units use gobs of power?..... any thoughts?

edit: Im a moron..........I didnt look* at the last topic on refrigeration .... sorry guys

-- Edited by hollywood8118 on Sunday 27th of June 2010 09:54:58 AM

Hollywood, the power consumption of the Norcold is fairly high.* That's because the insulation isn't the best.* I don't know if you would want to take on the project, but I had a similar space to fit a refer on Delfin and built it myself.* I used vacuum panels and foam board for insulation, and Danfoss units.* I forget what the R factor is, but it is a whole lot higher than any off the shelf unit, so the power consumption is about as low as one can get.* I got what I needed, including the vacuum panels from rparts.com, which sadly looks like they are closing their doors.* There are differing opinions on cold plate vs. hermetic units like the Danfoss, but for simplicity and reliability, it is hard to beat the Danfoss units.

If you want the design drawings I did for my unit - about the same size as your sapce, let me know.

The usual dometic problems are caused by really cheap computer boards.

Google Dinasor (sp?) and get a better board.

Then be sure to hook it up to the DC power with #8 wires .The DC heating element draws loads.

All compressor fridges suck compared to propane where you can go a year with no electric.

Replacong the unit look at the Serville , (made by Dometic)* with* nice thick insulation , and no brain board , JUST PROPANE, as made for the Amish.



-- Edited by FF on Monday 28th of June 2010 04:46:22 AM