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Cold beer


chic014

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On my yacht I only have solar charging a 225ah house battery via a solar regulator. I'm looking a t getting a cheap 12v thermoelectric,fridge to keep beer cold.

 

It will obviously chew through my limited battery storage, so the idea I had was that when the house battery is full the current from the solar panel would be redirected to the fridge.

 

Would a VSR work for this purpose? Could it work with a battery and a fridge rather than two batteries? Or is there a better way to do this?

 

Also I think a thermoelectric fridge should be ok being turned off and on again. Correct? Probably not with a compressor fridge?

 

any advice much appreciated.

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Don't know about the wiring but I do know thermoelectric use a motherload more power than a compressor version, knot a little bit, a LOT.

 

My compressor fridge (waeco 40 odd lt) uses an amp an hour and we also have a very low power input boat. We have little power issues when using it as our 40W panel can easily keep ahead of it on a average day.

 

The only downside of a compressor version is they weigh more. Also watch for the heat put out by a thermoelectric, good in winter but on a already hot day in a hot boat maybe knot so good.

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My experience of a thermoelectric (tropicool) was not good. Massive power draw, very little cool, lots of heat. Pretty sure the data backs that up

 

Went to a Waeco and much better.

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Bah! What's with this amp-an-hour, or amps per day?! An amp is the amount of current being drawn at any time, period.

If you have a 12 volt system, and the unit draws 1 amp (when actually running the compressor), it is consuming 12 watts.

Over a day, that will be 12 watts x 24 hours = 288 watt-hours; or 0.288 kwh per day.

 

End of anal rant ( :mrgreen: ), now my _real_ question: Am assuming (KM's post) that 12 watts is the AVERAGE; but it seems almost too good to be true.

Do they really consume that little power?

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I've got a Waeco sitting at home gathering dust, if you want to try it for a few days, you're most welcome, just to see how it copes with the charging capacity.

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thermoelectrics draw minimum of 6 amps when on. AS soon as you turn them off, the heat you extracted can get drawn back in by the heatsink. They are toys.. even the Waeco brand ones.

CF-Waeco's can use 3 amps initially when going continously when cooling down, but once at temperature, the thermostat controls when it turns on. hence the average use of under 1 ah/h ... I had a Cf19, which overnight would only turn on maybe 2 or 3 times a night for half an hour.. at 3 degrees..!

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Bah! What's with this amp-an-hour, or amps per day?! An amp is the amount of current being drawn at any time, period.

If you have a 12 volt system, and the unit draws 1 amp (when actually running the compressor), it is consuming 12 watts.

Over a day, that will be 12 watts x 24 hours = 288 watt-hours; or 0.288 kwh per day.

 

End of anal rant ( :mrgreen: ), now my _real_ question: Am assuming (KM's post) that 12 watts is the AVERAGE; but it seems almost too good to be true.

Do they really consume that little power?

Oui, don't go all electro-techo on this elctro clues low lad. The other thread of your I ran through Google Translate as it makes no sense when you, me and AA at least by the looks, just read it. Google's response was 'Fucked if I know' so I was please to see I wasn't alone :lol: :lol:

 

Besides my battery is measured in amps so if I work on taking 0.288kwh out each day I may as well work on the fridge drawing 3 Indian Elephants per 17.35 lunar cycles for all the good it'll do me. Us simple folk like simple stuff and it gets no simpler than 1amp each hour.

 

Anyway the book says '1amp consumption'. 0.8 actually I rounded it up. To answer your 'too good to be true' comment, yes I totally thought that myself but it still looked miles better than the thermoelectric so I went compressor. Now having had it a couple of seasons I have zero reason to disbelieve the 1 amp, there abouts, number. We load it up at home while plugged in to the mains, 30mins later (yes that quick) it's down to 4 degrees and we drop it in the boat and swap to 12v. Works magnificently and does use bugger all.

 

I say bugger all and should add when used out of direct sunlight in a well ventilated spot. I did have it in a place the motor couldn't get masses of clean air and it seemed to run more often, as it did when it was in direct sunlight. I gave it better air and keep the sun off it, just using a towel will work, and the motor runs a lot less.

 

Just like AB1974, mine is also a Waeco compressor one, a CF40 I think it is. I think it's magnificent and worth the approx 1K it cost.

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An ICY TEK chilly bin will keep cold for 4 - 5 days with 4 x 1.5l frozen bottles of water in it.

 

Uses no power :thumbup:

 

If going away for longer then 5 days, have the waeco on standby and run as a fridge after that or use it to freeze the bottles of water (usually within 24 hrs) and keep the chilly going for another 5 days :D

 

If you are really keen, replace the bottled water with a meths solution :thumbup:

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I think the key there is to load up the fridge at home and get it down to temperature on mains power first. I would imagine that the power consumption for chilling food down would be higher than that required to maintain a low temperature.

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I measured my Waeco CF50 at approx 4 amps with the motor running. I was getting an approx 25% duty cycle so I was also seeing approx 1amp/hr. Like KM I quickly found that the duty cycle ramped up with poor ventilation and direct sunlight. We would load it up with cold contents and use the turbo setting while on mains before we left. If we were going away for extended periods we would freeze the contents and slowly raise the temperature to maintain the desired duty cycle/temperature.

 

Mine is also now sitting in the garage gathering dust so you are welcome to try .....

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Just fitted a new 150amp hour deep cycle battery on my daughters boat to run her electric freezer..

It's hooked up to a BP 125watt 5amp solar panel together with a very clever controller. It indicates battery state, draw, input, total input over 24hrs etc.. the Fan cooled Danfoss DB35 compressor was drawing 1.3amps while the solar panel was putting in 4.2 amps under bright sun..Having read all the good oil regarding installing new deep cycle batteries I surprisingly had it on charge for 18hrs to fully load. The new set up had the fridge at -11 in just over 2.5hrs..Super Cold beers on her boat now..no more excuses to come over and drink mine...C :clap:

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I have a 60 litre fiberglass "evaKool" running as a fridge freezer. It draws 3 amps in economy mode (slow fan speed). Freezer makes ice no problems. Duty cycle roughly 25%. Or around 18 amps per day . ((216 watts :D ))

It is kept out of direct sunlight. (In the fore berth).

If you run these fridges constantly, it is worth cleaning the air grill and heat exchanger from time to time , they gather dust.

Otherwise great gear.

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The new set up had the fridge at -11

Way to cold for a fridge though. I would be considering that temp for a freezer, but even then, for a boat and being an electrical fridge, -11 is probably a little too much for a freezer even. Everything is always a compromise to enable to save on energy on a boat. Anywhere from +1 to +5 deg for a fridge, with +5 being the norm. Anything from 0 down, just freezes the vegies, plus you are just wasting energy and from -2 down will freeze the Beer.

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