did you add a fan to your refrigerator?
We have a three year old Dometic side by side and am hoping to improve cooling and get hard ice cream. A fellow I met while traveling said he added a computer fan to improve air flow over the back of...
Forum Discussion
I have a small compressor fridge that comes with a fan on the condenser. I modified it to blow air through, instead of pull air through, which made it more effective and quieter.
The way I designed the Airflow, this single fan also has no choice but to pull cooler air from down below the fridge, push it through condenser once across the compressor and compressor controller, and out a vent, so the cooling unit is not bathed in air it itself has preheated.
I've also installed a 40mm 0.03a ~6cfm fan which blows into the small freezer portion of my fridge box which takes power from the luight and runs 24/7. This keeps the internal temps much more even, and allows me to use a lower setting to hold lower temperatures.
Since the fan itself adds some heat loading that the cooling unit must remove it does not make use less electricity or lower duty cycle, but without it the back upper portion of the fridge goes to the mid 40's with the floor at the low 30's. on a setting of ~3.7 of 7. With the fan on, and a setting of ~2.2 of 7 the temp range is 33.5 to 35.5F.
Proper installation is key. Sounds like the RV installers of absorption fridges are more worried about getting it done, rather than doing it properly. The baffling to allow natural convection currents would require too much labor at the factory level. Adding fans pushing from the lower end seems to help some, but should not be required if the install accounted for promoting convection currents.
Computer fans vary widely in air moved for noise made and current consumed. Fans internal to the fridge need not move huge amounts of air. If they are powerful then the fan hub is adding work to the cooling unit. If I had an absorption fridge in a regular RV, I'd concentrate on baffling the condenser, and adding a snap switch controlled fan on the roof vent to suck air from the area behind the fridge when certain temps were exceeded.
The way I designed the Airflow, this single fan also has no choice but to pull cooler air from down below the fridge, push it through condenser once across the compressor and compressor controller, and out a vent, so the cooling unit is not bathed in air it itself has preheated.
I've also installed a 40mm 0.03a ~6cfm fan which blows into the small freezer portion of my fridge box which takes power from the luight and runs 24/7. This keeps the internal temps much more even, and allows me to use a lower setting to hold lower temperatures.
Since the fan itself adds some heat loading that the cooling unit must remove it does not make use less electricity or lower duty cycle, but without it the back upper portion of the fridge goes to the mid 40's with the floor at the low 30's. on a setting of ~3.7 of 7. With the fan on, and a setting of ~2.2 of 7 the temp range is 33.5 to 35.5F.
Proper installation is key. Sounds like the RV installers of absorption fridges are more worried about getting it done, rather than doing it properly. The baffling to allow natural convection currents would require too much labor at the factory level. Adding fans pushing from the lower end seems to help some, but should not be required if the install accounted for promoting convection currents.
Computer fans vary widely in air moved for noise made and current consumed. Fans internal to the fridge need not move huge amounts of air. If they are powerful then the fan hub is adding work to the cooling unit. If I had an absorption fridge in a regular RV, I'd concentrate on baffling the condenser, and adding a snap switch controlled fan on the roof vent to suck air from the area behind the fridge when certain temps were exceeded.
