JJ
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- May 1, 2008
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Just over ten years ago I bought a compressor fridge from CAK Tanks.
Italian design and German workings... the best of both worlds.
Easy to fit (two wires) and no need to level the van so exactly.
I bought a solar panel to produce the electricity.
For years it worked beautifully... with the fridge and then the laptop using a fair few amps I added more solar panels.
In the last few years the fridge started to work less and less well. I could hear it struggling... there is a cooling fan and a compressor... they make different noises... the fan would start up and then the compressor... but the compressor was kicking in and running for a little while and then switching off leaving just the fan running. I looked at the display and it was sucking up loads of leccy and the volts dropped. Needs more power I thought, another panel and thicker wires... not much better... batteries knackered, been dragged down too low and damaged, get new batteries...
...and with all this the fridge was less and less efficient. Piston in compressor must be worn... bet that is expensive... better order a new unit from CAK tanks... will they have one? Worry and more worry and loads of milk thrown away because the fridge had stopped working in the night. All right, in the day when the sun produced enough power it was ok but...
Well yesterday, parked at Quinta Majay (my tiny plot of land in Central Portugal) and with the sun blazing down, I went to get a cold beer out of the fridge and it wasn't cold...
Disaster.
So this morning, with another hot day in prospect, I decided enough was enough... I would wire the fridge directly to the genny to get it going and I removed it from its cupboard. This involved unscrewing eight screws and took about 73 seconds.
Instantly I saw the problem. The cooling fins of the evaporator thingy was completely and evenly caked all over with a centimetre thick layer of dust and fluff... the poor compressor and fan, German built or not, didn't stand a chance... the fan tried to cool things down... the compressor said "not enough air, I am switching off" and so no cooling.
No wonder over the years the fridge has been less and less efficient...
Just now I nearly got frostbite getting a cool can of coke...:thumb:
All well and good saying "don't do today what you can put off until tomorrow" but some times there is a downside...
...now should I finish my floor today? No, that can wait...
JJ :Cool:
Italian design and German workings... the best of both worlds.
Easy to fit (two wires) and no need to level the van so exactly.
I bought a solar panel to produce the electricity.
For years it worked beautifully... with the fridge and then the laptop using a fair few amps I added more solar panels.
In the last few years the fridge started to work less and less well. I could hear it struggling... there is a cooling fan and a compressor... they make different noises... the fan would start up and then the compressor... but the compressor was kicking in and running for a little while and then switching off leaving just the fan running. I looked at the display and it was sucking up loads of leccy and the volts dropped. Needs more power I thought, another panel and thicker wires... not much better... batteries knackered, been dragged down too low and damaged, get new batteries...
...and with all this the fridge was less and less efficient. Piston in compressor must be worn... bet that is expensive... better order a new unit from CAK tanks... will they have one? Worry and more worry and loads of milk thrown away because the fridge had stopped working in the night. All right, in the day when the sun produced enough power it was ok but...
Well yesterday, parked at Quinta Majay (my tiny plot of land in Central Portugal) and with the sun blazing down, I went to get a cold beer out of the fridge and it wasn't cold...
Disaster.
So this morning, with another hot day in prospect, I decided enough was enough... I would wire the fridge directly to the genny to get it going and I removed it from its cupboard. This involved unscrewing eight screws and took about 73 seconds.
Instantly I saw the problem. The cooling fins of the evaporator thingy was completely and evenly caked all over with a centimetre thick layer of dust and fluff... the poor compressor and fan, German built or not, didn't stand a chance... the fan tried to cool things down... the compressor said "not enough air, I am switching off" and so no cooling.
No wonder over the years the fridge has been less and less efficient...
Just now I nearly got frostbite getting a cool can of coke...:thumb:
All well and good saying "don't do today what you can put off until tomorrow" but some times there is a downside...
...now should I finish my floor today? No, that can wait...
JJ :Cool: