How long does your fridge take to cool down?

[Cheechako]

cold plates or just an evaporator? I say overnight to tell if it's getting cold enough. You should see frost on an evaporator within an hour though. Best to turn fridge on the night before a survey, sometimes they will initially frost up a little then not cool.

[tomfl]

Originally Posted by Richard Kollmann

As I understand it you would like to lower the 250B chamber temperature to increase ice production without lowering refrigerator space temperature.

To adjust the temperature lower in freezing chamber to provide a an adequate Delta T difference from refrigerator area of box cover a portion of evaporator’s exterior with moisture resistant poor heat conducting material. I have seen ½ inch plastic board slid between chamber and back wall, as most of these evaporators are mounted ¾ of an inch off the wall. The bottom of these chamber evaporators can also be shielded reducing heat transfer. It is desirable for reasonable 12 hour ice production to maintain evaporator at 10 degrees F or less. Standard thermostats that control evaporator temperature will produce 10 degrees F inside chamber with control knob set on 3 to 4.
Insulating anywhere on evaporator’s exterior will increase the refrigerator’s area temp while lowering freezer area temps inside freezer chamber. The best ice production from a BD50 combination box is 4 pounds of cubes in 12 hours.

Thanks for the details Richard. What I was trying to do was adjust the temperature right after installation. I was also playing around trying to see how realistic it was to keep the temperature low enough to store ice cream.

Turns out making ice is a lot easier to do than keep ice cream from getting soft. I was using an infrared gun to measure how cold the evaporator got and at 18 degrees it was making ice, but I am not sure how long it took.

I have a 440 amp battery bank and 430 watt solar array. I also have a 44qt Engel in the cockpit that I open multiple times a day, while I normally open the Frigobot one time a day or less. I did put some silver mylar bubble wrap between the evaporator and the walls of the fridge on two sides and on the plate on the bottom.

Question is should I put some bubble wrap over the opening on the top as well. I am not sure how that would change the circulation.

So far I am very pleased with the way things are working, but always looking for ways to improve.

[Richard Kollmann]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

cold plates or just an evaporator? I say overnight to tell if it's getting cold enough. You should see frost on an evaporator within an hour though. Best to turn fridge on the night before a survey, sometimes they will initially frost up a little then not cool.

Cheechako, Holding plates are only for storing surplus energy and are far less efficient than freezer evaporator bins that surrounds frozen product.