Solar Refrigerator

[Keith]

Solar Fridges and Freezers

And now a word from our sponsor. If you are interested in looking at solar refrigerators or freezers, you can look at them at SolarTown's website, which has them either as a standalone product or as kits with the charge controllers, solar panels, and batteries. http://www.solartown.com/store/catal...-and-freezers/ Depending on where you are, they come with about 2-4 days backup. You can also purchased a direct drive, which comes without the batteries, but you have to be reasonably certain that you are going to have some sun soon. And for all of these, you can also purchase an AC adaptor.

[bidaw]

My neighbor has a home dialysis machine which runs from the time he goes to bed at night til he arises in the a.m. Between the fridge that holds his insulin and the little pump on his dialysis machine, he has a critical minimum for his PV-powered log cabin. That is a bit more critical than most of us face, but you get the drift.

Wow...this was me last year...that is before I got my transplant in April. All of that time on dialysis at home allowed me to solder up over 20 DIY panels that I currently charge my batteries with. I agree though, having backup power in that situation is critical!

[Mike90250]

Any loads you can shift to the sunlight hours, are loads that run at 70% efficiency, instead of 50%. After batteries come up out of bulk and the PV demand drops back, run your gear day-times, not night, if you can.

[BritishPete]

Convert a chest freezer! I did and use only 180W per day average. It's a simple job costing only $25 and one hours work

[russ]

A chest type is inconvenient but a real energy saver. One takes their choice - extra cost or inconvenience.

180 watts is excellent.

[BritishPete]

A chest type is inconvenient but a real energy saver. One takes their choice - extra cost or inconvenience.

180 watts is excellent.

my original 4.7 Cu ft RV fridge was at low level and really hard to store/see things in. My 5 cu ft chest is fitted with multiple (5) stacked wire baskets and is much easier to access. Best of all the chest cost only $162 from Walmart

[john p]

we tried a chest freezer converted to a fridge.Sure it uses less power ,,BUT it drove us mad in a month.. Its just so hard to use even half its space usefully. deep baskets donthelp much either.They take a lot of effort to lift them out,and very time consuming.
ive actually toyed with the idea of using all the components in a chest freezer and building them into a home made fridge with about 6 to 8 inches of insulation .I think if the "cabinet" was built from marine plywood and lined with aluminium.iot should be then very effecient and user friendly.? but havnt seen anyone else actually with a built and tested one.

[Sunking]

Convert a chest freezer! I did and use only 180W per day average. It's a simple job costing only $25 and one hours work

180 watts is meaningless without a time element. Electrical energy is Watt Hours.

[BritishPete]

For mine I assembled 3 wire baskets (vegetables/dairy/other) one above each other with spaces in between for easy access and all attached to each other by light weight aluminum angle, these went to one side of the freezer then on the freezer step I placed one more basket for my beer collection. That left the basket supplied with the freezer which still slides left to right. The bottom of the freezer between the baskets and compressor step is for a gallon of milk and a gallon of orange juice. I find I definitely have more room and better accessible too than the fridge I had before which was a real pain because I had to sit on the floor to see what was in it. also I am saving about 300 Kwhr per year

[BritishPete]

It's all about insulation and door openings If I were to build one it would have no door shelves just 4 tight fitting slide out drawers so that only a portion of the cold air escaped.

[thastinger]

I've got to try this chest freezer to fridge conversion and I have a kill-a-watt to report the results with. It'll be a few weeks before I do it though, have to many irons in the fire right now.

[thastinger]

Well, as promised, I'm here to report the results of my conversion. I converted a 5ish year old 8.8CuFt chest freezer to a fridge and my kill-a-watt reported .546Kwh used in a 25 hour period with the temp set at 33F and it got opened alot of times during that period. It works great to keep my beer cold, would be a PITA to use as a normal fridge but I suppose it could be made tolerable with compartmented baskets etc.

[FloridaSun]

Well, as promised, I'm here to report the results of my conversion. I converted a 5ish year old 8.8CuFt chest freezer to a fridge and my kill-a-watt reported .546Kwh used in a 25 hour period with the temp set at 33F and it got opened alot of times during that period. It works great to keep my beer cold, would be a PITA to use as a normal fridge but I suppose it could be made tolerable with compartmented baskets etc.

Sounds well within the limits of my 24v/200Ah batts, even better if I buy a new, smaller 5cu ft chest freezer to convert. Have the Wh used when it was working as a freezer? oh, and which conversion unit did you use?
Thanks for the info

[thastinger]

It used about 1.1 for the same period of time when it was used as a freezer. My numbers are probably a bit higher than most because there were 3 people opening the top all the time to retrieve "refreshments"

I used the Johnson Controls A19AAT-2C Freezer Temperature Controller for the conversion. Of course, the freezer is not modified in any way and could still be a freezer if plugged directly into the outlet vs being plugged into the johnson controls unit.

[Olberg]

In Europe we off grid people use a+++ (the more pluses the less energy it draws) fridges. They use less than 7W or 71kWh/year. This is a full size unit.
It's a technology using compressor and a fan (230v).
I'm happy, it keeps my food and beer cool at almost no energy at all. (My energy readings this summer are quite close to manufacturing promises)

Both Bosch and Siemens make them.
You know about these don't you?
Cos I got a bit worried reading how much energy your fridges draw.
/O