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kymooses View Drop Down
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Joined: 01 Aug 2010
Location: Louisville, Ky
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Posts: 1807 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: Bypass Fridge T-stat control
    Posted: 06 Sep 2011 at 5:40pm
Didn't get a chance to take thermometer readings but as I said I did verify that the fans in the back work.  Still plan to double check the temps this week with and empty fridge and see what I can get temperature wise.
 
 
But what I did find that worked is I popped the vent off the fridge and took a mid size desk fan and stuck in the opening and blew air over the coils all weekend.  Not sure the temps of course but our freezer stuff was very frozen and things in the fridge were pretty cool too.
 
 
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Posts: 9062 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Sep 2011 at 12:53pm
This discussion motivated me to take one of our indoor/outdoor thermometers with us this past weekend.  We keep the temperature control on "5" all the time, and I saw 35 degrees every morning and usually around 38 during the day, with jumps up to 40-41 after opening it.  Daytime temps were in the upper 80's.
Doug ~ '10 171 (2009-2015) ~ 2008 Salem ~ Pod instruction manual
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Posts: 6128 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Sep 2011 at 9:44am
38 is fine, it is in fact what my home fridge sits at.. anything between 32.1 and 40 is good to go as far as long term storage of food stuffs goes. Not that our camper fridge holds enough to need long term plans..
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Posts: 539 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Sep 2011 at 8:56am
Originally posted by HuronSailor



It's about $14, and you can buy a lot of "D" cells for the price difference between it and the solar powered fan kit.


That is what I have.  It helped.  But my fridge still stays around 38 degrees.  It does keep the fridge at an even temperature with no warm spots though.  And that is the biggest help.
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Posts: 9062 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Sep 2011 at 5:32pm
I added a baffle behind our popup's fridge to force all the air to go from the lower compartment, through only the fan, then up to the top compartment.  It helped.
Doug ~ '10 171 (2009-2015) ~ 2008 Salem ~ Pod instruction manual
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Joined: 10 Jun 2009
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Posts: 704 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 Sep 2011 at 9:24am
IMHO, I wouldn't bother. My reasoning:

I added a Camco thermostatically controlled 12 volt fan to the outside compartment of my fridge as a helper to the two factory fans. I saw zero improvement in fridge performance. Last camping trip, after two seasons, the fan motor stopped working. I can't find that item online anymore or I'd show you.


It's about $14, and you can buy a lot of "D" cells for the price difference between it and the solar powered fan kit.

The baffle idea is definitely worth exploring. I added a simple luan baffle to the inside wall of our pod's fridge compartment to help isolate some of that extra dead air space, but I don't think my design had much of an effect.  It also was removed when the fan died.
.: Mark & Beth :: Silverado 5.3L :: 2018 rPod 180 :.
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Posts: 539 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 Sep 2011 at 8:07am
Okay, you tech guys!
 
Would this be hard to install?  I don't know if I would be comfortable if I had to mess with any wiring. 
 
http://www.campingworld.com/browse/skus/index.cfm?skunum=47888&affiliateid=3705&rewrote.  It's a solar-powered rv fridge vent system.  (I think we discussed this several months ago in another thread.)
 
Diane
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Posts: 704 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 Sep 2011 at 12:29am
Dometic's own installation specs call for 1" clearance between the back of the fridge and the exterior RV wall. In our pod it's more like 5". That's a lot of extra air to have to be moved, seems like it would cut down on fridge efficiency a lot.
.: Mark & Beth :: Silverado 5.3L :: 2018 rPod 180 :.
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Posts: 8 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Sep 2011 at 4:07pm
Back in pop up days, I made an airflow baffle from aluminum flashing material to force the air, moving through the exterior portion of the fridge compartment, to pass over the heat exchanger, rather than going where ever. With 2 computer fans running in series, was able to keep ~34 deg F on the hottest days. Made ice also, in freezer compartment. Improved airflow over heat exchanger means more BTUs being removed from working fluid, therefore better performance.
Pop Up Portal http://www.popupportal.com and Pop Up Explorer http://www.popupexplorer.com have many hints helpful to us 'Podders.
 
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Posts: 704 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Sep 2011 at 11:27am
We have a sending unit in our fridge that reads out to a wall display (a simple indoor-outdoor thermometer). The fridge temp is varies by a good 10 degrees depending on where you place the sending unit. 

We have a battery operated cube fan, and it does tend to help keep the temperature evened out. The trick is to find somewhere to stash it in the fridge where it can actually do some good. Obviously lower is better.

If it starts to get too hot, and the fridge starts to warm up too much, we've found that running the AC helps tremendously. That makes sense, since in our 172, three of the fridge's walls are actually inside the pod.
.: Mark & Beth :: Silverado 5.3L :: 2018 rPod 180 :.
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