3rd year of dry camping (with the NPS this year)

[Bill]

Kempert posted

I think that something is wrong with my frig. The freezer seemed to have worked fine but the lower part couldn't seem to get in the acceptable range as long as I was on propane. It got the job done once I got electricity but only if I cranked it all the way up. I'm guessing that I may need freon or whatever they use now. BTW - Wayne, the cooling fan didn't seem to make a difference.

Have you tried one of the small battery-powered fans that goes inside the frig? About $15, works well in hot weather.

http://www.go-rv.com/coast/do/catalo...20&pageNum=282 - either of the little blue ones
Campingworld has them, too, but I don't see it in the online catalog.

And be sure the door seal is in good shape, and makes contact all around.

By the way, I don't think that a low-coolant situation can be fixed. It is not freon in these 3-way refrigerators - it is a special mix of ammonia, water, and hydrogen.

Bill

Originally Posted by kempert

I think that something is wrong with my frig. The freezer seemed to have worked fine but the lower part couldn't seem to get in the acceptable range as long as I was on propane. It got the job done once I got electricity but only if I cranked it all the way up. I'm guessing that I may need freon or whatever they use now. BTW - Wayne, the cooling fan didn't seem to make a difference. I'd tried it early on with no change and moving the TM to get the back of the frig in the shade most of the day didn't help either. Once I got hooked up, the back of the frig stayed in the sun most of the day with the above mentioned results.

Very interesting data point.

As a compromise, since this may not be enough data to be conclusive, because humidity *MIGHT* also be a factor, I would in the future consider running the fridge fan in high heat locations when shore power is available but not use it boondocking as that appears to be a drain on the batteries with questionable value.

We have a West Coast TM ralley coming up in October in Petaluma, CA. There are reserved sites for 29 TMs so far. If the weather is hot (only a maybe) then it would be rather interesting to have various TMs running different fridge configurations, to see if the external fridge fan is helpful.

Very interesting regarding your frig - we had a 2 1/2 week long trip back east in June visiting relatives in MD, VA and NC and while the weather was pretty hot (and much more humid than we're used to anymore) we didn't have problems with the refrigerator on any of the power sources. We used propane a couple of times and it worked fine for us. I've been poking around the internet to learn about these absorption refrigerators, and the only thing different between electric and propane operation is the source of the heat which vaporizes the ammonia mixture.

[some editing] After reading a little bit more today, I would bet that the conditions were just too hot. I saw several references to absorption refrigerators only gaining about 40 to 60 degrees of cooling. Your mention of the sun being on the side with the refrigerator makes me think that it was already hot on that wall, and the condenser just couldn't work well even with the refrigerator fan blowing across it. While it's possible your propane burner isn't working well and it is putting out less heat than the electric heating element, but I doubt it based on the specs I've seen. The propane burner is probably actually a little hotter than the electric heating element, and it may send some waste heat up by the condenser which wouldn't help things if it were too hot already. So you might try taking the cover off of the vents on the outside wall so that you can see if anything is blocking the condenser and make sure the flex-duct connected to the refrigerator fan isn't too crimped and has enough of a space at the top to allow decent air flow. The only other thing I can think of is to find a way to shade that side of the wall a little if it's sun-facing. Maybe next time you could try to rig up a reflective emergency blanket and make a small awning out of it or something like that.

One other thing is that the Norcold site still wants you to be within 3 side-to-side (so front-to-back in a TM) and 6 degrees of level front to back (so side-to-side in a TM). That's much more finicky than I though I recalled...the issue is that the condensed water and ammonia won't drain back to the generator correctly if you are too far off of level. So you might think about that also.

By the way, how was CONM for a place to visit and camp? I haven't been camping on the western slope of CO yet, although we're planning a trip to Mesa Verde, Cortez and Ouray over Labor Day.