3 ways and ice creams

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Originally Posted by garrycol

So any one have an idea why the freezer would work Ok but not the main fridge. I was thinking of taking the freezer door off and putting a computer fan in there to cool the whole fridge and just using my 25l compressor fridge as a freezer.

Garry

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If the question is realy that simple I have no idea other than poor design as obviously the cooling part is working but working better in 1 place (the freezer) than in the fridge.... thats a design issue as indicated by your remedy - take the freezer door off and let the cold spill.

The point I was hinting at was that maybe the thing was loosing temperature all over but didnt show the temperature loss as dramatically in the freezer due to thermals mass or ise buildup or what ever. Droping from - 20 to - 15 isnt so noticable in a freezer as droping from 5c to 10c in a fridge.

If the thing is working right it should work right all over....

I know my comments are silly..... its late - forgive me...:o

Your comments are definitely not silly - in fact your thinking is the same as my underlying thoughts - if the cooling lines to the fridge and the freezer are the same and both compartments have their own cooling fins then both sections should work as advertised but they don't :(.

Maybe I just need a fan in the main fridge are to circulate the air. maybe that is the problem - when fully stocked the cool air from the cooling fins just cannot circulate.

Cheers

garry

Hi Garrycol, on another forum , one of the contributors mentions cleaning the cooling fins. He doesn't say how or what with but reports a marked improvement in performance, so there may be a strategy for you to investigate. Cheers, 130man.

not quite....

as it starts to run low on charge the cooling ability of the refrigerant will work as far as it can and then run out of go so it will simply move through the rest of the plumbing in whatever state and temperature its in before shedding its heat and restarting the process.

sometimes with the absorbsion fridges (heres a primer on refrigeration)

the fluid can all go and settle at the same level, when you fire up the heat source the convection cycle is unable to start because convection alone wont push the water/ammonia mix up to the seperator to allow the flow to start or the amonia and the water have seperated out and stratified so wont remix with just simple heating (heating with convection would eventually work BUT by the time the seperatrion occurs the ability to start the convection process is lost) thats why taking the fridge, turning it over and shaking it up a few times works.

If its lost or is loosing hydrogen pressure or has had a liquid loss these days its typically cheaper to buy a new unit than have an old one replaced.

if you're very lucky you might find that its a combination of door seals and insulation degredation thats stopped it and a new door seal and some expanda foam may get it cooling again.

You can buy at Caravan accessory outlets a battery powered fan that sits in the base of the fridge that circulates the cold air making the fridge much more efficient and even in temperature, they cost about $40 and work really well.

The other trick with bloody useless three way fridges is to pack the shelves with Tupperware containers with their lids on, even if they have nothing in the containers. That way when you open the door all the cold air doesn't rush out and it doesn't take your fridge hours to recover and another bonus is you have separate sealed containers always on hand to store food in.

My next van will have a 12/240 volt fridge even if I have to cover every inch of the roof with solar panels. The three way fridge is the only thing I dislike about our current van, I have had the fridge checked numerous times and it is meant to be working correctly, had a thermostatically controlled fan fitted to the rear and that made no difference, it wasn't until we got the internal fan and the Tupperware containers that things improved and it now works pretty good ...most of the time.

Cheers,
Terry