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Refrigerator drains (2)house batteries E38-200

Captron

Member III
Full Fridge

I also have an Adler Barbour fridge system , with the air cooled plates. Recently, my motors burnt out, and I replaced them. Can anyone confirm the direction of the blades for the fans? Am I right that the fan inside the box blows air towards the plate, and the one outside blows air away, or do I have it wrong?

I'm not sure what you mean. My unit is so old that the condenser fan is not ducted or shrouded in any way. It is aimed so that ambient air is pulled through the condenser and the fan exhaust (warm air) blows over the compressor and into my starboard lazarette. (I've been thinking about ducting a vent out the aft end of the coaming to help get rid of the excess heat... it's on the list but pretty far down)

If you're talking about a fan inside the fridge, I don't think it matters. The idea of a fan inside the fridge is to circulate cold air.

Ideally, one would have a fridge full of cold beer without enough air space left over to worry about circulating it.

If you have a fridge with a freezer partition and say a holding plate inside the freezer section where 'spillover' cold air is supposed to keep the fridge cold, then you need a fan to help pull air from the cold (freezer side) to the fridge side but I don't know as it matters much which way the fan is blowing.

My refrigerator compartment has the standard (small) Adler-Barbor Evaporator box that measures about 12" wide by 10" deep by maybe 5" wide. Inside the box is freezer compartment. Anything you put inside the box freezes solid. In fact anything you put under the box in the bottom of the fridge freezes too as will anything in close proximity to the box. We have to be careful to make sure the milk and beer stay far enough away from the freezer box. Nothing worse than sitting down to enjoy a cold one and finding out that it's frozen beer slushy or worse.

But all things considered, I prefer the full fridge theory.
:egrin:
 

ligolaiva38

Member II
Solar panels keep batteries from draining

I have a 1984 Ericson 381 with Adler Barbour refrigiration which has the large 152 evaporator. In So. CA it works well with the thermostat setting at around 5.
On hot days and when motoring for hours the heat around the Adler Barbour condenser (under the cockpit seat) is created from the engin which makes it run a lot more than when normally warm from just the sun. I have a thermometer next to the condenser that gives me readings and it reads in the 90's after running the engine for several hours. For the last 12 years I have been using solar panels to keep the batteries from running down and not having to run the engin everyday. Solar panels work great. I have the max of four 55 watt panels which creates a max of around 12 amps per hour. Depending on how long and strong the sun is I use between 3 and four panels to keep the batteries strong while the refrigerator is working, the radio playing, and at night using LED lights and even watching TV.
I have spent the summers cruising around the islands and only have have to run the engine when there are numerous cloudy days because then I can only get around 4 -6 amps per hour. The Catalina island has more sun than the other islands so the solar panels work the best there.
Two panels are along the sides and the third I place on the back of the boat and the forth I place where ever there is the best angle on the deck toward the sun.
You just cannot beat solar panels because they work well and make no noise while charging the batteries.
 
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