How's this for thick?

You're being very kind to him Nudie, but he had a sign saying fridge extra $1200 or whatever it was.

Cheers,

Jim.

.... i'm a nice bloke
havent they told you this!

You're allright Nudie.

Agree with some of that Mike, but Collyn Rivers (where is he these days?) says that the most important factor to fridge performance is allowing cool air to the condenser. If the fridge can suck some cool outside air through the vents it will work much better.

I've actually seen this work quite well. Diamond has his in a steel box with ventilation next to the condenser and leaves the lid open a few inches when stopped to allow airflow and the lid of the box stops direct heat hitting the fridge. He gets amazing battery life out of an old start battery.

Cheers,

Jim.

He's in the campertrailers forum most of the time Jimbo and is keeping a low profile.

Baz.

Hotter condensor = lower efficiency = longer run time = shortcut to flat battery.... simple as that!

I agree with Brian, and think of this if fridges did not need ventilation why would Waeco be fitting fans to their new models? What's it going to do, circulate the hot air round and round, might as well not bother.
Air cons, fridges, thermo coolers. It's transfering hot air from inside the fridge to the outside of the fridge either through gas and a compressor/condensor etc or a Peltier, either way the proccess is inefficiant meaning that not only are you removing the heat you are generating more heat. If there's nowhere for it to go it's going to get hotter in the box, then the cycle starts again only making it worse and so on.

It's not about ventilation it's about dissipating heat and ventilation _may be_ one of the ways of doing that.

Consider a fridge dissipating 30W in a closed steel box but with an ambient outside temperature of 0 deg C - what do you think the internal temperature of the box would be?

The same situation but with an outside temperature of 30 deg C - do you think the internal temperature of the box would be hotter?

The same fridge dissipating 30W in a glass box with an outside temperature of 0 deg C - would the internal temp. be the same as in the steel box?

The steel box will have a heatsinking effect but that will be proportional to the temperature differential across the box and most of the time in Oz that differential won't really be good enough for a fridge to work very well - for a steel box in sun the fridge wouldn't have a chance because now the heat transfer process is working in reverse.

Passing ambient air through the enclosure will help but it would probably have to be forced air from a fan to get sufficient heat transfer to make any noticeable difference.

Well that’s my take on thermal thingies – but it’s not really my area and I would welcome corrections?

Mike Harding

Never bothered to work out how many watts is dissipating but as a Refrigeration Technician I do know about heat from condensors and the efficiency involved/affected. With commercial refrigeration, the efficiency of the system is greatly decreased by inadequate air flow across the condensor. The same with a car refrigerator, whether it is a fan cooled condensor or not.
Over the course of our just completed holiday i noticed this with our Trailblazer........
On Fraser Island, where ambient o/nights were in the 17-19 deg C range, I would turn the fridge off at night before turning in, say 10 PM. In the morning at say 6:30, I would turn the fridge back on and the compressor would start immediately and run for some time to bring the temp inside the fridge back down. On the days where we were stationary, I had the rear doors of the truck open, the fridge extended out on the fridge slide and the fridge "shaded" and it operated quite efficiently. On the days where we were driving around the island ALL day, with the rear door shut and not as much airflow around the condensor, I could hear the compressor running longer during it's "run" time. This is simple "Fridgie" rule.... reduced effiency condensor = longer run times.
Part 2 of our trip was at Gorge River Staion near Bonalbo NSW... o/night ambients of 11-12 deg C.Turned off the fridge at 10ish, back on at 6 or 7am and each day the compressor didn't start until after we had opened the fridge to get breakfast food out. During day when doors were opened and fridge out on slide, compressor run times very short compared to almost continuos running when out on the tracks.
The short answer is that the condensor has to "breathe" to be efficient. Try blocking the condensor of your kitchen fridge and see how efficient that is then!

Mike, the motor in the fridge is generating heat, along with other inefficancies. Sure if it is 0c outside the box will be cooled by the lower outside ambient tempeture but just imagine how much cooler the inside of the box would if there was a vent at the bottom and a vent at the top to let the hot air be drawn out.

How does a blanket or sleeping bag work? Heat rises, but the heat is trapped in by the blanket. You have a sealed metal box, it is trapping more heat than it is disapating I'm sure. Maybe if you put big heatsinks and a fan stuck to the outside of the box it would be an effeciant heatsink, but then your using power to run the fans and it would look pretty bloody werid! LOL And of course as you mentioned, if the sun is belting down on it... Well then it's going to be pretty useless anyway.

"homogenised"

ROFLMAO

Nearly as good as your explanation of foul tasting water in the caravan tank a while back LOL.