I'm building a 26 foot pilothouse sloop and the plans call for a large
icebox. My experience doing the kind of cruising I expect to do on
this boat is that finding ice consumes a lot of time, it doesn't last
long, it takes up a lot of space, and the food items can get soggy if
I am doing any hard sailing. I have noticed that Fisheries Supply in
Seattle sells "conversion kits" for converting ice boxes to 12 VDC
refrigerator. This seems like a sensible choice, and might even be
good to build in right from the start. Does anyone have experience
with these kits or any kind of application other than a drop in box?
I am thinking that with 4" polyurethane foam that I'll be able to
handle the power consumption with a pair of Grp 31 batteries. Does
this seem reasonable?

Al Gunther Kingston, WA ---- 47° 48.1'N, 122° 30.0'W
http://homepage.mac.com/agunther/.Public/index.html

wrote in message
ps.com...
I'm building a 26 foot pilothouse sloop and the plans call for a large
icebox. My experience doing the kind of cruising I expect to do on
this boat is that finding ice consumes a lot of time, it doesn't last
long, it takes up a lot of space, and the food items can get soggy if
I am doing any hard sailing. I have noticed that Fisheries Supply in
Seattle sells "conversion kits" for converting ice boxes to 12 VDC
refrigerator. This seems like a sensible choice, and might even be
good to build in right from the start. Does anyone have experience
with these kits or any kind of application other than a drop in box?
I am thinking that with 4" polyurethane foam that I'll be able to
handle the power consumption with a pair of Grp 31 batteries. Does
this seem reasonable?

Al Gunther Kingston, WA ---- 47° 48.1'N, 122° 30.0'W
http://homepage.mac.com/agunther/.Public/index.html


Are you totally married to the idea of having refrigeration aboard?
Considering the size of the boat, you may be better-served by utilizing as
much space as possible just for stowage, rather than having to waste so much
of it with insulation. But 4" of poly foam is about standard on most icebox
conversions I've seen, so it would be reasonable.

wrote in news:1170898987.617665.77550
@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

I'm building a 26 foot pilothouse sloop and the plans call for a large
icebox. My experience doing the kind of cruising I expect to do on
this boat is that finding ice consumes a lot of time, it doesn't last
long, it takes up a lot of space, and the food items can get soggy if
I am doing any hard sailing. I have noticed that Fisheries Supply in
Seattle sells "conversion kits" for converting ice boxes to 12 VDC
refrigerator. This seems like a sensible choice, and might even be
good to build in right from the start. Does anyone have experience
with these kits or any kind of application other than a drop in box?
I am thinking that with 4" polyurethane foam that I'll be able to
handle the power consumption with a pair of Grp 31 batteries. Does
this seem reasonable?

Al Gunther Kingston, WA ---- 47° 48.1'N, 122° 30.0'W
http://homepage.mac.com/agunther/.Public/index.html


http://www.onlinemarine.com/cgi-
local/SoftCart.exe/online_superstore/galley/cold_machine.htm?E+scstore
We had an Adler-Barbour cold plate (12VDC-115VAC) aboard an Endeavour 35
sloop. It ran off 4 golf cart batteries in the lazerette right under the
compressor-condenser unit. It kept the beer cold, sometimes frozen.
Plan on about 50-60AH/day. It ran about 50% of the time on 5A. It
doesn't have a lot of "cooling capacity" so don't expect it to be like an
ice cream machine in the icebox. You CAN make a small quantity of ice in
its evaporator, which has a vertical hole about the same size as is in a
little 2 cuft bar fridge at home. If you make ice in it, or load up the
fridge just before you leave port on batteries....it'll run continuously
for a couple of DAYS to cool all that heat load down to the thermostat
shutoff. A good trick is to put frozen food you're soon going to eat
into the freezer to "help" the A-B suck out the heat as it melts. Load
it with COLD beer and it will very cheaply keep the beer cold.

There are a couple of downsides to this utopia, however......

The worst of it was the damned thing generated this nauseatingly
repetitive pulsing noise DEAD ON MARINE CHANNEL 16 the whole time it was
on, not necessarily compressing. It radiated on Channel 16 to every VHF
radio....bzzt....bzzt.....bzzt.bzzt.bzzt over and over to drive you
crazy. The signal from it was too strong to squelch out. No other
channel, like one you never use, had a peep on it....dammit. Attempts to
shield the unit were unsuccessful. It has to have airflow for the
condenser to heat up the lazerette it's mounted in. That's not bad,
either, because the heat it generates DRYS THINGS in the lazerette..

The other problem, of course, is frosting up. The lid on a boat ice box
is usually made to look pretty....NOT hermetically seal the box against
any air leaks. Ours was wood and attempts to add rubber seals to it were
only partially successful. Air going into the icebox and any water
inside the box from the stuff generates an amazing coating of ice inside
and outside of the little evaporator the freon is boiling away in. So,
you do a lot of manual defrosting. "Hey, it's an icebox with a drain in
it so that should be easy, right? Wrong! If you just shut the unit down
and let it drain into the icebox drain, it will drain on all the stuff
UNDER it making all the food WET as it defrosts. So, the ONLY way to
defrost is to move all the food from the icebox into the sink during the
defrosting process. The unit needs to be mounted near the TOP of the
icebox to cool the WHOLE icebox. It only cools the box from the top of
the unit to the bottom of the icebox. If you mount it in the bottom of
the icebox, where it would easily defrost, the top of the icebox has NO
COOLING....same reason the little bar fridge's evaporator is in the TOP
of the little bar fridge. The more the lid seal leaks and the more often
you open the icebox for beer, the more often you get to unload it to
defrost it. I never seemed to make any difference, whatsoever, if you
let it go for months with this big block of rime ice hiding the actual
evaporator, except you couldn't get the ice trays into it any more
because the INSIDE became solid ice....my captain's solution...ignore
it...(c;

You'll also find the top-mounted evaporator IN THE WAY getting into the
top-loading/unloading icebox. The stuff you want is ALWAYS buried in the
other stuff directly UNDER the evaporator you're contorting to get under.
Remember DO NOT MOUNT IT LOW...mount it as high as you can get. They
come precharged with Freon and have fittings that break internal seals as
you assemble them so you don't need to hire an HVAC engineer to install
them. Use a spray bottle full of soapy water to spot freon leaks on all
fittings, INCLUDING the ones the factory put together....

Larry
--
Democracy is when two wolves and a sheep vote on who's for dinner.
Liberty is when the sheep has his own gun.

In article om,
wrote:

I'm building a 26 foot pilothouse sloop and the plans call for a
large icebox. My experience doing the kind of cruising I expect to
do on this boat is that finding ice consumes a lot of time, it
doesn't last long, it takes up a lot of space, and the food items can
get soggy if I am doing any hard sailing. I have noticed that
Fisheries Supply in Seattle sells "conversion kits" for converting
ice boxes to 12 VDC refrigerator. This seems like a sensible choice,
and might even be good to build in right from the start. Does anyone
have experience with these kits or any kind of application other than
a drop in box? I am thinking that with 4" polyurethane foam that I'll
be able to handle the power consumption with a pair of Grp 31
batteries. Does this seem reasonable?


We have about the same size boat, a pair of 31s, and an icebox I built
(pics in Xan's "cabin" page:
http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/Cabin.html)

We found our best bang for the buck (and time) is ice in a boat as
small as ours. Though I could insulate the area some more, we still can
keep a single block of ice going for 3-4 days when it's 95-100 out.
That depends on how many warm cans we exchange for cold during the
period, of course.

We often park out in the boonies for a week or so. Just before, we put
a second block in and enjoy our *quiet* anchorage for the duration. We
also enjoyed using only 21 gallons of diesel in the past two seasons,
about 130 days away from the dock.

Adding sufficient power to run even the 12 VDC boxes would mean easily
twice the battery capacity, lots more solar or a bigger fuel tank, and
more space for the box or less capacity.


--
Jere Lull
Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD)
Xan's NEW Pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI FAQs (290+ pics) http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

On Feb 7, 5:43 pm, wrote:
I'm building a 26 foot pilothouse sloop and the plans call for a large
icebox. I have noticed that Fisheries Supply in
Seattle sells ....

Two thoughts:
1) give KLC Lewis' comments long consideration. In other words, 26'
with ice cubes?????? Why bother.
2) If the Fish Supply is the one across from Gas WOrks Park my only
though is WAY TOOO EXPENSIVE. Visit the store, ask your questions, get
manufacture model/numbers, then go online. Prices there are West
Marine plus 10%.
3) a block of ice lasts 3 days if in a good cooler. Ore better yet,
freeze your own 2L botles and when melted use as drinking water.

You may want to look at Technautics.

http://www.technauticsinc.com/

I built a fridge/freezer a few years ago and their system was easy to
install and has run well ever since. I have a holding plate in the freezer
and spill over into the fridge. I can make ice cubes over night and it uses
about 22AH a day.

Ansley Sawyer
SV Pacem

On 7 Feb 2007 17:43:07 -0800, wrote:

I'm building a 26 foot pilothouse sloop and the plans call for a large
icebox. My experience doing the kind of cruising I expect to do on
this boat is that finding ice consumes a lot of time, it doesn't last
long, it takes up a lot of space, and the food items can get soggy if
I am doing any hard sailing. I have noticed that Fisheries Supply in
Seattle sells "conversion kits" for converting ice boxes to 12 VDC
refrigerator. This seems like a sensible choice, and might even be
good to build in right from the start. Does anyone have experience
with these kits or any kind of application other than a drop in box?
I am thinking that with 4" polyurethane foam that I'll be able to
handle the power consumption with a pair of Grp 31 batteries. Does
this seem reasonable?

Al Gunther Kingston, WA ---- 47° 48.1'N, 122° 30.0'W
http://homepage.mac.com/agunther/.Public/index.html

Al, I agree 100% with Larry's response. We cruised for 2-1/2 years
with an Adler-Barbour Cold Machine conversion. Everything Larry said,
including the Amp-Hours is absolutely correct. Also about the radio
interference. That has changed some. Adler-Barbour sent a newer
version of the controller that was a lot better, but still not cleared
up. We had to switch it off when using HF Ham radio for email, but no
more problem on the VHF.

You might want to look at the Norcold SCQT4407. It's about half the
price of the Adler-Barbour. We're planning on getting one for our
current boat, a Morgan 302. A friend has one in is S2 and it seems to
work well. Any comments, anyone, on the Norcold?

Rick

Al-
Glad to hear that you're getting closer to launch. It's a very nice design
and your website showed that it was being well built.
You might contact Glenn Ashmore ), who's been a
constant presence here and is particularly knowledgeable about
refrigeration.

On Thu, 08 Feb 2007 09:00:57 -0600, Rick Morel
wrote:

Al, I agree 100% with Larry's response. We cruised for 2-1/2 years
with an Adler-Barbour Cold Machine conversion. Everything Larry said,
including the Amp-Hours is absolutely correct. Also about the radio
interference. That has changed some. Adler-Barbour sent a newer
version of the controller that was a lot better, but still not cleared
up. We had to switch it off when using HF Ham radio for email, but no
more problem on the VHF.

There is another option worth considering on a 26 footer:

http://www.bigfrogmountain.com/engel_products.htm

I have not personally owned one of these Engels but have heard good
things about them. They should not be confused with the smaller,
cheaper chests which use a solid state cooling device. The Engels
have a real compressor in them, and power draw is supposedly
reasonable.

Rick Morel wrote in
:

Al, I agree 100% with Larry's response.

Thanks.

I have another solution for that small boat that might make sense if you
can find one.....

I have a little 2.2 cuft "dorm fridge" that's quite old, but I wouldn't
trade it for a brand new one. It, too, is a Norcold, but I'm sure many
were sold under different names like this one.

What's different about this neat little fridge is IT ONLY DRAWS 40 WATTS
and has NO STARTING CURRENT, unlike other compressors. Its compressor
doesn't "rotate". It's a linear vibrator. They're not made, or at least
not sent to the USA, any more because it uses the much-more-economical-
to-operate, forbidden R-12 refridgerant. R-12 uses lots lower pressures
which are easier to pump...with vibrator compressors, I'd guess.

To identify these units is quite easy. Instead of the compressor being a
fat little low-profile, almost spherical unit, these vibrator units are a
long cylinder approximately 3-4" in diameter and about 8-10" long. They
have only ONE wire coming out of them for power. The case of the
compressor is the other conductor for the coil inside. Mine runs on
40VAC. Each fridge has a little transformer that converts what ever
country's power line voltage it's to run on into 40VAC on the secondary
to run the compressor. Just follow the wire. It's easy to find. This
made world distribution easy. 240V country, 240V transformer....115V
country, 115V transformer. The transformer is about the size of a door
bell transformer, maybe a little larger...only 40 watts, remember.

This would be ideal for a small boat fridge running off the smallest
inverter you can find. When I go on a car trip, I run it off a little
Vector inverter thats nothing but a large cigarette lighter plug with a
115VAC outlet on the back of the plug. My cars are diesel so have a
battery that can easily provide overnight power to the tiny inverter
without going dead. In a boat, that's not an issue, of course.

Be on the lookout for one of these little vibrator compressor fridges.
All the ones I've seen have an EXTERNAL condensor sticking out the back
for better cooling and lower head pressure. You can hardly hear it
running. It makes just a very low hum. It freezes ice cubes as fast as
my other small fridges that have heavy starting current and draw lots
more power driving rotary compressors on R-134a or R-22.

It doesn't run a lot, either, saving AHs. The Norcold box is nicely
insulated. I swapped the broken door off it with a Korean 2.2 cuft
fridge because the door that was on it was rusted nearly off it. It's
really worth the restoration. I've even run it at ham radio events off a
12V gelcell all day with the same little inverter.

No, you can't have mine....(c;

Larry
--
Democracy is when two wolves and a sheep vote on who's for dinner.
Liberty is when the sheep has his own gun.