* Paul wrote, On 8/11/2007 12:47 PM:
"Jeff" wrote in message ...
Oddly, you're always claiming that charging a 450 Ah bank at 80 or 90 Amps
is doing great damage. What I'm doing is reduces that to 50 Amps
charging, with 30 Amps to the fridge. Are you claiming that the fridge,
radar, and autopilot must be turned off if the engine is running and the
batteries are not fully charged?

Jeff, it sounds like you are mixing Amps and Amp-hours. I'm sure you know
the difference, but it does make things confusing. For example, my refrig
draws about 5A when running, which it does perhaps 6 hours a day in the
tropics. This gives a 24-hour consumption of 30 Ah (at 12V).


Nope - I meant what I said. My system has "open components" where the
compressor is belt driven by a 1/2 HP motor, rating at 39 Amps DC.
For the "noon to noon" day just finished, I had two runs (evening and
morning) of about half an hour for the fridge and freezer together
drawing 30 Amps, so they were 15 Amp-hours each. These pull down
three holding plates, one in the fridge and two in the freezer. This
morning I forced the freezer to run by itself (there's a solenoid on
the coolant line to the fridge) for and extra 30 minutes at 20 Amps.
The total for the day was 41 Amp-hours.

The reason for forcing the freezer is twofold - first, the thermostat
sometimes sticks "on" so if I'm one board monitoring I just turn it
off and add some time as needed. The other reason was to force it to
run while I was running my small genset.

In warmer climates the runs would be longer (because the cooling water
is warmer) and there might be a third run because of increased heat
loss. The worst case is sitting unattended at the dock because the
boat heats up so much.

Your system seems very efficient. I'm guessing its a BD50 based
system with a small, well insulated box, and good air flow over the
condenser.

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
* Paul wrote, On 8/11/2007 12:47 PM:
"Jeff" wrote in message
...
Oddly, you're always claiming that charging a 450 Ah bank at 80 or
90 Amps is doing great damage. What I'm doing is reduces that to 50
Amps charging, with 30 Amps to the fridge. Are you claiming that
the fridge, radar, and autopilot must be turned off if the engine is
running and the batteries are not fully charged?

Jeff, it sounds like you are mixing Amps and Amp-hours. I'm sure you
know the difference, but it does make things confusing. For example,
my refrig draws about 5A when running, which it does perhaps 6 hours
a day in the tropics. This gives a 24-hour consumption of 30 Ah (at
12V).


Nope - I meant what I said. My system has "open components" where the
compressor is belt driven by a 1/2 HP motor, rating at 39 Amps DC. For
the "noon to noon" day just finished, I had two runs (evening and
morning) of about half an hour for the fridge and freezer together
drawing 30 Amps, so they were 15 Amp-hours each. These pull down
three holding plates, one in the fridge and two in the freezer. This
morning I forced the freezer to run by itself (there's a solenoid on
the coolant line to the fridge) for and extra 30 minutes at 20 Amps.
The total for the day was 41 Amp-hours.

The reason for forcing the freezer is twofold - first, the thermostat
sometimes sticks "on" so if I'm one board monitoring I just turn it
off and add some time as needed. The other reason was to force it to
run while I was running my small genset.

In warmer climates the runs would be longer (because the cooling water
is warmer) and there might be a third run because of increased heat
loss. The worst case is sitting unattended at the dock because the
boat heats up so much.

Your system seems very efficient. I'm guessing its a BD50 based
system with a small, well insulated box, and good air flow over the
condenser.


The cooling water is warmer? Therein lies the key to you efficiency. I
bet you don't count the amps the circulation pump uses? Some of those
things use up to five amps.

Wilbur Hubbard

* Wilbur Hubbard wrote, On 8/11/2007 2:24 PM:

The cooling water is warmer? Therein lies the key to you efficiency. I
bet you don't count the amps the circulation pump uses? Some of those
things use up to five amps.


Nice try, but my pump is the common March 809, which draws 1.5 Amps.
(It might even be the half power version, but I can't tell without
un-mounting it.)

Even so, my Amp measurements include the pump as I have an Amp-hour
meter (half of my Link 2000) on the entire refrigeration system.

On Fri, 10 Aug 2007 21:15:46 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:


What I do is completely fill the freezer part with canned beer.
The Ice beer works best because of the high alcohol content it doesn't
freeze and bust open. But, the thermostat cant' be set to the cold
position. About 1/4 the way to all the way cold works best. My freezer
contains 15 twelve ounce beers. I relpace them one at a time as I drink
them. I maybe drink six on a hot day. I cycle new beers from the fridge
section to the freezer section and add new ones to the fridge section as
I drink them. An admirable holding plate.

My box is very-well insulated and because of it my compressor usually
runs 20 minutes on 40 off in the summer and about 15 minutes on and
close to an hour off in the cooler months of winter. Let's call that
one-third of 24 hours for 8 hours total or 40 amp hours. The box
measures about 1.5 feet by 2 feet by 1.5 feet. For about 4.5 feet cubed.
It and everything else is run by two Evergreen 100 watt photovoltaic
arrays connected to a Sunsie charge controller. The fridge runs more in
the summer months but the days are longer too so the batteries stay
well-charged the year around.

You're getting down to brass tacks now. My main reason for a fridge
would be to chill beer. I might be out in the Gulf of Mexico and Keys
for a couple weeks at a time. My wife drinks mainly pop and juices,
lukewarm - she doesn't like chilled drinks. I don't care what temp my
water is, but I like my beer cold. I normally don't drink beer in
morning or high sun, but might hanker for a cold Coca-Cola in those
hours, which also comes in 12 ounce cans
I'm thinking for guys like me there is a BCAH calculation for
beer/coke amp hours. I just don't know what it is.
You weren't clear about cooling anything except beer in your reefer.
Let's say I want to spec out reefer cooling 6-8 12 ounce cans per day.
How would you recommend going about calculating BCAH, and sizing the
reefer to accomplish that?
Thanks.

--Vic

* Vic Smith wrote, On 8/11/2007 5:25 PM:
....
I'm thinking for guys like me there is a BCAH calculation for
beer/coke amp hours. I just don't know what it is.
You weren't clear about cooling anything except beer in your reefer.
Let's say I want to spec out reefer cooling 6-8 12 ounce cans per day.
How would you recommend going about calculating BCAH, and sizing the
reefer to accomplish that?

There are books written to address this topic. It runs something like
this:

A BTU is raising a pound of water one degree. If you have a 6-pack,
that's 4.5 pounds of water. Removing heat to bring it from 70 degrees
to 38 means a removal of 144 BTU. Figure 5 BTU of heat removal per
watt-hour of energy in, so we end up with only a cost of 2.5 Amp-hours
to chill the beer.

BUT, what if the beer started at 100 degrees, what if there's two
6-paks, what about the heat losses of the box? These can all be
calculated, but a one cu ft box with 3 inches of insulation will loose
about 1000 BTU per day, and that would cost 16 Amp-hours. Thus, the
total load for a small fridge can be 20 Amp-hours, easily handled by
a small Danfoss like the BD35.

One point here is the the fridge could be a lot larger - you could go
to 4 cu ft and still have a loss of only 2000 BTU. Or, if you put in
6" of foam you can keep the loss down to 1200 BTU on a 3 foot box.
(These numbers from a table by Grunert.) Also, the "cool down" cost
can be estimated just by considering the weight of the food/drink
consumed each day. Since this is largely liquid (beer/coke/water)
keeping a little bit of butter or cheese cold costs very little. Once
you're in for the basic investment, there's little additional cost to
keeping some eggs, and maybe some bacon, etc, since they get added
cold at the start.

Contrary to the "common wisdom" opening the door is not a major cost,
the heat content of the air that comes out is rather low. You can
even make the case that digging around in a top-loader creates more of
a loss than quickly opening the door of a front loader.

What it comes down to is the cost of chilling your favorite beverage,
and the heat loss of the box itself.

On Sat, 11 Aug 2007 19:56:22 -0400, Jeff wrote:

* Vic Smith wrote, On 8/11/2007 5:25 PM:
...
I'm thinking for guys like me there is a BCAH calculation for
beer/coke amp hours. I just don't know what it is.
You weren't clear about cooling anything except beer in your reefer.
Let's say I want to spec out reefer cooling 6-8 12 ounce cans per day.
How would you recommend going about calculating BCAH, and sizing the
reefer to accomplish that?

There are books written to address this topic. It runs something like
this:

A BTU is raising a pound of water one degree. If you have a 6-pack,
that's 4.5 pounds of water. Removing heat to bring it from 70 degrees
to 38 means a removal of 144 BTU. Figure 5 BTU of heat removal per
watt-hour of energy in, so we end up with only a cost of 2.5 Amp-hours
to chill the beer.

BUT, what if the beer started at 100 degrees, what if there's two
6-paks, what about the heat losses of the box? These can all be
calculated, but a one cu ft box with 3 inches of insulation will loose
about 1000 BTU per day, and that would cost 16 Amp-hours. Thus, the
total load for a small fridge can be 20 Amp-hours, easily handled by
a small Danfoss like the BD35.

One point here is the the fridge could be a lot larger - you could go
to 4 cu ft and still have a loss of only 2000 BTU. Or, if you put in
6" of foam you can keep the loss down to 1200 BTU on a 3 foot box.
(These numbers from a table by Grunert.) Also, the "cool down" cost
can be estimated just by considering the weight of the food/drink
consumed each day. Since this is largely liquid (beer/coke/water)
keeping a little bit of butter or cheese cold costs very little. Once
you're in for the basic investment, there's little additional cost to
keeping some eggs, and maybe some bacon, etc, since they get added
cold at the start.

Contrary to the "common wisdom" opening the door is not a major cost,
the heat content of the air that comes out is rather low. You can
even make the case that digging around in a top-loader creates more of
a loss than quickly opening the door of a front loader.

What it comes down to is the cost of chilling your favorite beverage,
and the heat loss of the box itself.

Thanks, Jeff. You've given me a great starting point.
Forgot my BTU's, probably because I always used them in steam calcs.

--Vic

"Vic Smith" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 10 Aug 2007 21:15:46 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:


What I do is completely fill the freezer part with canned beer.
The Ice beer works best because of the high alcohol content it doesn't
freeze and bust open. But, the thermostat cant' be set to the cold
position. About 1/4 the way to all the way cold works best. My freezer
contains 15 twelve ounce beers. I relpace them one at a time as I
drink
them. I maybe drink six on a hot day. I cycle new beers from the
fridge
section to the freezer section and add new ones to the fridge section
as
I drink them. An admirable holding plate.

My box is very-well insulated and because of it my compressor usually
runs 20 minutes on 40 off in the summer and about 15 minutes on and
close to an hour off in the cooler months of winter. Let's call that
one-third of 24 hours for 8 hours total or 40 amp hours. The box
measures about 1.5 feet by 2 feet by 1.5 feet. For about 4.5 feet
cubed.
It and everything else is run by two Evergreen 100 watt photovoltaic
arrays connected to a Sunsie charge controller. The fridge runs more
in
the summer months but the days are longer too so the batteries stay
well-charged the year around.

You're getting down to brass tacks now. My main reason for a fridge
would be to chill beer. I might be out in the Gulf of Mexico and Keys
for a couple weeks at a time. My wife drinks mainly pop and juices,
lukewarm - she doesn't like chilled drinks. I don't care what temp my
water is, but I like my beer cold. I normally don't drink beer in
morning or high sun, but might hanker for a cold Coca-Cola in those
hours, which also comes in 12 ounce cans
I'm thinking for guys like me there is a BCAH calculation for
beer/coke amp hours. I just don't know what it is.
You weren't clear about cooling anything except beer in your reefer.
Let's say I want to spec out reefer cooling 6-8 12 ounce cans per day.
How would you recommend going about calculating BCAH, and sizing the
reefer to accomplish that?
Thanks.

--Vic

Beer and pop is VERY expensive in the Bahamas and so is ice. The last
time I cruised the Abacos I brought along 20 twelve packs of beer and 20
twelve packs of cheap pop of different flavors. All in 12 ounce cans. I
stored them on the sole of the head stacked to the level of the v-berth
with a layer on the sole of the main salon. I had all I wanted to drink
cold beverages lasting three months. My Adler Barbour air cooled
compressor kept the beers almost frozen cold. I like them to be sort of
slushy when the top is popped.

This is what I've got for a compressor
http://www.waecousa.com/page.aspx?p=thecold

And this is the evaporator: http://www.waecousa.com/page.aspx?p=theevap
The top one, the VD 150.

With a 12pack in the freezer and two twelve packs lining the bottom of
the icebox that makes one freezing cold 12pack and two cold 12packs. As
I drink several beers or pops from the freezer I add more from the
icebox and add warm ones from the sole into the bottom of the ice box.
There's room for cheese, fruit, veggies, eggs, meats and other things
that are best kept cold on top of the drinks in the bottom of the box.
Butter I don't care if it melts a little. I use tinned butter from New
Zealand when I'm in the Bahamas. It's cheaper than butter in the states.

Two 100 watt solar panels atop the bimini provide all the juice I need
for the fridge and everything else. One thing though. A couple or three
cloudy days in a row means I shut the fridge off at night. The contents
keep cold all night long and when the sun comes out I turn it back on.
It runs a little longer on the first couple of cycles but the solar
panels alone are more than enough to run it so the excess goes into the
batteries. I carry an old 600 watt portable Yamaha gasoline generator
for emergencies but I haven't needed it for years and years.

To avoid the initial btu use trying to cool down three warm 12pack, buy
cold 12packs from the supermarket fridge. Surprising cold or warm the
price is the same. That way you load your box up with cold drinks from
the very start and save that initial surge of energy being used. Also
buy a frozen chicken whole and put it into the ice box. It will stay
frozen for two days and help keep your other stuff even colder. When it
thaws out then you can cook it and eat it. You can do this with steaks
too. Surprising frozen steaks and chicken are not that overpriced in the
Bahamas.

You're right on about the cold beers. Nothing hits the spot better. The
only trouble is you've got to be diligent and ration them out or you'll
find yourself going through a 12pack a day which isn't good at all.

Wilbur Hubbard

On Aug 11, 6:11 pm, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:

You're right on about the cold beers. Nothing hits the spot better. The
only trouble is you've got to be diligent and ration them out or you'll
find yourself going through a 12pack a day which isn't good at all.

Wilbur Hubbard- Hide quoted text -


Wilbur I must protest and challenge your claim to manlyness. I
proclaim anyone who uses a refer a fu-fu girlie man. I simply find the
local brew and serve at room temp. Why, cause poor peole dont have
refers at home and still neeed to drink somthing. So buy what the
local poor people drink. My favorite was in Fiji. Ahhh, Fiji Bitter
served at 83 degrees F. Now that was a fine brew. So to all thoes
girlie boys out there who whine cause their beer is warm I say, fluff
n nutter! Git a grip and a good warm beer! Then ya dont have all thoes
problmes ole Skip is having trying to charge a 1000 Ah house bank.
Bob

On Sat, 11 Aug 2007 21:11:12 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:


"Vic Smith" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 10 Aug 2007 21:15:46 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:


What I do is completely fill the freezer part with canned beer.
The Ice beer works best because of the high alcohol content it doesn't
freeze and bust open. But, the thermostat cant' be set to the cold
position. About 1/4 the way to all the way cold works best. My freezer
contains 15 twelve ounce beers. I relpace them one at a time as I
drink
them. I maybe drink six on a hot day. I cycle new beers from the
fridge
section to the freezer section and add new ones to the fridge section
as
I drink them. An admirable holding plate.

My box is very-well insulated and because of it my compressor usually
runs 20 minutes on 40 off in the summer and about 15 minutes on and
close to an hour off in the cooler months of winter. Let's call that
one-third of 24 hours for 8 hours total or 40 amp hours. The box
measures about 1.5 feet by 2 feet by 1.5 feet. For about 4.5 feet
cubed.
It and everything else is run by two Evergreen 100 watt photovoltaic
arrays connected to a Sunsie charge controller. The fridge runs more
in
the summer months but the days are longer too so the batteries stay
well-charged the year around.

You're getting down to brass tacks now. My main reason for a fridge
would be to chill beer. I might be out in the Gulf of Mexico and Keys
for a couple weeks at a time. My wife drinks mainly pop and juices,
lukewarm - she doesn't like chilled drinks. I don't care what temp my
water is, but I like my beer cold. I normally don't drink beer in
morning or high sun, but might hanker for a cold Coca-Cola in those
hours, which also comes in 12 ounce cans
I'm thinking for guys like me there is a BCAH calculation for
beer/coke amp hours. I just don't know what it is.
You weren't clear about cooling anything except beer in your reefer.
Let's say I want to spec out reefer cooling 6-8 12 ounce cans per day.
How would you recommend going about calculating BCAH, and sizing the
reefer to accomplish that?
Thanks.

--Vic

Beer and pop is VERY expensive in the Bahamas and so is ice. The last
time I cruised the Abacos I brought along 20 twelve packs of beer and 20
twelve packs of cheap pop of different flavors. All in 12 ounce cans. I
stored them on the sole of the head stacked to the level of the v-berth
with a layer on the sole of the main salon. I had all I wanted to drink
cold beverages lasting three months. My Adler Barbour air cooled
compressor kept the beers almost frozen cold. I like them to be sort of
slushy when the top is popped.

This is what I've got for a compressor
http://www.waecousa.com/page.aspx?p=thecold

And this is the evaporator: http://www.waecousa.com/page.aspx?p=theevap
The top one, the VD 150.

With a 12pack in the freezer and two twelve packs lining the bottom of
the icebox that makes one freezing cold 12pack and two cold 12packs. As
I drink several beers or pops from the freezer I add more from the
icebox and add warm ones from the sole into the bottom of the ice box.
There's room for cheese, fruit, veggies, eggs, meats and other things
that are best kept cold on top of the drinks in the bottom of the box.
Butter I don't care if it melts a little. I use tinned butter from New
Zealand when I'm in the Bahamas. It's cheaper than butter in the states.

Two 100 watt solar panels atop the bimini provide all the juice I need
for the fridge and everything else. One thing though. A couple or three
cloudy days in a row means I shut the fridge off at night. The contents
keep cold all night long and when the sun comes out I turn it back on.
It runs a little longer on the first couple of cycles but the solar
panels alone are more than enough to run it so the excess goes into the
batteries. I carry an old 600 watt portable Yamaha gasoline generator
for emergencies but I haven't needed it for years and years.

To avoid the initial btu use trying to cool down three warm 12pack, buy
cold 12packs from the supermarket fridge. Surprising cold or warm the
price is the same. That way you load your box up with cold drinks from
the very start and save that initial surge of energy being used. Also
buy a frozen chicken whole and put it into the ice box. It will stay
frozen for two days and help keep your other stuff even colder. When it
thaws out then you can cook it and eat it. You can do this with steaks
too. Surprising frozen steaks and chicken are not that overpriced in the
Bahamas.

You're right on about the cold beers. Nothing hits the spot better. The
only trouble is you've got to be diligent and ration them out or you'll
find yourself going through a 12pack a day which isn't good at all.

Thanks for the tips, Wilbur. Didn't know I could have all the cold
beer I need with a couple solar panels. Real good to know and will
be part of my of my reefer decision.

--Vic

"Bob" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Aug 11, 6:11 pm, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:

You're right on about the cold beers. Nothing hits the spot better.
The
only trouble is you've got to be diligent and ration them out or
you'll
find yourself going through a 12pack a day which isn't good at all.

Wilbur Hubbard- Hide quoted text -


Wilbur I must protest and challenge your claim to manlyness. I
proclaim anyone who uses a refer a fu-fu girlie man. I simply find the
local brew and serve at room temp. Why, cause poor peole dont have
refers at home and still neeed to drink somthing. So buy what the
local poor people drink. My favorite was in Fiji. Ahhh, Fiji Bitter
served at 83 degrees F. Now that was a fine brew. So to all thoes
girlie boys out there who whine cause their beer is warm I say, fluff
n nutter! Git a grip and a good warm beer! Then ya dont have all thoes
problmes ole Skip is having trying to charge a 1000 Ah house bank.
Bob

If you're a real manly man, consider the fact that offering an ice cold
alcohol beverage to a lovely local gal stands you a better chance of
getting laid. Few if any women I've ever met will be able to stomach
enough warm beer or mixed alcohol drinks to get drunk enough to allow
their inner horny slut to take charge.

Wilbur Hubbard