Building a Custom Refridgerator

[Rochey6957]

you are a mad scientist benimble... Looking good!

[joeblack5]

Looks great.. maybe connect the two doors together with a stainless strip with a fake strip on the bottom one...take one of her handles of.. Paint it blue or red like the racing strips on some cars..

Whatever..impressive job.

Johan

[musigenesis]

Wow, I was all proud of myself for sticking a thermostat controller in my chest freezer and turning it into a refrigerator. I bow to the One True DIY Refrigerator God.

[BeNimble]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Wow, I was all proud of myself for sticking a thermostat controller in my chest freezer and turning it into a refrigerator. I bow to the One True DIY Refrigerator God.

Thanks!
I've seen people use an external unit to control the a/c power in one video, is that what you did? If so you can instead replace the temp sensor in the freezer to a fridge one that has higher settings. They should just pull out of a tube and you put a new one in, they are like $10 or so and will be more efficient.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by BeNimble

Thanks!
I've seen people use an external unit to control the a/c power in one video, is that what you did? If so you can instead replace the temp sensor in the freezer to a fridge one that has higher settings. They should just pull out of a tube and you put a new one in, they are like $10 or so and will be more efficient.

Yeah, it's an external gadget with an analog temperature dial and a thermometer probe that you stick in under the door, and then you plug the freezer into it. It was $50 although there are cheaper ones. I expect to go through a series of cheap used freezers and this thing can go in all of them. My current freezer (4 cu ft) averages 16 watts when used as a fridge.

[BeNimble]

The person in the video used it to turn off a dedicated inverter which would save some watts. It would take a bit more work to make the 'built-in' one do that, but not too much.
Why would you expect them to fail? Those chest freezer are about as simple as it gets. Here is a pic of one, the wire is the temp sensor and adjustable temp knob, anyone will do as long as the temp tube is long enough. Just saying for the other readers, you already have something that works, nicely done.

[BeNimble]

With the doors on I could turn on the fridge and confirm it will get cold. It does, after 1-2 hour it was 20F in the freezer. Returned the next am, and its 0F and 34F, so working great.

I pulled the bottom freezer door sliders from the other french door fridge, and plan to use one for the little door pull out.

[RolesvilleMarina]

It's Alive!

+2 you should make a business..

How small can you make a fridge and have an icemaker?

am intrigued as I use a mid sized dorm style fridge in our shorty, and wonder if an ice maker could be done, or if there was enough room and or worth it lol

meanwhile am impressed as hell, and enjoy reading this thread


yes, if you get free fridge and fix for $3 then sell for $100 or whatever for a quick fix thats $ for the bus build

[BeNimble]

The fridge cash has made the Nautibus back to free as of now.
The LG fridge has the ice maker in the door, and it really is the most compact ever, with a dispenser. You can get desktop icemakers, but no space inside for anything else.
It would be possible to make fridge from the 'upper left' of the French Door fridge, that would be quite small. Maybe even make a tiny freezer using one of the dorm fridge evaporators that are little boxes inside the fridge and then redirect the freezer air into the ice maker. That would be super cool to turn a phrase!

[BeNimble]

The white fridge I picked up on the side of the road a while ago, which was going to be my Nautibus fridge, seems the right size. Just wanted to show the comparison between that one and the new custom one. I think the size of the custom one might be deceiving in the pics..they are both 24x24, the custom one is a bit taller, std 70in.

Not sure what to do with the white one, guess I could just cut it up.

Been wondering if anyone else might want one of these custom fridges with ice dispensers. I was looking online and all the Dometic RV fridges none had ice dispensers.

[Booyah45828]

I don't know if I've seen any rv fridge with an ice dispenser.

I assume it was because the dispenser would leak cold and make it a little less efficient, but that's just a guess.

You might have found a niche market there.

[BeNimble]

As a business sourcing 'free' fridges is pretty limited opportunity lol Old ones no problem, the new ones not very often. Buying a new one to modify would make it very expensive, although I must say that some people buy a new Miata just to swap in a V8 to get a $100k car, and people do buy $1,000 poop buckets.
I'm gonna build a couple more and see if there is any buyers, if not, I got 2 other RV projects coming up they can go in.

[joeblack5]

I picked up a broken ice maker.. one bearing was rusted and did not allow the tray to move.

Fixed the bearing and noticed a freon valve that redirects hot freon to the cooling element to loosen the frozen cubes from cooling fingers.

Quite ingenious for such a cheap throw away item.

Anyhow ..any ideas about efficiency between a dedicated ice cube maker or fridge ice cube maker?

I would be interested in making ice cubes with solar after the batteries are full as to have another form of energy storage .

[BeNimble]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

I picked up a broken ice maker.. one bearing was rusted and did not allow the tray to move.

Fixed the bearing and noticed a freon valve that redirects hot freon to the cooling element to loosen the frozen cubes from cooling fingers.

Quit ingenious for such a cheap throw away item.

Anyhow ..any ideas about efficiency between a dedicated ice cube maker or fridge ice cube maker?

I would be interested in making ice cubes with solar after the batteries are full as to have another form of energy storage .

A desktop ice maker takes up way too much space in an RV compared to the fridge builtin. They have inside ice makers in RV fridges, just not the dispenser, which allows you to get ice without letting cold out when opening the door. My guess is the standalone units are made cheaply not concerned too much about efficiency, have minimal insulation, but never seen one, whats your take?

Funny you mention storing energy as ice, as one plan I had for my solar boat was to make ice cream to sell when in port as I'd have mega tons of power with nothing to do with it.

[joeblack5]

You are probably right about the efficiency. Storing inside the fridge would be better.. from an insulation standpoint..
I will measure how many KWh it takes to make a kg of ice cubes.

Do you have a picture of your boat?

[BeNimble]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

You are probably right about the efficiency. Storing inside the fridge would be better.. from an insulation standpoint..
I will measure how many KWh it takes to make a kg of ice cubes.

Do you have a picture of your boat?

Which one? lol The ocean solar cat project was abandoned, leaving me with big pile of flex solar panels and lifepo cells, now using for the Nautibus.
Maybe someday I build the small one (boat in my pic), my wife likes boating, but not on the ocean.

If store energy in ice, you need a way to recover it.

[joeblack5]

Nice that you came out of it with usable equipment..

Ice would be nice for night cooling . I was thinking about these rubber solar collectors for pool use... but then on the bed. Between the mattress and the undercover.

I have a liquid cooled cooling vest that I used while driving. The best might not be convenient in bed with hoses attached and such but cooling the bed would be using a lot less energy then cooling the air.

[BeNimble]

I watched some videos on dismantling of desktop ice makers, so I saw how they are made, and they seem to fail after 3-12 months. I was surprised they use an actual compressor, and my wife noted costco has one for $80, and that price for just a small comrpessor is a great deal, so why I looked at the videos to see if they actually have compressors and they do.

I also got another free french door LG fridge not working. The linear compressor LGs are failing and after the 5 year fix warranty, they don't cover labor to repair, so now the 2015 and newer models are going to start showing up. Otherwise they are really nice fridges when they work. I have two of them now..think to just fix and resell them,
as I have a new idea on a custom fridge.

[joeblack5]

At the scrap yard we found a Kenmore double door with freezer. 4 yrs old.
Some work was done on the evaporator in the freezer, so I guess it has a leak there.


It has, (had) a LG compressor with electronic 2 wire control. This scrapyard flattens things out so I did not feel bad cutting the tubes. There was still some R134a inside, but not a lot.


I noticed that some of the joints do not seem to be brazed but have a heavy compression ring around them , like pex, but then for metal tubing.


Coming back on your earlier comment of 12 Volt 50% duty cycle for a control signal. Do you have info on the frequency rate of this signal?


Thnks Johan

[BeNimble]

Pretty sure it is 30hz to 120hz, 60hz is about mid-speed. btw, I tried a 5v signal, and it didn't seem to work. As far as I got on it. Had a guy want me to fix his samsung fridge so tested the junkyard one, and the controller did not work, but the compressor did with the good controller board. I think LG has the linear compressor, should be the same signal, but have not test it. I did test the linear compressor when it was torn apart, and it pumps the piston with just 12v on the coils, was cool to see.