custom engel fridge

[Matt76]

I am currently fitting out a coffee van at work, starting with a brand spanking new Hyundai iLoad, and one of the tasks is to make a custom fridge. It will be 150L, all stainless with double glazed glass doors, will use 2 seprate engel motors and 2 evap plates. and will run off a 5kva generator mounted in the van, mains power if the van has access, or off the cars start battery (yes, I can see them getting many flat batteries) while they are driving.

Should be interesting to see how it goes.

 

[Old.Tony]

I ought to suggest a second battery with an isolator, or better still the inverter-charger to the second battery, but you knew I'd say that so I won't bore you to tears with it.

Be interesting to see how the thing goes - are you using the condenser/evaporator system from the Engels, or are you just using the compressors and hooking them into an existing fridge?

You can buy these sorts of things ready-made from Waeco. Our 140L fridge would only need the door replaced with a double-glaze perspex insert and you'd nearly have what you need, in 12V-240V auto-switching.

 

[Matt76]

Yeah I would have prefered the waeco system because I could have only used 1 motor and one evap plate, but the owner wants the engel system

Yeah I would be putting a second battery in it too if it were mine, but hey it's their money.

The whole kit will come from engel, we are making the whole thing from scratch, so all is new. Its a pretty good kit, even comes pre gassed so I can hook it all up myself.

 

[Matt76]

It was never meant as a freezer, but it certainly gets cold enough.


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The fridge is sitting just under the coofee machine there, will get better pics soon.



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[Jason]

Looks schmick Matt.

 

[jayk]

yep, beautiful work matt. cant believe that they would spend that much money and not get a second battery!

 

[Old.Tony]

Certainly looks good Matt. Ditto the comment on the battery!

 

[will]

Very nice work Matt! looks like you have doubled he value of the van!

 

[Dave]

Just seen this thread.

Matt well done, as always great work indeed.

Dave.

 

[Matt76]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments.

We built this whole van from pictures, so it was sure a mission. We have a second brand new van sitting in the driveway so I am guessing the customer is happy with it.

It seems logic has prevailed on this one and we are installing a 55A/H AGM battery in it, purely to run the fridge when the van isn't running on 240v. It doesn't link up to the car's battery or charging system at all, it will charge off a Ctek 240v charger whenever the mains is turned on or genset is running.

I will try and convince him to do the same with the second van aswell.

 

[Matt76]

So after the van owner assuring me that 55 A/H is plenty big enough for him, because because he will only ever use the battery back up when he is driving between jobs, I get a phone call this morning asking why the battery has gone flat from leaving the 2 fridge motors on overnight...

Then another phone call an hour later asking me why the 12v water pump isn't working..............'ummm maybe because the battery is flat?'........

The charge across the terminals was 0.2 volts when I put the multimeter on, I don't like the chances of the battery being too good from here on....

 

[KraftyPg]

Tell them you can install wireless power, all the convenience of 240v AC via an antenna on the roof. If they believe a 55Ah battery can run anything other than a light globe all night they will probably believe in wireless power too.

 

[Matt76]

Tell them you can install wireless power, all the convenience of 240v AC via an antenna on the roof. If they believe a 55Ah battery can run anything other than a light globe all night they will probably believe in wireless power too.

I like it! And when it doesnt work I can just tell them they must be in a poor reception area

 

[Old.Tony]

You guys KNOW what I'd say, right?

Anyone hooking up battery-powered systems needs to be acutely aware that the battery is part of that (which is DUH stuff, come on) and the battery needs to be managed properly or - as the foundation for the system - it's going to fail.

Sticking a solar panel on it for overnight use is oh so Peter Garrett. Tell them to hire someone that can actually put a decent system in. I'm unavailable, I'm going camping this weekend. In the forest. Running on battery. For the whole weekend, not just overnight.

 

[KraftyPg]

There is a lot of dead spots in 240V wireless system so we back it up by adding a 12 volt wireless system, because the voltage is less it can travel further. All you have to do is pay your local battery retailer a fee to house your battery, he will look after it and keep it charged and all you have to do is ring him and tell him when he needs to turn on the sender because your 240V wireless unit has lost signal.

Once turned on the 12 volt wireless system is brilliant, there is no cables so there is no current loss, however there might be a security issue as yet 12 volt wireless is only running 12 bit encryption so there are plenty of hackers out there who might tap into the source code, but we can help eliminate that with a firewall setup.

In the highly unlikely event that neither these two options are working then they can have static pants, the harder they rub them the more static they produce, the static turns into electricity and the electricity powers their units. This has the added bonus that by the time they have any electricity at all they are too buggered to do whatever it is they needed electricity for in the first place.

 

[KraftyPg]

Would that be a AA battery or a C battery Tony, I can't seem to get AA's to last the whole weekend

 

[Matt76]

Agree'd Tony, He has spent approx $130k on this van and business, you would think another $1000 or so on a good 12v set up would be a spit in the ocean.

 

[Old.Tony]

In the highly unlikely event that neither these two options are working then they can have static pants, the harder they rub them the more static they produce, the static turns into electricity and the electricity powers their units. This has the added bonus that by the time they have any electricity at all they are too buggered to do whatever it is they needed electricity for in the first place.

By the sounds of things, these guys are already experts at rubbing their own pants, so I think you've found the solution for them. Brilliant stuff, Krafty! You gonna patent the "Rub Your Own Pants Power Supply (RYOPPS)" ?

You could start a company and flog this (no pun intended ... actually, bull, there's every intention!). "Watts And New Kinetic Energy Resource Systems (WANKERS) Pty Limited".

Ought to get a lot of business from companies that want to run fridges on 55Ah batteries too.

Not sure Fair Trading would appreciate the business name but companies like this would be lining up to trade with you.

 

[KraftyPg]

Obviously I'm not the only one with too much time on my hands today

 

[Old.Tony]

I'm half dreaming about the weekend, finally get to hook the van up and disappear again. Been missing it - we were doing it every second weekend. I can't keep my mind on my work, it's amazing that I could come up with something half-decent to post.