Hi Fellow Sunliners
I wanted this mod to work a while before I commented on it. This one does work well however I had to move one sensor twice but now all is good.
It is adding a fridge chimney vent fan. It adds more draft thru the ventilation area of the fridge and I can tell inside, the fridge comes down fast and is colder. I’m now right on 32 F inside during summer, at least here in Central Ohio. Claims are by the mfg that is make the fridge like 40% more efficient. I don’t know if I’m getting that much but it sure works better that I know.
So here is the mod in pics. I bought about 2 ˝ years ago the Valeterra upgrade kit. Just never go it on. It was suppose to go on the old camper, but since the new one arrived, well it was destined to be there. It is on page 33 of this Valterra catalog.
http://www.valterra.com/files/Valter...RV_Catalog.pdf
So here goes.
First was to mount the fan. These can go in a few places but ideally up top is the best place for them. So I found a way to install it up top. Take the fridge vent cap off. Just peal out the Dicor out of the screw holes and it unscrews right off. Now I also have a sun baked Vent cap so I replaced it too in this process.
Then on the very outer edge, I slit the screen so I could put it back. Here is what is looks like under the screen.
I don’t have a pic of just the screen cut but do with the fan installed. Following Valterra instructions, I can just rotate the fan right into the putty tape. The fan is made with a chamfered edge to do this. It holds well.
So I ran the wires down the side and fastened them in place with plastic tubing clips.
Then I folded the screen back and Dicor’ed it closed to make a screen seal. Worked good.
Then I added a new Camco fridge cover. They are made of better plastic with better UV protectors. Put Dicor over the screws to keep them from rusting out. And I put 303 protectant inside and out on the cover and the screen hood.
Now down at the bottom for the T stat hook up.
I created my own adjustable location mount and I added a fuse. This thing had no fuse, the wire was the fuse… not good. However I found this location did not work as well as I wanted it too. Originally Valterra has a special tape you put on and it melts into a final holding spot. Since I wanted to maybe move it, I made up my own. The sensor does have to be tight up against the pipe.
Being it was 2 ˝ years since I bought this kit, I put the instructions away in that perfect safe keeping place. So safe, I still can’t find them…. So I did not exactly remember where they declared to mount it. I found that upper location did not get as hot as the lower location. Figures, it was to easy out in the open…. So I moved the sensor down to the bottom and that is where it now stays.
The way this thing works is:
Up in the fan itself there is a normally open sensor, (Thermal disk switch) It is set at 100F and it trips on. When it gets above 100F, that allows power to the fan if power was at the upstream side of the switch. When the temp. drops below 100F, about 90F I think, that switch opens back up and shuts the fan down.
But there is also the sensor down below. The 2 switches are wired in series and both are normally open. So nothing runs until the fridge is actually heated up and doing something. The switch below is also a thermal disk switch at around ~ 130F maybe 140. The 2 T stat's work together to turn the fan on and off as needed. It takes about 30 to 40 minutes of running on electric cooling to get the fan to come on. Then it runs until the fridge stops calling for cold.
Dometic should of put these on from day one they help so much or at least offer them as an option to buy. And Dometic knows about them. On the high end fridges they put 2 fans on at the factory. See here on this one I took a pick at last year. This was at the RV Hall of Fame in Elkhart IN. where Dometic has a display. The RV industry is so competitive that good features at times get cut due to cost per 1,000’s of campers.
These are basically computer muffin fans running off a thermal disk switch on the coil up top.
Well that’s it. The mod works good. EMAN did the solar power one last year and he reported it worked well too. However I do not know if it runs at night time.
Hope this helps
John
Linear Mode
