My post, last year:

        From:     albell@uvic.ca
        Subject:        Re: Dometic in 100F ambient?
        Date:   August 16, 2007 5:38:25 PM PDT (CA)
        To:       vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
        Reply-To:         albell@uvic.ca

Ah the dometic threads, such a sign of summer :)

Its not coincidental that I have been thinking about the Dometic a
lot recently, what with brainstorming with fellow list member P.
Chubbuck and adding some stuff to the vanagonwiki. I have, and many
other's too, posted temp data and modifications to the stock fridge
( i understand that record of the list's emails are collected and
organised in some sort of "Archive"),  and in the last 2 days I have
tried  couple more things.

1. I replaced my little muffin fan on "icebox" grill with a littler
and quieter one (intel branded CPU cooler). the interior fan is good
mod. I recorded some fridge temps after the mod, remember this is
Victoria BC , not Tuscaloosa, so ambient temps are more civilised. I
kept the van closed tight, new interior fan on, fridge empty.

time            fridge temp     van temp        elapsed time    notes
18:00   27.4            25.7            0
18:10   28.1            26.8            10
18:15   25.7            27.1            15
18:20   23.5            27.4            20              back fan on
18:30   19.7            27.4            30              back fan on
18:55   12.1            28.2            55              back fan on
19:05   9.9                     28.1            65              back
fan on
19:11   9.0                     28.1            71              back
fan on
19:32   6.6                     27.8            92              back
fan on
19:44   5.6                     27.6            104             back
fan on
19:57   4.8                     27.4            117             back
fan on
20:10   4.1                     26.9            130             back
fan on
20:23   3.6                     26.5            143             back
fan on
21:05   2.2                     24.8            187             back
fan on

not bad performance. the back fan is a muffin fan i used to replace
the stock fan. I have to admit it is not as efficient as the stock
fan, it stay on more, doesn't cycle as much.

My set up as of yesterday also had a muffin fan (switched) attached
to grill on left side of stove unit, right adjacent to the stowage
bins. You can feel the waste heat from the fridge come out there. I
(and I think others) thought a fan there would help cool the back
coils of the fridge. I think it does but, in the summer, that hot air
now blowing rather than convecting is not cool :)

this afternoon i had the chance to pull the fridge out of the van to
give it a once over. I had left the fridge running after my temp
recording expt and found next morning the flame had gone out. I
wondered if the by-pass jet in the thermostat control had plugged or
maybe it was a combustion chamber problem. Turned out I was out of gas.

But i pulled the fridge.  The by pass jet was clean. The combustion
chamber was dirty. fine metallic dust, which looks like it was coming
from the inlet and exh. pipes. I blew the pipes out with compressed
air, blew the main jet, sealed the cracked grommets where the
thermoprobe and piezo connect. I also removed the side grill fan and
did the mod to the city water access port, adding a switched muffin
fan. So instead of a fan just pushing hot air faster into the cabin,
i have a fan pushing the hot air out of "flapped" city water port.

That port mod looks like a winner, hats off to the list-members that
invented it.

Alistair

On 24-Jul-08, at 9:59 AM, neil N wrote:

Hi all.

Couldn't find a thread about best temp differentials on LP mode in
archives, so here I am.

This is for a Dometic 182B with a small CPU fan inside.

Last night, 10 PM, ~66F inside Westy. Run overnight on LP at "Max",
9AM ambient: 66F. Fridge: 27F. Roughly a 40F differential.

IIRC, my old 182A pulled better temperature differences. It made ice
with ambient temps of 70F-8?F.

(I swapped it out as flame went out when turned down at night.
Relighting the next morning was a major PITA.)

I know 40F differential is typical, but if others are seeing better
results, then I'll be cleaning the LP jet. (yes I should have done
this before. It worked on the bench so I let it be --- :^)

Thanks,

Neil.

--
Neil Nicholson '81 JettaWesty "Jaco
http://groups.google.com/group/vanagons-with-vw-inline-4-cylinder-gas-
engines
http://web.mac.com/tubaneil
http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/