Refrigeration, Engel users, and others.....

[Captain Smollett]

That's the amperage for while it is running, so worse case scenario is the 60 amps you mentioned.

But, using as a fridge is generally the lower number (the higher number is for 'freezer'), at least that's my understanding.  If so, that's less than 20 amp-hr per day in fridge mode.

Looking forward to hearing from Craig, Dan and any other Engel owners (Connie, too if she will chime in).

[Greenman]

Actually, I did find a great thread here on sailfar. I just forgot to search for the most important key word "Engel" Doh!

http://sailfar.net/forum/index.php/topic,738.0.html

.7 Amps about 30% of the time so around 17 amp hrs on reefer mode and
2.5 amps on freezer mode for similar time so around 60 amp hrs.

Thanks again, I just need to be smarter about my searches.

[s/v Faith]

Good job. 

I read this and was thinking that the numbers were in another thread...

  ... I went ahead and merged this into the refrigeration thread.

[Captain Smollett]

Does the Engel heat the boat cabin when it is already VERY hot outside (and inside)?

[matt195583]

the linkt i posted on the last page has some really good information on engal power consumption.

[Auspicious]

Does the Engel heat the boat cabin when it is already VERY hot outside (and inside)?

It has to. Any refrigeration is essentially pumping heat from one place to another, to which is added waste heat from the machinery.

[Captain Smollett]

Does the Engel heat the boat cabin when it is already VERY hot outside (and inside)?

It has to. Any refrigeration is essentially pumping heat from one place to another, to which is added waste heat from the machinery.

Yes, of course.    

I mean, how much do you NOTICE it.  Craig, for example, used his in the Bahamas, and I just wanted to know his thoughts on the COMFORT CHANGE of using the Engel inside the boat.

[Auspicious]

Ahh -- it was a PRACTICAL question. I spent a couple of weeks in friends in the Bahamas in '08 who used an Engel freezer. It didn't seem to make a discernible difference in temperature inside the boat. I'm pretty sure that Jay and I had a bigger impact on boat temperature than the freezer. Diana of course simply glowed and didn't sweat at all. *grin*

[AdriftAtSea]

It really doesn't have a practical effect on the interior temps CS.

[Mr. Fixit]

My better half bought me a Norcold from Defender last week--from all I can see it is identical with my Engel. I have not taken covers off yet to view the compressors. Grandkids on the boat for the next week- i will take cover off and check when they are gone. The lids are interchangeable Norcold MRFT40 and Engel MT45F-U1. Lovers in sheet metal identical. Other than name plate and labeling everything is identical. Norcold instructions say that both low voltage and 110 can be connected at the same time. Ref will try to run on 110 first then switch to 12 if necessary. My instructions that i received with the Engel do not say this--previous posts say Engel works the same way. A call to Engel confirmed this. This is a great feature when traveling and hooking up to 110 as I am at the present time. In 2 weeks or so I will be away from 110 and will be able to tell if my 260 watts of solar can keep up. I do not use my fold up table, so both units sit on the sole. 1" strapping secures them from sliding around.

[AdriftAtSea]

Engel and Norcold are sister companies, and the units are made in the same factory.  BTW, I run an Engel MT27 (22 qt) unit off of a single 130 Watt panel, so, unless you have some high load devices running other than the refrigerator, the panels should be able to keep up with one unit, but two might be too much.

[marujo_sortudo]

I'm about to get WAY too technical here, so skip this if you like.  If you're a nerd like me, you can read on.

Regarding cabin heat, the frig or freezer is simply a heat pump, so it "adds" whatever heat it "removes" from from inside the frig/freezer.  So, putting in cool stuff or ice will obviously not only save you amp hours, but also cabin heat.  Most of the heat being removed is simply heat coming in through the insulation from the cabin, so it can basically be ignored when you're trying to figure out how much hotter it's making the cabin.  Think of that heat as simply moving in a circle.

In addition to that, it's not a perfectly efficient machine and all the electrical energy is rejected as heat.  So, if you figure you use 20 amp hours (12 VDC) a day, that would be roughly 240 Watt-hours of energy a day.  That's about equivalent to running a 1500W space heater for 10 minutes of the day.  ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air conditioning Engineers, to which I belong) estimates a person puts out about 116 Btus per hour.  That's about 815 Watt-hours a day.  However, unlike the frig, only 2/3's of this number is "dry heat."  The other third of it is moisture being added to the air from either breath or evaporating sweat.  So, not only does a person make it feel hotter than a decent frig, but they also make it feel muggier  

[Auspicious]

... that would be roughly 240 Watt-hours of energy a day.  That's about equivalent to running a 1500W space heater for 10 minutes of the day.  ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air conditioning Engineers, to which I belong) estimates a person puts out about 116 Btus per hour.  That's about 815 Watt-hours a day.

So my estimate that Jay and I were much more detrimental to heat below than the Engal is correct by a substantial factor!

I'll have to remember to cut down on breathing also. *grin*

[marujo_sortudo]

Of course, that assumes you're in the cabin all day....

[bladedancer]

The other day I found a jar of Kimche, that I had made before we had left.  It was still good after 2 months.  Indeed it may even have improved from ?aging?.  It reminded me that I had wanted to share our ideas and experiences about SBLD food and ?going fridge-less?.

The first thing to say is that eating well and good food is important on Louise Michel.  ?Good? means meals made mostly from scratch, using simple, wholesome ingredients, organic where possible, with plenty of fruit and vegetables.  Our diet is a mix of Mediterranean, South and East Asian dishes.
This means lots of grains, some beans and plenty of vegetables.  It's not really vegetarian because we do eat meat, fish and dairy; but only in small quantities.

Beans and rice, it sounds ascetic even boring, but there's more to beans then pintos and kidneys, or pork & beans in a can.  Black beans for example with carrots and other vegetables, make a wonderful soup.  Garbanzos [Chick peas] can be used for Couscous [a spicy Moroccan dish], curry and all kinds of other stews.  Soaked, dried beans cook in a pressure cooker in a few minutes.  We have an old Miromatic I got on Ebay.  We do keep a few cans of beans for a quick meal.

Other beans for example mung, aduki and lentil can also be sprouted.  Sprouts are simple to do and very nutritious, and best of all don't need cooking, a blessing on a hot day.  We also sprout a mix of alfalfa, radish and clover seeds which provide us with fresh greens.

Similarly, grains are more than brown rice and oatmeal.  There are dozens of kinds of rice.  We eat basmati and jasmine but there are many others.  We also eat buckwheat (my favorite), quinoa, bulgar and couscous.  The latter cook as fast as ramen noodles.  For breakfast we eat a porridge made of thick-cut rolled oats, barley, rye and spelt, and dried fruits.  For a cold cereal we have muesli or granola.

Other dried foods we carry include herbs and spices, fruit [apples, raisins, dates, prunes, pears, bananas], seaweed and vegetables [mushrooms, onions, kale, mashed potatoes].  The kale and herbs we grew in our plot at a community garden: the fruit we either foraged or dumpster dived.  We dried them in a food dryer before we left.  I wish I could say we dried them on the boat.
In the book ?Sailing the Farm? the author talks about a solar food dryer but it was not clear to me whether he had actually made and used one on a boat.  It's on my list of projects along with a solar oven.  For now we make bread in the pressure cooker following Skylark's recipe.

For now we are coastal cruising which makes possible fairly regular access to grocery stores, although anymore this means a very long walk, or if you are lucky a long bus ride.  We stock on onions, potatoes, carrots and other root vegetables [beets, turnips, parsnips, sweet potatoes], cabbage, ginger and garlic.  We store these loose in a wicker basket in a cool location.  We keep eggs, hard cheese, salami, olives in brine under the floorboards...with the kimche.

Kimche is easy to make and doesn't need refrigeration.  There are recipes on the internet.  I use green and red cabbage, ginger, thinly sliced root vegetables and some hot spices.

Fermented and dried foods are easy to store and make not having a fridge not a problem and IMHO, provide a much healthier diet than the standard western one.

In the spirit of full disclosure I should admit we drink wine not beer and don't mind non-dairy creamer in our coffee.  Ultra-pasteurized half and half keeps for days in the bilge........