Well, it took a bit longer than I ever envisioned, but that's mainly because Dave is so careful and meticulous with how he installs things. Plus we had an extra day of messing about because of electrical issues--on the first hookup, he took advantage of the existing wire that was originally run to the old thermostat, to try to run the BD50, but that didn't work out.
Then once we got that sorted out, the unclear installation instructions for the Coastal Digital Thermostat + Smart Speed Controller combination, held us hostage for awhile. We eventually tried all the possibilities until we hit the right one.
It also took an insane amount of time for us to figure out where to make the bends in the evaporator plate. We were trying to bend it just once (L-shaped) instead of twice (U-shaped), but there are spots in the plate that can't be bent, and you have to leave 3/4" air space behind the plate, which complicated the whole thing. We were also trying to use an existing hole in the box to run the pre-attached copper pipe through. We used graph paper and our high-school algebra to figure out what the length of 1/4 diameter of the bend was (around 2" PVC pipe), so we could get everything exact. We were really afraid we would make a mistake with the $300 plate. We finally hit on the great idea to 'model' the plan with a piece of cardboard. It turned out pretty easy to bend, and was just perfect in the end.
The absolute BEST thing about this refrigeration unit, in MY humble opinion, is that it is SO QUIET. In a very quiet boat, you have to listen hard to tell if it is running. And it runs completely automatically. No more "oops, we forgot to run the freezer today!"
We will let the freezer run as a freezer for a couple of days, just to see how it cycles our empty box, then turn the thermostat up to fridge temps and move our fridge stuff into the freezer space, so he can install the fridge unit.
Right now the freezer is only drawing 3.1 amps, running on the slowest speed (2000 RPM). It runs til it hits 12.0 degrees and then shuts off. Will be trying to keep track of the cycle time once it gets to steady state.
More photos in our "Frigoboat Freezer" Photo Album
Eventually we will provide more details on the installation process on our Frigoboat Installation web page, but we haven't gotten to that yet.
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