Thumbs up for New Solar & Frigoboat

Now that we've had some time to watch and observe, we are really ecstatic about the upgrades we made in our solar charging system, and our refrigeration system in Hawaii.

On a sunny day, our solar array now handles all the electrical requirements and has the batteries topped off by early afternoon. This is in the South Pacific winter, where our days are only about 11 1/2 hours long, and the sun never gets properly overhead. At 7:30 am, we are generating over 10 amps into the batteries, and at mid-day, we are generating a peak of 30+ amps. Even on a fully-overcast day, we are charging 8-10 amps mid-day.

The Frigoboat systems have been performing well too. Our freezer stuff is rock-solid, and the fridge is adequately cold to keep everything nice. We still have a small bit of lettuce, green peppers, celery, cabbage, and carrots, as well as some apples left in the fridge after 6 weeks. Plus all the butter, cheese, eggs, and milk products. Fridge run time varies quite a bit depending on how often we get in the fridge. Both units combined are using approximately 80 amps in 24 hours.

The 'Smart Speed Control' on the Frigo systems has not been as useful as we'd thought. One problem is that the Danfoss compressors (or their controllers) make quite a bit of SSB noise, so we turn them off at the circuit breaker frequently when we are on the SSB. This resets the 'memory' on the SSC--so it seems they are always running full bore rather than at slow speed. We can manually force it to a slower speed, but that somewhat defeats the purpose of the SSC. And we have to manually reset it every time we turn the power off. I think if we had to do it over again, we wouldn't bother with the SSC and would use instead the Danfoss speed control module, or a very inexpensive (about $30) manual switch. We have both of these as spares and might switch out at some point.

But all-in-all we are very happy with both systems.
-----
Sherry & Dave
In French Polynesia til August, then west toward Tonga
At 6/7/2011 11:10 PM (utc) our position was 15°48.18'S 146°09.17'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Frigoboat Freezer Final Notes

We've had a little time now to monitor the freezer and here's our report. With the freezer half full with frozen goods, and at a steady state, with the temp set to 10 degrees on the digital thermostat, and ambient temperature around 78-81 degrees, we timed the operation for a couple of hours and made the following notes:

1. Normal temperature stays precisely between 10-12 degrees.

2. Average run time is around 11.25 minutes on and 8 minutes off, though in the middle of the day (at around 82F ambient), the run times extended to about 13 minutes on and 8 minutes off.

3. The Smart Speed Controller normally runs the compressor at the lowest speed and the system consumes 3.1 amps at that speed while running. (using our Link 2000 amp meter).

4. Average amp usage per hour is 1.82 amps per hour, making for a total estimated 24 hour consumption of ~45 amps.

In a different test, just checking the Link 2000 amps used overnight with almost nothing else running on the boat, we used 15.8 amps from 11:30 pm to 7:30 am. This translates to 47 amps on a 24 hour basis. Ambient temps in the boat were 78-80.

We do not yet have a ‘run time’ meter on the compressor, but this would be the best way to monitor how things are going without watching the cycling of the box. The compressor is so quiet that it’s hard to monitor unless you’re sitting right in front of it.

Our freezer space, located under the dinette table, has dimensions of 20.5” long x 12.5” wide x 22.5” deep for a total freezer volume of 3.3 cu ft. There is 3” of ‘blueboard refrigeration foam’ insulation all around except 2” on the top. This equates to ~R22 insulation (using Nigel Calder’s figure of R6.5 for the blueboard and a few R’s for the wood) except about R15 on the lid.

Net space gain in the freezer by Frigoboat conversion: ~.85 cu ft (from removing the bulk of the holding plates). This increased our ‘usable space’ in the freezer by about 40%.

After we recorded the statistics above, we used our handy-dandy Laser Digital Thermometer to check the temperatures in various parts of the freezer, and found that we really didn't need the thermostat set to 10 degrees. We have since nudged it up to 18 degrees. This should reduce the run time a little, and still keeps everything hard frozen.

Frigoboat Freezer - Installed and Working

First, let me put in a link to our old system that is for sale. Large Capacity 12v Holding Plate Refrigerator/Freezer System for Sale $995 plus many spares.

Dave Making the Second Bend in the Evaporator Plate
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.

Plate Installed in Freezer
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.

Rainy Day in Pearl Harbor

I am sitting out in the cockpit watching it rain. Fortunately, with our awning and our fully enclosed cockpit (with our side curtains down), it's pretty dry.

Our Main Cabin, This Morning
There is no room for me to work down below--Dave still has the center of the cabin torn up, where he is installing the new freezer. He's almost through with step 2 of the whole Frigoboat installation... upgrading the insulation on the freezer. We've now got 3" of 'blue board' all around. He's now to the point of bending the 40-inch evaporator plate to fit into our 24-inch wide freezer. (Frigoboat dealer and SSCA member, Scott from s/v Chardonnay says the perfect bending radius is around a bottle of Chardonnay!)

Hopefully we'll be able to flip the switch on the freezer in another day or two.

Meanwhile I've been sewing up in the laundry room (nice table, electricity, well-lit, and air-conditioned) with a borrowed sewing machine. I'm sewing new slipcovers for the dinette seats, to add a little color to our basic boat interior. (see one finished on the right side of the picture).

Sherry, Claudia, and John Sterling at the Pacific Aviation Museum
We have also been doing LOTS of other things...
- Working out in the gym and the swimming pool
- Monday night 'burn-it's at Hawaii Yacht Club
- Guided tour of the Pacific Aviation Museum by one of the Museum's founders, John Sterling
- 'First Sunday' Marine Flea Market down at the Ala Wai boat basin
- Sunday Brunch with Claudia & Robs--old cruising friends from s/v Sea Host
- Helping Mon from s/v Windy City study for her citizenship test (she passed!)
- C Dock Mexican Potluck
- Hiking the Aiea Loop Trail
- Ordering a new Vesper Marine AIS 850 Watchmate Transponder
- Helping a US Navy-contracted video production company come up with some pictures and information on Dave's Dad. The Navy is getting ready to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Naval Aviation, and Dave's Dad (also named David McCampbell) is the Navy's highest scoring Ace, and a Medal of Honor winner. Check it out here
- Managing our rental condo on Melbourne Harbor
- Sold our car and 2 bicycles (for delivery when we leave)

Some of the more interesting of these I do intend to blog with some pictures--there's just not enough time in the day!!

And, of course, we are getting down to the 'last 4 weeks'... so we are going over lists and trying to get small stuff done in between the big projects. (Provisioning, medications, LED lights, etc).

Yard Work - Day 3

The main project yesterday was to get the 2 Frigoboat Keel Coolers installed. Dave had previously found the best location for each Keel Cooler--they have to be within 5 feet of the compressor, and well below the waterline.

Dave Feeds the New Keel Cooler Lines Up Through the Hole
This whole process, which we'll detail separately on our website, went well. Here's pics of one of them installed, from the outside and the inside.

Keel Cooler from Outside
Keel Cooler from Inside
I spent a good part of the day doing more touch-up on the bottom paint, and installing some of the underwater fittings we had taken off to clean and paint.

Our Greased Propeller
I was also assigned the task of greasing the prop. I tried to do it with gloves on, but the grease is so hard that I finally had to shed the gloves and dig in with bare hands. Then it took 4 washings of my hands with pure dish soap before I got the sticky feeling off my hands.

The final task was cleaning the yard dirt off our tools and stuff, and putting everything back aboard--getting ready for a 7am 'launch time' (~20 trips up and down the ladder).

Christmas Presents!

Well, after a long voyage (Maryland to Florida to Hawaii) our new Frigoboat units have arrived. Great experience with H2OLogistics in shipping big stuff from anywhere in the US to Hawaii.