My Amish Cooling Unit Installation

[Gadget Man]

I just had the Amish refer cooling unit from the RV Cooling Unit Warehouse installed yesterday. Here are the results after 3 hours of operation: On electricity only, with the refer temp control set at "5", the inside of the refer was at 30 degrees and the freezer compartment was -12 degrees. I measured this with an infrared temp gun, with an ambient outside air temp of 48 degrees. There was with no food in the unit. I was quite impressed, as it would have taken my old cooling unit about 12 hours to achieve the same results.

I have a question for those of you that have installed these cooling units. I opted to change out the cooling fans and fan switch as well. The OEM fans were working fine, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to be pro-active and replace them while the unit was out. I used the fan switch and fans supplied by David Force from RV Cooling Unit Warehouse. The fans he sold me are identical to the OEM fans and are made by the same manufacturer.

The fan switch is mounted in a different location on the Amish unit than the original Norcold. It’s in an area where it is warmer, so the fans will come on sooner than before. The old fans were audible, but not annoying. You could hear them come on when outside air temps were in the mid 80 degree range. The new fans are quite the opposite...the are very loud and annoying. The fans kicked on yesterday about two hours after the installation. It was about 51 degrees outside at the time. They stayed on until it dropped to 47 degrees. This seems premature to me. I called the tech that did the install and he said it was due to the new location of the fan switch. He said he could move it, but he would have to pull the refer out again, and of course there would be an additional labor charge. David Force from RV Cooling Unit Warehouse confirmed the new switch location as the reason. He said I could unplug the fans from the PC board in cooler weather if I didn’t want to hear them. I'm hoping the fans will get quieter with more use, but I know the DW is going to complain when she hears them...

Anybody else with the Amish cooling unit experience this?

Craig

[MaverickBBD]

Sounds great. Who did the install. You have me thinking about it even more.

[Gadget Man]

Originally Posted by MaverickBBD

Sounds great. Who did the install. You have me thinking about it even more.

I used a local mobile RV appliance repair guy. PM me of you'd like his phone number.

Craig

[Dave78Chief]

This stcky thread at the top of this forum is about installing the Amish Cooling Unit:
http://www.irv2.com/forums/f54/the-o...lem-83336.html

[Gadget Man]

I set the refer temp control at 1 last night before going to bed. I just checked it right now, some 14 hours later. The fridge is at 36.4 degrees and the freezer is at 1.6. The fans are not blowing at the moment. It's only 50 degrees outside right now, but those are still good temps considering I have it at the lowest setting possible.

Craig

[Sammie]

Originally Posted by Craig P.

I just had the Amish refer cooling unit from the RV Cooling Unit Warehouse installed yesterday. Here are the results after 3 hours of operation: On electricity only, with the refer temp control set at "5", the inside of the refer was at 30 degrees and the freezer compartment was -12 degrees. I measured this with an infrared temp gun, with an ambient outside air temp of 48 degrees. There was with no food in the unit. I was quite impressed, as it would have taken my old cooling unit about 12 hours to achieve the same results.

I have a question for those of you that have installed these cooling units. I opted to change out the cooling fans and fan switch as well. The OEM fans were working fine, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to be pro-active and replace them while the unit was out. I used the fan switch and fans supplied by David Force from RV Cooling Unit Warehouse. The fans he sold me are identical to the OEM fans and are made by the same manufacturer.

The fan switch is mounted in a different location on the Amish unit than the original Norcold. It’s in an area where it is warmer, so the fans will come on sooner than before. The old fans were audible, but not annoying. You could hear them come on when outside air temps were in the mid 80 degree range. The new fans are quite the opposite...the are very loud and annoying. The fans kicked on yesterday about two hours after the installation. It was about 51 degrees outside at the time. They stayed on until it dropped to 47 degrees. This seems premature to me. I called the tech that did the install and he said it was due to the new location of the fan switch. He said he could move it, but he would have to pull the refer out again, and of course there would be an additional labor charge. David Force from RV Cooling Unit Warehouse confirmed the new switch location as the reason. He said I could unplug the fans from the PC board in cooler weather if I didn’t want to hear them. I'm hoping the fans will get quieter with more use, but I know the DW is going to complain when she hears them...

Anybody else with the Amish cooling unit experience this?

Craig

Craig, The "Thermal Fan Switch" needs to be mounted in the same place as the old switch was located. Looking at the rear of the refrigerator it would have been mounted on the right hand side of the condensor fins. The fan switch will turn the fans on at 115 degrees and off at 130 degrees. I did my Amish conversion last summer and the fans would usually come on when the outside temperature would reach between 75 to 80 degrees and never come on at any lower outside temperature. Is your refrigerator mounted in a slideout?

As for the noise of the fans, they shouldn't be any louder than before unless your tech mounted them in another location. Pictures would be nice. As you can see from my video below, I installed three fans and they are not really any louder than the original two that were on the old Norcold Cooling Unit.

Sammie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgjDl5nwPMo

[Gadget Man]

My service tech worked so fast I didn't get a chance to snap a photo of the Amish unit before he slid the refer back into place. I only got a photo of the old unit as he was removing it.

The Amish unit had a bright orange label near the top right corner that said "Mount Fan Switch Here." the tech said it is near an area that will get hotter than where the OEM switch was (the fins),which I assume is part of the reason the fans came on so early.

The tech used the OEM fan mount and mounted them in the same location as the original unit.

I checked the unit periodically throughout the day today, and the fans were no longer running. I had the temp level set at 1, so that may be the reason they never came on.

I emailed David Force and asked him about re-locating the fan switch. Here is his very informative reply:

"Moving the fan switch to any location will not hurt anything. You could even put an insulation product under the fan switch so the surface temp is slow getting to the switch. The only reason the switch was put in the location was to allow the fans to respond to the surface temps sooner, before the area behind the cooling unit area builds up too much heat, with out the correct air flow through the coils. We have found that most RV's manufactures do not build the cabinet correct for any refrigerators. They are building the cabinets leaving to large of a gap between cooling unit coils to the RV wall, allowing a large percent of the incoming air from the lower vent to go around the coils and not through them as Both Dometic and Norcold specs for a baffle shows. Both Dometic and Norcold state that 1/4 inch gap from coils to the RV wall. By having the fans, it helps to bring more air in and out at a faster pace. If your RV has the 1/4 gap you do not have to use the fans at all, unless you need during 100+ degrees of a long period of time. Most think the fans are for heat removing from the cavity, not the case. As your refrigerator pulls heat out of the inside it carries the heat and dumps it out the back with the air going through the coils pulling off the removed heat, the faster the heat is pulled off by the air flow the faster and more heat removing from the inside, thus a colder refrigerator insides. If the back side air flow through the coils slows down or stops, the removing of the heat from the inside slows or stops since it has no place to dump the remove heat. The longer it takes for the heat to be removed from the coils the slower your refrig inside temps shows. Naturally when a customer sees his inside temps going up he move the thermostat setting to a colder setting till it's at max without the refrigerator getting any colder. Even if a cooling unit is good and there's no heat being removed from coils it will seems that the cooling unit is BAD, but in a lot of cases it's just the baffling of the air flow not going through the coils correct."

Craig

[Gadget Man]

UPDATE:

I called the mobile RV appliance tech that did the install, and told him about the fan noise, as well as the early activation of the fans. Even though none of it was the result of his install, he said he would come back out and remove the fridge, re-locate the fan switch and diagnose the fan noise, FREE of charge. What a great guy.

He came back out this morning as promised and pulled the fridge back out. If you look at the below photos, you will see a label where the fan switch is meant to be installed. The problem is, this is right next to the flue as well as a high pressure tube, so this area will be hotter than the cooling fins, the location of the original fan switch. He moved the fan switch to the fins.







The tech then ran a jumper wire to test the fans and he agreed they seemed kind of loud. He then ran the jumper to the OEM fans and they were much quieter. Looking at the fans themselves, they are from the same manufacturer, but have a slighter higher amperage, which may contribute to them being louder. I decided to re-install the old fans to keep the DW happy. David Force of the RV Cooling Unit Warehouse said I could return the new fans to him for a full refund (another great guy to deal with).

NEW FAN


OLD FAN



My tech said the fans were touching the rear panel of the new cooling unit, so he insulated the area with some RV shelf liner, as shown in the photo, so that I didn’t suffer any vibration noise in the future.

The tech re-installed the fridge and tested it to make sure everything worked properly. As luck would have it, the fridge would not ignite on propane mode. The tech then discovered that the PC board terminal for the igniter was loose. He said it should not move at all. He said that he may have knocked it loose somehow during the re-install, so he replaced the entire PC board for me, again FREE of charge. I think I may have found the most honest mobile RV tech around!





The below photo shows the location of my SS30 automatic fire extinguisher. I had to remove the head cage to get it to fit with the size of the new cooling unit. I'll probably never need it with the Amish unit, but I have it, so I may as well re-install it.




In two hours my tech had the whole unit back together and working like a charm. Even though he said there was no charge, I gave him $100. It was the least I could do to pay him for his time and reward him for his honesty.

The below photo shows the cooling unit installed, ready to be put back into the cabinet.




Craig

[Sammie]

Craig,

Nice pictures! This new information about the fans and thermal fan switch location I'm sure will help others. The new fans that were installed are rated at 3100 RPM and 45 decibels. The original fans are rated at 2300 RPM and 38 decibels so there is no wonder why your wife was complaining about the noise level being higher. Attached is the page from the Mechatronics Fan Data Sheet. There you can see for yourself the difference in the two fans. http://www.rselectronics.com/Attachm...F/MECF1238.pdf

You got your monies worth from the RV Tech that did your work. What a good guy he turned out to be. You might want to pass along this information to him for future reference. I'm sure you will be happy now with the performance of your fridge.

Craig, Please share your RV Tech's name and phone # as I'm sure there are others who would love to find such an honest guy in this day and age. Myself being one.

Thanks,
Sammie

[Gadget Man]

Originally Posted by Sammie

Please share your RV Tech's name and phone # as I'm sure there are others who would love to find such an honest guy in this day and age. Myself being one.

Glad to Sammie. The guy's name is Sal Hernandez. He lives in Fontana CA. He said he'll go just about anywhere in the L.A./ San Bernardino/ Orange County areas. The poor guy just lost his home due to the economy, so he can really use the business. His phone no. Is 909-518-4458. He only does RV appliance repair. He specializes in RV refrigerators and carries most parts in his truck.

Craig

[RCtime]

Thanks for the new information Craig and sharing your Techs info.
I hope it brings him some business.
I have saved his name and number for sure.
Glad all is well.

[Gadget Man]

FINAL UPDATE:

I ran the fridge all day today just to make sure everything worked well. The cooling fans cycled on & off throughout the day. They started sometime after the ambient air temp hit 65 degrees. The slower fans are whisper quiet, so the DW will be a happy camper. It's amazing what a difference of 7 decibels will do. The fridge temps were just as impressive as the temps detailed in my first post. Can't wait to try it out in warmer weather...come on California summer!

Craig

[RCtime]

Thats great Craig, sounds like you have a good system going for you now.
I am going to do just as you did when mine bites the dust.
You wonder about these refers. we are leaving tomorrow for a Christmas get together with family in Temecula.
Mine fired right off and is cooling down just perfect, in a few months it will be 10 Yr. old.
Never a problem. go figure.

[wirelessenab]

Originally Posted by Craig P.

FINAL UPDATE:

I ran the fridge all day today just to make sure everything worked well. The cooling fans cycled on & off throughout the day. They started sometime after the ambient air temp hit 65 degrees. The slower fans are whisper quiet, so the DW will be a happy camper. It's amazing what a difference of 7 decibels will do. The fridge temps were just as impressive as the temps detailed in my first post. Can't wait to try it out in warmer weather...come on California summer!

Craig

65 degrees isn't Summer? LOL

from the beautiful but cold Eastern Washington.