BBC3
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Posts posted by BBC3
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6 hours ago, WME said:
Yah skunk water😝. Prevent by draining your system, including the water heater in the winter and a few times in the summer. I use this with a 3x dose for the first time in the spring and a standard dose with each fill up. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Camco-TastePURE-Drinking-Water-Freshener-Prevents-Algae-and-Slime-Build-Up-in-Your-Drinking-Water-Tank-Rids-Odors-and-Bad-Tastes-16-oz-40206/14504326?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=1148&adid=22222222227008504182&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=40839114032&wl4=pla-78652545272&wl5=9029305&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=112562587&wl11=online&wl12=14504326&veh=sem&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2sTTnIa64wIViR-tBh1rQgXwEAQYBSABEgJfjvD_BwE
Thank you.
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Hi there,
My water smells of sulphur. I've read up a bit and plan to put Hydrogen peroxide in the fresh water tank, and hot water tank and let it sit for a bit and then flush it. I do not drink the water from the RV, and use bottled water. But I do shower in it. Do I need to use a water purification tablet or something like that in the fresh water tank once i have flushed it with the peroxide?
As always, any advice, or guidance much appreciated.
Cheers!
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On 6/27/2019 at 10:58 PM, AtlantaCamper said:
I was interested in trying out this tip, plus I wanted to see how much adding air circulation fans inside the fridge would improve overall efficiency, in particular during start-up. I'm pleased to report that ice packs and fans can significantly reduce the start-up time for an RV fridge!
This is going to be a long post so here is the executive summary take-home info:
- The combination of ice-packs and internal fans reduced the "start-up time" (time to reach stable, cold operational temps) from 12+ hours to 4.5 hours.
- The ice-packs had a more significant impact on reducing 'start-up time' than the fans but the fans improved heat transfer to a room temp beer that was put in the fridge during start-up.
- Ice blocks/packs are the simplest way to reduce start-up time (no wiring). Ice blocks alone could reduce start-up time by about 40%.
- Ice packs in the freezer do not impact the main fridge compartment. Freezer and fridge fins are only weakly thermally coupled. Put the bulk, if not all, of the ice-packs in the fridge.
Based on my tests I have adopted a fridge start-up routine that will allow me to start the fridge the same day I'm leaving (I'm always forgetting to do it the night before). I'll put the ice packs in, turn on the fridge and fan. After 4 or 5 hours I'll put the pre-cooled contents in. At that time or maybe a few hours later I'll remove the ice packs and put them in the cooler that I use for drinks and keep in the base of the shower. I find that using the cooler in parallel with the fridge is most effective for my family but YMMV.
These are the items I purchased, some fans and ice-packs:
- Two small Sunon 50 mm Fans - model KDE1205PHV3 fans for $12.95 on ebay https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-X-Sunon-50-mm-Ultra-Quiet-Cooling-Fans-12-V-10-CFM-22-dB-KDE1205PHV3/280833965042 The pair uses less than 0.1 amps and moves a decent amount of air. That's a low enough power draw that I don't mind them being on all the time.
- Cooler Shock: $22.50 for three re-usable ice-packs that are the equivalent of 18 pounds of ice but weigh only 12#. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V9ITMYC These ice-packs are sized nicely to fit in the freezer or on the wire rack shelf (see pic below). A (free) DIY ice-bottle would certainly be an effective substitute.
Ice packs:
Fans:
The fans are mounted under the fins blowing up. I was able to thread a power wire into the same hole where the thermometer feeds in and wired to an external switch.
There were three variables tested during repeated start-ups from ambient temps: 1) reefer on or off, 2) ice-pack in the fridge or not and 3) fans on or off.
This is a graph comparing the start-up cooling effectiveness after 4.5 hours. Taller bars are better:
Interestingly, ice by itself was almost as effective as the reefer alone over 4.5 hours. It takes the ammonia fridge process a while to get going but the ice starts cooling right away.
One interesting thing I discovered is that the freezer section is not thermally coupled to the coils in the main fridge compartment. I put the ice-packs in the freezer and the cold does not migrate to the fins in the main fridge compartment. While you can put an ice pack in the freezer, the fridge is the section that is slowest to come down to operational temps so I'd suggest putting all the ice packs there.
I would suspect that bottles of frozen water would work well instead of these fancy-pants ice-packs, so you can get a major boost in start-up efficiency for free by just putting an ice mass in the fridge when you start the reefer.
All of these tests were focused only on start-up. I have not tested how the ice-packs impact the actual operational efficiency of the fridge. Presumably they would act as a 'cold buffer' and help the fridge recover more quickly from door openings or putting warm food items in the fridge, but they do take up a good bit of room. I did do one test along these lines by putting a room temp beer in the fridge during the start up tests to see how fast it cooled compared to the fins and fridge walls. The beer lagged behind the fridge wall temperature with the fans off, but with the fans on the beer cooled at the same rate as the walls. While the fan impact on start-up was not all that huge, I think it's going to be valuable to move the air during normal operation. It's worth the 0.1 amps I think.
WOW!!
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On 6/9/2019 at 8:05 PM, Derek up North said:
From the 1991 Dolphin brochure:-
Thanks. Tank was full.....:)
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On 6/9/2019 at 7:32 PM, BBC3 said:
Thanks. As far as I'm concerned this is the best possible solution. I'll be dumping tomorrow and report back!
Tank was full, emptied it. Problem solved......thanks!!
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7 minutes ago, Maineah said:
The shower drains directly into the gray tank the rest have vertical piping above the water line sure sounds like a full gray tank.
Thanks. As far as I'm concerned this is the best possible solution. I'll be dumping tomorrow and report back!
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16 minutes ago, darrel said:
Are your tanks full? The Kitchen sink dumps into the gray tank.
Darrel
Thanks, I don't know....The indicator light says half full grey tank, but.....I just heard that these light indicators are not so reliable, and so perhaps it is full. We've hardly used it so hard to see why it would suddenly be blocked.....I'm gonna dump the tanks tomorrow. and see if that is it.....I will report back just fyi. Thanks!
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14 minutes ago, Odyssey 4x4 said:
Sounds like a classic clog. Maybe drain is blocked after shower plumbing. You could try putting a wet/dry shop vac on drain port of grey water tank
Thanks. I don't have one. I wonder if it is worth renting one? Is that the best way to do it?
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Hello!
My 1992 Dolphin shower is not draining. In fact when I run the sink in the kitchen the water goes up into the shower tray area, but won't drain away.
I put draino in the kitchen sink, for 15 minutes, then flushed it, and all the water seemed to just bbubble up in the shower.
Any advice?
Thanks!!
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8 hours ago, Gulfstream Greg said:
There are some more components to a happy refer. 1: a ventilation fan mounted at the highest vent, the idea is to get air flow through the back coils. There are some solar fan options. You want to suck the air from the bottom to the top and out the vent
2: Pre-cool the refer with some frozen water bottles in both the freezer and the main compartments. Leave them in for your trip if you can. 3: Thermal mass. These refers work with thermal mass. Pre-cool everything your going to put in it. If it is empty when you open the door all the cold air dumps out, replaced with warm air. 4: Leveling. Don't use the inside of the refer to check if you are level. Pre-level and place some bubble levels somewhere for easy checking. 5: Get a temp monitor made for these refers. They end some of the guessing. 6: Plan your trips into the refer. Get everything once, opening and closing the door several times while preparing meals is tuff to recover from. 7: Gas vs Electric. The electric heating element is mounted directly to the tube that needs to be heated. The gas is different in that the heat from the flame travels up through the chimney through a spiral baffle. That spiral baffle can eventually start to decay to the point where it becomes harder and harder to transfer the flames heat. If you are finding a bunch of rusty debris below the chimney then the baffle is dying. That disintegrating baffle is one reason an older refer has cooling problems. 8: It is also possible that a previous owner ran the refer too far out of level too many times and some of the cooling mixture has solidified in the internals.Many thanks. I'm getting a great picture now on how to use this fridge most efficiently. Cheers!
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1 hour ago, Derek up North said:
And never opening the door for months helps a lot too!
Ha! Makes sense, but makes it tricky to use.
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2 hours ago, Maineah said:
Shade helps a lot it was in the barn and it actually was my camper still it was running off a 20# cylinder. Bottom line it will only cool XX degrees below ambient temps so on a 90+ degree day it maybe only 45* inside at 40 it's likely to freeze things.
Word. Thanks. I will keep that in mind.
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18 minutes ago, Maineah said:
I kinda forgot to turn mine off once and 2 months later when I got ready to go camping it was all ready nice and cool!
Ha! Big tank of propane!!
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1 hour ago, WME said:
Boring math... A typical small 4 CF RV fridge uses about 850 BTU per hour. There 91,000 btu's in a gallon of propane so a gallon of propane is worth about 120 hours in average temps.
A 100-degree temp will bring usage to 1400 btu or 3 days per gallon.
A honda1000 will run the same refer about 8 hr per gallon of gas +ware and tear on the engine.
Thank you. This is good info. I appreciate you taking the time to share with me. Many thanks!
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58 minutes ago, AtlantaCamper said:
Very useful numbers, thanks WME! 3 days per gallon of propane at 100F is really quite good I think and this is pretty much worst case scenario.
Yeah, thanks - it's all good learning for me on this site, and i really appreciate you and others being willing to take your time to share knowledge with a beginner like me!
Cheers!
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Thanks for sharing this info - it is useful to me to get an idea. I appreciate you taking the time to post it. I'm learning plenty here and appreciate it!
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1 hour ago, AtlantaCamper said:
Are you asking about gas as in gasoline or gas as in propane? It takes very little propane to run the fridge. It takes uses a small flame to generate the heat it needs to work. Using the Honda generator is very inefficient as it would take a lot of gasoline to generate the small amount of electricity needed to run the 115VAC heater. You can get about 2 to 3 days (I'm told by a fiend) running the fridge on a battery if that's the only thing it's doing. Also very inefficient. Propane is the way to go on the fridge.
Sounds like you got it fired up! Great! It is really hard to see the flame in that stupid prisim indicator thingy. I have to squint and block out all the light and I still wonder if I'm really seeing the flame or not. Just something one has to deal with.
Yes, it takes a very long time to get cold. You will know it's working if you open the back hatch and feel the hot burner area where it's boiling the ammonia and then you will feel the cold on the fins inside. I start mine up the day before I leave. I leave it on propane while driving though others turn it to 12v. I had issues with the flame blowing out while driving but proper adjusting of all of the baffles and it hasn't gone out since while driving.
These RV fridges work by boiling ammonia with a heater (propane, 12v or electric), then the ammonia gas absorbs heat when it goes through the system and eventually condenses back into liquid ammonia. Then it boils again and round and round it goes. To work efficiently you have to get rid of the heat from the fins on the very top of the back panel . Make sure air flow isn't blocked in the rear.
I have gone to a system myself where I use the fridge in parallel with a small Yeti-clone cooler. I put drinks and ice (like ~5 to 6 pounds per day usage) in the cooler and other stuff in the fridge. If you put warm stuff (like room temp beer) in the fridge it takes a LONG time to cool them down and robs the fridge of most of it's cooling power. ONly cold things should go in the fridge and limit the time the door is open. An ammonia fridge can get cold, but it' just can't move a large volume of heat. If you work with these limitations you will enjoy it.
Thanks so much for taking the time and sharing this info with me today. It is useful to me. I'm a beginner and so soaking all this up. Yeah, that tiny little light, I was straining my eyes and not sure what I was seeing in the end - Ha! But - after a bit of checking, on the items you suggested, I can tell - the fridge is working!! To be able to operate just on propane is great! I like the idea you speak of with the cooler and I'll probably end up doing that too. Thanks again for taking the time with me. Cheers!
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20 minutes ago, AtlantaCamper said:
One thing to check is to make sure the line is fully purged. Light the stove and make sure a burner stays fully lit. Then turn that off and go back to trying the fridge again. I have to hold down the pilot button and then click the igniter and keep holding the pilot button/valve open while looking through the tiny window to make sure the flame is on. After like 30 to 45 seconds i can let go of the pilot push button/valve and then the pilot will stay lit. If it let it go too soon it won't stay lit. Sometimes I have to light it several times to get it to stay lit, all the while holding the pilot valve button in. Usually in these things the flame has to heat up a thermocouple that makes the pilot valve stay open, plus further purging might be needed in this initial lighting process.
If this doesn't work then you might need to get into the guts of the burner and make sure it's all clean and the themocouple is in the pilot flame. You are getting something to light (it just goes out) so it sounds like the igniter is working and there is some gas there. These are good signs.
Also, you have any idea how much gas I'd need to run just the fridge each day is i use my Honda 1000 generator?
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13 minutes ago, AtlantaCamper said:
One thing to check is to make sure the line is fully purged. Light the stove and make sure a burner stays fully lit. Then turn that off and go back to trying the fridge again. I have to hold down the pilot button and then click the igniter and keep holding the pilot button/valve open while looking through the tiny window to make sure the flame is on. After like 30 to 45 seconds i can let go of the pilot push button/valve and then the pilot will stay lit. If it let it go too soon it won't stay lit. Sometimes I have to light it several times to get it to stay lit, all the while holding the pilot valve button in. Usually in these things the flame has to heat up a thermocouple that makes the pilot valve stay open, plus further purging might be needed in this initial lighting process.
If this doesn't work then you might need to get into the guts of the burner and make sure it's all clean and the themocouple is in the pilot flame. You are getting something to light (it just goes out) so it sounds like the igniter is working and there is some gas there. These are good signs.
So, I just lit all the burners on the stove and they all work fine. I then did the fridge and it loooks like it is lit. But, the tiny glass viewing area is small...and the light coming from it is tiny, and I'm not 100% sure it is lit. So, I turned it off and the tiny light disappeared, leaving me thinking that it is lit. I understand it takes 4 - 8 hours to cool down a fridge like this, so I might just leave it and see what happens.......any other way to tell if it is lit?
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2 minutes ago, AtlantaCamper said:
One thing to check is to make sure the line is fully purged. Light the stove and make sure a burner stays fully lit. Then turn that off and go back to trying the fridge again. I have to hold down the pilot button and then click the igniter and keep holding the pilot button/valve open while looking through the tiny window to make sure the flame is on. After like 30 to 45 seconds i can let go of the pilot push button/valve and then the pilot will stay lit. If it let it go too soon it won't stay lit. Sometimes I have to light it several times to get it to stay lit, all the while holding the pilot valve button in. Usually in these things the flame has to heat up a thermocouple that makes the pilot valve stay open, plus further purging might be needed in this initial lighting process.
If this doesn't work then you might need to get into the guts of the burner and make sure it's all clean and the themocouple is in the pilot flame. You are getting something to light (it just goes out) so it sounds like the igniter is working and there is some gas there. These are good signs.
Thanks. I'll give it a try now.
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Hi
I have a fridge that can be powered by gas and electric. I have used the electric to power it and it works fine. I can't get the gas lit. I have followed the instructions and see the little spark going off in the tiny window and then it fades and goes out.
Any advice gratefully received.
Thanks!
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On 4/20/2019 at 2:43 PM, markwilliam1 said:
Unfortunately I worked my butt off cleaning Grannie with Barkeepers Friend! Took Days. I made sure all residue was completely removed and applied 6 coats of Zep. That was 3 years ago. Last year I noticed the Zep was peeling of in little spots! I couldn’t re-coat with Zep due to the uneven nature of Zep pealing off. Long story short had to apply Barkeepers Friend Again over my whole rig to strip off the Zep! I now apply a good formula wax. Will never use Zep again! Others have used it with much success but I’m now concerned about Zeps longevity! Thoughts anyone?
Yar, that is a bunch of work.....I'm not sure I'm gonna use the Zep....I just want the grime/grease off, but the bar tenders stuff, it's not that good....and seems like a bunch of elbow grease is the main ingredient. I saw a youtube clip of a guy using a wool pad on a rotating tool, and he was getting oxidization off with it, and so thought about something like that......
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11 hours ago, jjrbus said:
As with anything hyped on the net I was hesitant to try the BK and Zep wax. I tried a small area with the BK and was shocked at what a great job it did! It does require a lot of elbow grease, so I did one side at a time. Some insist on using microfiber cloths to apply Zep, normal applicator is a mop. If using micro fiber be sure to wash first as color bleedout can tint zep!
Zep has been on there over a year and still looks good. I will likely do a good wash and add another coat this year.
If you are in the south some of the grime may be mold, try using a mild bleach solution next time you wash.
Thanks! If it would just stop raining for a minute........
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On 4/13/2019 at 4:19 PM, WME said:
Lots of elbow grease. When you're done check out Zep wax ...http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php?topic=96462.0
Thanks. I read the thread, and seems mixed opinion. I'm getting the vibe that it would sharpen up a somewhat dulled fiberglass outside, and would not ruin it at least.....might not be the 'best' product, but likely, for my 1991 Dolphin, just the ticket. Thanks. I've ordered the cleanser, and once i get that done and used the Zep, I'll take a photo and post it here. Cheers!
LED headlights?
in Electrical
Posted
My headlights are quite dim......I want to replace them......would this work?
SYLVANIA - 9003 XtraVision - High Performance Halogen Headlight Bulb, High Beam, Low Beam and Fog Replacement Bulb (Contains 2 Bulbs)
https://www.amazon.com/SYLVANIA-XtraVision-Performance-Headlight-Replacement/dp/B0012UK3M2/ref=au_as_r?_encoding=UTF8&Make=Toyota%7C76&Model=Pickup%7C230&Year=1993%7C1993&ie=UTF8&n=15684181&newVehicle=1&s=automotive&vehicleId=3&vehicleType=automotive