Well the installation is 99% complete. I just have to tidy up some wiring and make sure no connections vibrate loose. I took a lot of ideas from the Facebook Travato Group so hat's off to them for pioneering this.
The Novacool R3100 is quite a bit smaller than the Dometic that Winnebago installs and nowhere near as nicely built but so far it seems to hold temperature better and it seems it will hold enough food for the two of us. I mounted it up high in the space the old fridge was in and that leaves a large area underneath for a portable freezer/fridge like an Engel or an Indel-B (Truckfridge) if I find that the Novakool is too small. I would relegate that small chest fridge for drinks and that would leave plenty of room in the Novakool for food and that food wouldn't freeze like it did in my old absorption unit. Right now that space is a large area (23"x18"x16") with a shelf on very heavy duty locking drawer slides that we will use for water (my wife won't drink from the onboard tank) and other stuff. There's 110v+ and 12v on the back wall of that space.
I used the exterior vents that were cut into the van for the Dometic absorption fridge. The vents are far apart and work really well as a chimney. The old refrigerator had no problem cooling, infact it worked too well. If I set it at 36 during the day, it was in the teens overnight. Winnebago put a false wall about 2 inches in from the actual van skin running up and down between the upper and lower vents. It seems to contain insulation. I glued an additional 1 inch of rigid foam with a foil face to the entire length of that wall. I built a shelf to hold the fridge and below that is the large cubby. The back of the cubby and the back of the fridge reduce the area of the chiminy between the vents to about 3 inches by 17 inches which is more than the 30 square inches that Novakool specs. The condensor coils are one side of that chimney and in addtion to the fan that Novakool installs to cool the compressor, I installed another fan that blows directly at the condensor coils in a upward direction. Both these fans run only when the compressor is on. I have one more fan that is installed near the top vent that is controlled by a thermostat down in the chimney set to come on at 90 degrees. I have a switch inside that controls that fan in either manual, auto (thermostat) or off mode. I put a 270ohm resistor inline on one of the thermostat leads to speed the compressor up a notch. It's been really hot here and that helps the fridge keep up in full sun. I have another 690ohm resistor on a lead ready to swap out should I need a little more speed. I'll automate all that later if necessary, but it's $130 I don't want to spend right now.
The Novacool has no on-off switch so I had to install one and the thermostat they supply is silly for a $1000 fridge. I bought a digital one with probe made by Dwyer/Love for $70 bucks. Now instead of turning a dial between 1 and 7, I can set the temp I want to the exact degree and the probe reads the fridge's air temp not the wall temp so it responses quickly and temperature fluctuations are minimal. It doubles as a thermometer. It's also wired to the on/off switch, so you throw the switch on and the thermostat starts and so does the refrigerator.
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2006 Dynamax Isata 250 Touring Sedan
"Il Travato Rosso"
2015 Travato 59g
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Linear Mode
