So, nursing some cracked ribs, the work has rather slowed here aboardship. Did manage to --carefully-- get a little bit done over the last two days. I wired in our antenna, which I'd been meaning to do forever, and mounted our marine vhf radio by the binnacle.
I was rather pleased with myself as I was able to trick up a mount for the radio using an old antenna rail mount. Works pretty well, and as soon as I get the wires all wrangled, should be a pretty neat and convenient installation.
That's about all I had the energy for, frankly.
Early on in designing The Floating Empire, we were casting about for refrigeration options. Fridges are a problem. They require power, have a surge of power at startup, they're bulky, and they often require ventilation around the sides and back. It's an issue. For a bit of time on Empire, we ran with just a cooler and ice (NOT economical), then installed a fairly efficient fridge, which served us pretty well, though it did tax our solar system.
Moving aboard Tesla's Revenge, we had to downsize our little fridge to an even smaller one (with a pretty useless freezer), and had been relying on freezing bottles of water on land to keep a cooler chilled to handle the overflow. Meh. It worked, but not conveniently. A slipmate loaned us an ice maker, which was convenient, but also a major power hog. In planning on doing some travel, it was clear that NONE of these options were really workable.
Then we remembered something we'd contemplated early on in the planning of our original vessel. One of the most efficient of small cooling units you can find are small medical freezers. They're REALLY cold (-17 fahrenheit or so), and well insulated and highly efficient. We decided to give the idea another shot.
Accordingly, we've gotten a Whynter 2.1 Cubic Foot freezer (the same size as our original fridge) and put it in the cockpit where the ice maker usta live. We'll be using it as a. . .well. . .freezer, freezing foods, making ice for drinks, and making ice to keep a new 40QT supercooler cold for our non-frozables.
We'll let you know. I'll be ditching the fridge and turning that space in the galley into much needed storage.
Need a refrigerator?
More later.
M
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| This has only taken me. . .what. . . a year? |
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| Here;s the new mount from the back. Once I get the wires tided up it should be perfect. |
Early on in designing The Floating Empire, we were casting about for refrigeration options. Fridges are a problem. They require power, have a surge of power at startup, they're bulky, and they often require ventilation around the sides and back. It's an issue. For a bit of time on Empire, we ran with just a cooler and ice (NOT economical), then installed a fairly efficient fridge, which served us pretty well, though it did tax our solar system.
Moving aboard Tesla's Revenge, we had to downsize our little fridge to an even smaller one (with a pretty useless freezer), and had been relying on freezing bottles of water on land to keep a cooler chilled to handle the overflow. Meh. It worked, but not conveniently. A slipmate loaned us an ice maker, which was convenient, but also a major power hog. In planning on doing some travel, it was clear that NONE of these options were really workable.
Then we remembered something we'd contemplated early on in the planning of our original vessel. One of the most efficient of small cooling units you can find are small medical freezers. They're REALLY cold (-17 fahrenheit or so), and well insulated and highly efficient. We decided to give the idea another shot.
 | |
| A large cat sleeping next to our new 2.1 Cu Foot Freezer. The cat is on the left. |
We'll let you know. I'll be ditching the fridge and turning that space in the galley into much needed storage.
Need a refrigerator?
More later.
M
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