Re: A54 fridge circulation pump
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Hello all,
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It seams that the gentle flow of the fridge cooling circuit running 80% of the time is the perfect environment for barnacle growth. This includes the raw water strainer as it too will have that trickle running through it. This explains the terrible fouling and no smell. On my last boat I had a Frigoboat compressor. It had a little heat exchanger for the hot refrigerant to run through which is through bolted onto the sea side of the hull and very streamlined. There was therefore no need to run any cooling pump. The compressor had a fan as well, so with the “keel cooler” set up, (it was an option) one just disconnects the fan. When the boat is ashore one simply connects the fan back until the boat is launched. I owned the boat for over ten years and to be frank the system was better than what we have now. It never once gave me any cause for concern. It was a modest fridge with only a small ice compartment, but the keel cooler is sized to fit the fridge size. I reckon that it would be possible to do the same on the Amel. Each fridge unit would require its own keel cooler. One could do away with the sea water circuit altogether. It would require vacuuming the refrigerant, cutting the hot side copper pipe, soldering it to the keel cooler in line then re-vacuuming and re charging the system. I am not 100% sure if the existing compressors would support this but I do not see why not. I am not proposing to do this at the moment, after all I still have three spare pumps, but it is food for thought. Another possibility is to run the fridge cooling system with freshwater from the tank and back into the tank. I wander if the tank water would warm up, or weather it would lose the heat to the sea through the GRP hull. The tank water rests pretty much at the same temperature of the sea water. The problem is that I would not want to risk contaminating the tank water if there was a leak of refrigerant and you still have this pump running nearly the whole time. Just some thoughts. I think if one of my fridge compressors were to fail I would be tempted to buy the Frigoboat compressor with keel cooler as replacement. Nick Amelia AML 54-019 Kilada Greece.
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