Upgrading My Freezer on my Hunter

[Mainehunter426]

We have a stock 12 volt refrigerator and a stock 12 volt freezer on our 2003 - 42' Hunter. The refrigeration works well for all these years and uses relatively little power but the freezer is a different story because it eats battery power so I hate to use it. It has become a snack storage vault. I have loads of reserve battery capacity and great power generating systems including an 8kw gen-set, 240 watt solar panels and a 120 amp alternator. My house bank is 700 amp hours and I rarely take them down more than 250 amp hours so when there is sun I can go for days without needing to purposefully re-charging my batteries, unless my wife wants the freezer on. My estimate for the freezer consumption is 80 amp-hours /day because it runs and runs. I want to reduce this consumption drastically if possible because we are taking an extended cruise next summer and I need to correct this one nagging power gulping issue. I am open to installing a new slide in freezer if there is a better one or I could modify the ventilation of the existing system or install a completely new system - JUST SOMETHING to make the freezer an efficient usable appliance. OH, we are Never plugged in.

If you have solved a problem like this please let me know. If so how did you do it.

Thanks

 

[Terry Cox]

Why does your freezer run and run? Our original 1991 freezer keeps frozen foods and is on all the time but cycles off and on during the course of a day just like the refrigerator. Our house bank is 480ah with the original 80ah alternator and 8kw Onan Genset. No solar panels or wind generator here.

During our summer two month cruises I normally will run the Genset every other day or two to heat water for cleaning and top off our house and start batteries. Seldom do we spend any time in a marina preferring instead to anchor out.

Our freezer does not run and run, except when we first purchased our boat in 2002, the freezer was doing that because it had a low freon charge. Once we recharged it, normal operation returned.

Foot note: Missed your boat year at first, so you have a 420 not a 42? Different animal, but a very nice boat.

 

[Gunni]

An average compressor draw of 3 -4 Amp/hrs is not out of the ordinary if you are not holding the cold in your freezer. Check you seals, your insulation, and remember, a freezer that is full is more efficient than an empty freezer. Start with the seal and insulation inspection.

 

[Mainehunter426]

My feeling is that the problem may be with the design of the freezer as a whole but it is just a guess. The insulation is what it is and can not be easily increased and all the seals and latches work as designed. If any of these components of the system are the problem I need a different system. I am an engineer and installed most of the systems on the whole boat when we purchased it new. I have concluded in the past that the cooling system components work as intended because the freezer cools quickly down to the desired temp and stays there and it will go WAY low if set wrong. It has capacity. My only complaint is the power draw. Does any one have any 12v - 24 hour draw numbers for a full compact freezer? Again, it just comes on more than I think it should in order to keep to the desired temp but I have nothing to compare this to. I am wondering if the installation was not well thought out and there simply is not enough air flow (or any air flow for that matter) to allow the system to cool efficiently. Any A.C. tech have a feel for this? I had a cooling related problem with my twin VICTRON 2500w Inverter / Chargers in that cooling fans were only circulating the warm air around and consequently they would not put out the 175 DC charging amperage I was expecting because they would quickly drop into a reduced capacity WARM mode. Simple baffles that brought in fresh cool air fixed the problem in a snap once I nailed down the problem. I will do a visual check this on my snow check Tuesday. Keep thinking!

Thanks,

 

[Bill Roosa]

Check the easy stuff first, like the condenser coils. If those get real dusty or the fans stop moving air for any reason the unit will run and run trying to get the heat out of the condenser.

 

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[whatfiero]

Fill full of block ice buy it make it but an empty freezer will run and run also pre freeze everything at home transport in cooler and move to freezer so unit doesn't have to freeze New stuff

 

[Mainehunter426]

Update on our HIGH freezer power consumption problem on our 426. I removed the stand alone freezer unit this spring and checked it over from top to bottom (after talking to the people who built it) and it was functioning as designed. No issues what so ever. I then inspected the enclosure where it lives and the problem was quite obvious. It turns out that there were absolutely NO ventilation ports in the enclosure. NONE. Basically I had a heater box... I took out my trusty wrist breaking 4" hole saw and drilled an upper and lower hole through the double wall case (in proximity to the freezer fan) and put the unit back in place. We have used the freezer for extended cruises this summer and PROBLEM SOLVED. The freezer uses less than 1/2 the power it did before I provided a place for the heat to go. No attention to detail!

 

[seadaddler]

Also on this forum some one talked about adding a kit that helps use less battery power and maybe some one here has more info if not do a search on that info and good info given on this post
Nick