I have the Isotherm Self Pumping Compact Refrigeration System. I later installed the Isotherm Intelligent ITC Digital Display Thermostat kit. My thermostat, however, does not work as it is described in the manual. According to the manual one of the features of this thermostat is that it will "overcool" when it senses that the batteries are being charged. Overcool is defined as lowering the normal setting by 5.4F (to 33F on mine) to store cold energy in the refrigerated items in the refrigerator. The compressor is permitted to go into high speed mode to accomplish this. When the Intelligent thermostat senses that the batteries are not being charged it automatically goes back to the normal temperature setting (39F on mine) and operates the compressor at a slower speed, except mine does not. Mine will always stay in overcool no matter what charge state my batteries are at. The threshold battery voltage that the manual says the system will switch out of overcool is 12.9 V. Mine never switches out of overcool and I have let it go down to 12.2 V. This is a great feature but it does not work. If it actually worked my batteries would keep my refrigerated items cold for longer with less battery consumption.
I contacted Isotherm customer support and received several different stories concerning this feature depending who I spoke to. One story was that it is not supposed to automatically go in and out of overcool, rather I must manually switch the system to ECO mode to exit overcool mode. Another story was that sure it may not work but all I have to do is operate it manually. And the last story, supposedly from the "Engineers in Italy," was that it may be a tolerance issue in the sensing of the battery voltage so why don't I just operate it manually and problem solved. Needless to say, I am very disappointed in Isotherm Customer Support. I requested a replacement circuit board but was refused. Beware fellow sailors!
Jackdaw, I think you have this system also. Does yours actually work? Anyone else have this intelligent thermostat system and does it actually works as advertised?
I contacted Isotherm customer support and received several different stories concerning this feature depending who I spoke to. One story was that it is not supposed to automatically go in and out of overcool, rather I must manually switch the system to ECO mode to exit overcool mode. Another story was that sure it may not work but all I have to do is operate it manually. And the last story, supposedly from the "Engineers in Italy," was that it may be a tolerance issue in the sensing of the battery voltage so why don't I just operate it manually and problem solved. Needless to say, I am very disappointed in Isotherm Customer Support. I requested a replacement circuit board but was refused. Beware fellow sailors!
Jackdaw, I think you have this system also. Does yours actually work? Anyone else have this intelligent thermostat system and does it actually works as advertised?