Time to replace defective and potentially dangerous absorption fridge

[davidbrady]

(07-16-2013 22:37)gondolaguy Wrote:  David, This may be over your head, call me if you need some tech advice for interpretation.
Corey

Hi Corey,

It looks like with Samsung's Digital Inverter Compressor technology, DIC, Samsung has eliminated the duty cycle approach that other compressor refrigerators rely on. This means that my calcs for power usage may need to be modified since I included a duty cycle and a startup inrush current. With DIC both of these are gone but in exchange we have a compressor that runs all the time. So, I think I need to retract my 90W light bulb comparison.

By running the compressor all the time it appears that Samsung is eliminating the inrush current of starting a stopped compressor and by doing so they're better able to regulate internal refrigerator temperatures. I think the literature says that they try to achieve a fluctuation of only 1 deg in internal temps whereas a typical standard compressor refrigerator only achieves a 4 deg (+-) temp fluctuation.

It's good technology. More complex and probably more prone to failure and certainly more expensive to buy and fix, but better in terms of food preservation and maybe even energy savings, but I haven't seen energy numbers for DIC equipped Samsungs.

My Dometic does use a thermostat controlled duty cycle to maintain internal fridge temps, but since there's no compressor there's no inrush current so increased energy usage doesn't apply. I've never put a thermometer in my fridge to check temp fluctuations but I'm going to! Right now we're in sweltering high humidity heat Pennsylvania and the fridge is icy cold and performing as well as ever.

I definitely don't have any fans on mine, but remember the fan draw is at 12V so a 1 amp fan draw is only 1AH and with a 1260AH battery bank it's a negligible draw.

I'm still leaning towards carbon buildup from non-ideal burn mixtures as the cause of the discoloration on surrounding surfaces that some are seeing - until proven otherwise. I gave mine as thorough an inspection as possible without removing the unit and I wasn't able to identify any discoloration.

BTW, does the RF197 use the Digital Inverter Compressor technology. I scanned around a bit and it looks like it doesn't unless I missed it.