fridge mod

[davis]

when my wife was in college we had to buy her one of those 2 or 3 cubic ft fridges. we still have the fridge and needless to say the little lightbulb just lit up in my head  Can I mod the popup to run this fridge?

[mike4947]

Just plug it in. But, it will only work on sites with shore power.

[hoppy]

This is a very common mod. to a PU.

 Lots of people who have ice coolers built into their PU's will remove them and in that space add a 110 VAC dorm style fridge. Much less expensive than installing a 3-way style fridge, and they are easier to control and maintain the cooling temperature.

 My first PU came with one installed.

 It was a Sears Kenmore, 2.5 CF size. Methinks it was installed at the Palomino factory as original equipment, but not sure. There was a small 2 X 4 inch vent cut through the back wall of the PU behind the fridge for ventillation.

 If you can install it in an area that you can access the fridge with the roof down, all the better. This allows you to pre-chill the fridge, load up the items, shut down the fridge, and all the contents will remain cold during your travel to the campground.

 As Mike mentioned, it will restrict you to camping at sites with AC power, and the compressor will make some noise, but other than that..... they are a great mod.

[davis]

Thanks for the info. This may be one of my winter projects

[brgmgb]

If you have an ice box and want to replace it with a dorm fridge, do you need to add a vent to the outside?  


Thanks.

[mike4947]

It depends on the gap around the dorm fridge. The fridge will come with instructions on the clearnaces it needs to ventilate. To tight a fit and yes you could need venting to the outside.

[hoppy]

If you have an ice box and want to replace it with a dorm fridge, do you need to add a vent to the outside?  


Thanks.

  I personally care to error on the side of having too much venting, so I would recommend adding one.

  The least it will do is improve the operational performance and maybe add a couple more years to the life of the unit.

  The vent hole is easy enough to add through the back wall IMHO.

  Methinks...... go with a vent.

[mike4947]

As one who's seen it happen The reason I said check clearance rather than just cut a vent is "WINTER". Unlike a 3 way fridge that's sealed off from the interior most dorm fridges have clearance around the box. Cut a vent into the side of the trailer and you've created a large open window to run cold air into the trailer.

If you don't have clearance, then yes a vent would be a necessity, but I'd seal off the front of the fridge to stop the inevitable drafts not to mention moisture during humid days/nights.

[ka9nyn]

I did this mod to a dorm fridge we had in our Jayco.

I ordered the solid state cooling module (out of a powered cooler) from All Electronic Corp., cost like $40 bux.

Carefully cut hole in top of fridge, installed per included instructions, hooked up 12 VDC ( backwards at first-- got hot inside) and fridge cooled down.

We would cool it initially on AC, put in cold stuf, power up 12VDC and it worked fine. Maintains at least a 40 deg F delta T. inside vs out. Hope this helps.

Dave.

[tlhdoc]

I did this mod to a dorm fridge we had in our Jayco.
 
I ordered the solid state cooling module (out of a powered cooler) from All Electronic Corp., cost like $40 bux.
 
Carefully cut hole in top of fridge, installed per included instructions, hooked up 12 VDC ( backwards at first-- got hot inside) and fridge cooled down.
 
We would cool it initially on AC, put in cold stuf, power up 12VDC and it worked fine. Maintains at least a 40 deg F delta T. inside vs out. Hope this helps.
 
Dave.

Dave welcome to PUT and that is a good mod.  Do you have any pictures of it?

[Jeremy]

Yeah Dave.. I'd be interested to see some pictures.  This spring I'll be installing a 1.8cu.ft. dorm fridge in mine.  I'm going way overboard with the installation though (80mm PC cooling fans, PC Cooling fan controller, digital thermo probes).  I'll be posting pics of my monster when it warms up.

So the unit you ordered... it sounds like the cooling unit from those 12v coolers people put in their cars.  Did you mount it to an existing icebox?