"You must be the change you want to see in the world." "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi
"Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words." --Francis of Assisi.
"Family farms work when the whole family works the farm." -- Adam Klaus
Sometimes the answer is nothing
wayne fajkus wrote:There are small ice machines on the market. I think they make 8 pounds in one hour. They don't keep them frozen though. They simply make it.
This seems like a great option for an offgrid situation. One hour running time, and the ice placed into a cooler chest. If this lasts even 12 hours, then your only using electric for 2 hours a day to keep everything cool.
A very basic solar system should keep up since there's plenty of in between time to recharge battery bank.
Sometimes the answer is nothing
Sometimes the answer is nothing
"You must be the change you want to see in the world." "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi
"Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words." --Francis of Assisi.
"Family farms work when the whole family works the farm." -- Adam Klaus
Work smarter, not harder.
wayne fajkus wrote:I found them. 26 pound, not 8 pound.
www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00INXG9MY/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492739524&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=counter+ice+maker&dpPl=1&dpID=41GtKx%2BAhFL&ref=plSrch
"You must be the change you want to see in the world." "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi
"Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words." --Francis of Assisi.
"Family farms work when the whole family works the farm." -- Adam Klaus
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work -Peter Drucker
"You must be the change you want to see in the world." "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi
"Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words." --Francis of Assisi.
"Family farms work when the whole family works the farm." -- Adam Klaus
Moderator, Treatment Free Beekeepers group on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/treatmentfreebeekeepers/
Michael Cox wrote:Seems to me like a really really well insulated box/room with a standard electric refrigeration unit would be simpler and need less energy to run? These proposals all seem to have lots of potential points of failure.
Creighton Samuiels wrote:
Michael Cox wrote:Seems to me like a really really well insulated box/room with a standard electric refrigeration unit would be simpler and need less energy to run? These proposals all seem to have lots of potential points of failure.
Such a box would get incredibly hot and humid. Refrigerators pump heat from the inside to the outside of their box, and produce a bit of extra heat doing it; so if you cage the refrigerator inside another insulated box, you are just dumping heat into that box and achieving nothing. A split unit, with the compressor & condenser units on the outside of the bigger box would work fine, and they are available as custom (usually marine) units; but they cost thousands of dollars just for the compressor, condenser & evaporator.
Moderator, Treatment Free Beekeepers group on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/treatmentfreebeekeepers/
Michael Cox wrote:
Creighton Samuiels wrote:
Michael Cox wrote:Seems to me like a really really well insulated box/room with a standard electric refrigeration unit would be simpler and need less energy to run? These proposals all seem to have lots of potential points of failure.
Such a box would get incredibly hot and humid. Refrigerators pump heat from the inside to the outside of their box, and produce a bit of extra heat doing it; so if you cage the refrigerator inside another insulated box, you are just dumping heat into that box and achieving nothing. A split unit, with the compressor & condenser units on the outside of the bigger box would work fine, and they are available as custom (usually marine) units; but they cost thousands of dollars just for the compressor, condenser & evaporator.
That is what I was suggesting. You could try ripping the guts out of chest freezer to make your own room sized unit.
B Beeson wrote:Check out coolbot:
https://www.storeitcold.com/coolbot-homepage-test-1-0/
It controls a cheap window AC unit to cool a room down to 35F. With enough insulation, operating offgrid would only need a few hundred Watts for the smaller AC units.
My opinions are barely worth the paper they are written on here, but hopefully they can spark some new ideas, or at least a different train of thought