Fridge fan mod

Edited May 2015:

Thought I'd share a little mod I had been trying and it worked ok so I made it more permanent. Noticed a distinct temp differential between the upper and lower sections of the fridge. So I got myself a 40mm puter fan, made it fit some pvc pipe ducting and powered it from the fridge light. Success. More even temps, even the dairy section gets cold now and best of all its drawing 100mA, bugger all. As it seemed successful, I have re-wired it into a dc plug. The mating plug is in the main power lead and I've fused this as well. It would be nice to not have the cable going under the lid, but that will take a lot more surgery that I may perform at a later date. Best of all, the whole system is removable if required. I have now ordered some 75 x 25mm blower fans as pictured above and will be modding both my evakool and engel at some stage with these.

 

May 2015:

Well its been a while since I've been here. I ended up chucking the round PVC out due to space constraints. The picture above is a 25L fridge, so every bit of space is valuable. Every fridge I own has been fitted with a blower fan and the results have been great. The dairy section (on those with one fitted) have been at the same temp as the fridge and I find the fridge as a whole has a generally more even temperature distribution. The original post was back in 2012 and I've been on the lookout (half heartedly) for some plastic duct of the right size. But alas it never came to me. Until today......

Somewhere, somehow, I was searching for ducting. I found something suitable available from Clipsal so I had a thought. Why not check out the big green shed (aka Bunnings).

I came out with a 4M length of 50 x 25mm trunking for $20. Perfect for the task

50 x 25 trunking



And I fitted it to all my fridges on my return home. Being rectangular, it will consume less space than 40mm round PVC tube and ducts the air to the lid for spill over to both the dairy sections and general fridge contents more efficiently. As its a 4m length and I have used 3 pieces no bigger than 200mm in length, I have a fair bit of surplus. So if you are local and want to try this mod, sing out and I'll cut you a piece of duct.

Engel 40 mod:

Waeco CF25 mod:

Waeco CFX50 mod:

A link for the blower fan below:

7525 blower fan

If and when that link fails, then see the link below. Choose your vendor. They are readily available:

7530 blower fan

At 0.18A current draw, this will add about 5Ah to your fridges power consumption over a 24H period. That is bugger all. So in summing up, if you find your fridge is not cooling evenly, I highly suggest you look into the above mod. To me, its been worth its weight in gold.

By the way, you might ask about the wine cask cartons.....I have found these to be perfect for sub dividing the fridge. The cardboard these are made from are resilient to a bit of wetness, perfect for inside a fridge. Meats in one, other stuff in the others..even cans of drink (you can fit 8 cans, double stacked in a 4L cask), what ever takes your fancy. No need to pull out all the contents to find that bit you've buried in the bottom of the fridge.  Just lift the carton you want out. It fits 20 cm vac seal bags brilliantly.

And a final tip. I have found over time these fridges tend to collect water in the bottom if used for a considerable amount of time. Worse in humid conditions due to condensation. If you have containers that don't like being wet, then the combination of that and vibrations can tend to rupture the container. Long life milk containers for example. Ask me how I know.....

But since fitting a soft mat to the bottom of the basket, I have found it lifts the container above the water level and provides a softer floor than the wire basket. Since doing this to all my fridges, long life milk is never a problem when out in the rough. I am still to work out if the green mat in the engel is supposed to be under or on top of the basket.