"New" RV fridge fromAtwood

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Gary RV_Wizard

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Atwood has announced they will soon be offering a new type of RV Fridge. Well, sorta new, anyway. It uses the good (?) old absorption technology, but with a twist: It uses helium instead of hydrogen.  Helium, of course, is not flammable like hydrogen, but it's not clear that the flammability of the coolant gases has much, if anything, to do with the recent spate of RV fridge fires.  Seems to me that Atwood is spending money and development time to design a solution that plays to fears rather than actually developing a better RV fridge, but you can decide for yourself.

The new fridge will feature an "Anti-tilt system". What is this, you may ask? It is a light on the control panel that tells you if the fridge is too far out of level. Not sure if that is really anti-tilt, but it will give some peace of mind to novice RVers.

You will also be happy to learn that Atwood will be using cool blue lights in the vegie crispers. Now THAT is an improvement long awaited!

Atwood designs new RV Fridge

Personally, I had been hoping for a 10-14 cubic foot fridge with a high-efficiency compressor driven cooling system and ultra-effective insulation, designed to fit nicely in an RV and with travel locks on the doors. Guess that is just too high tech for Dometic and Norcold. Maybe Japan or Korea will come to the rescue...
 
Hmm, you are right Gary, I don't see a significant improvement using the different gas. One issue that would concern me is the proposed "lock out" feature if the unit is operated out of level. That would really suck if that system malfunctioned. I wonder if driving with the fridge on (which I always do) would be enough to trigger the off level system on a mountain road.  Guess I'll wait and see when it hits the market.  I think to get OEM's to switch to a new unit they will have to offer it to them at a lower price point.  It's all about the bottom line........
 
If they play the "fire" scare card, a lot o f mfgrs will likely start using it so they can claim a "safer" RV.  Then a year later we will find out if it really works well or not. 

I am mindful of the electric leveling jacks Atwood introduced a couple years back - they were used extensively in lower priced rigs (the bottom line again) but turned out to be problematic.
 
Dometic and Norcold both now offer a very interesting, if somewhat expensive, alternative to the traditional RV fridge.. These are all electric, (no gas operation) COMPRESSOR units but due to an advanced design instead of sucking upwards of a kill-o-watt of a standard home type fridge  They draw less than 50 watts.
Folks the dual 1156 lights in my motor home draw MORE than 50 watts.

I have a small chest freezer (About 2 cubic feet) draws 36 watts  I run it on 12volt all the time save for when I had it in my house for a while, then I used 120volt.

These thigns are nothign short of amazing, work well, sip power and when I mentioned "expensive" above.. I just priced Amana refrigerators (looking for power consumption specs) Perhaps not as bad as I thought.
 
So since we have high efficiency compressor fridges available, why are they bothering to develop a helium-based absorption fridge? Price point? But they could mass produce the all-electric model and drive the price down anyway. Heck, the Norcold 1200 and big Dometic side-by-side are already ultra-expensive. Shouldn't be hard to beat their price!
 
The helium will help lift the weight off the axles, thereby saving wear and tear on the tires and saving fuel.  :)
 
On a slightly different track, I noticed that my 4 door Norcold in my 10' MH seems to cool better than my 2 door Norcold in my 06' MH.  Has anyone else noticed a difference between the 2 door and the 4 door models?
 
I also have one of the linear compressor freezer/refrigerators that fits in the basement. It is not able to serve both functions at the same time, just either. It works very well at about 2.5 or 3 Amps from the 12V source. see below for what I believe is the same compressor used in a RV refrigerator. If my regular refrigerator goes bad, this is what will replace it. I believe the price is about $1200.

http://www.thetford.com/HOME/Products/NorcoldRefrigeratorsHome/DE0061EV0061/tabid/197/Default.aspx

Wayne
 
That is what I have.. the chest unit that is either a fridge or a freezer but being as it has only one compartment can not do both.... Same power draw.. If it's an ENGEL it's likely the same model.

Very nice units.. And recall when I said perhaps they were not all that expensive.

The Amana web site listed the residential units as "Good" "Better" and "Best" the Good one was between 1100 and 1200.. So it's reasonable ... and where as the Amana needed a 15 amp at 120 circuit, the Engel I have would not even make a 15 amp In fact, I think the fuse is 5 amp in that line, or 10 tops.
 
Our 19 CF Kenmore (LG) runs at .8amp AC. On the inverter it draws 11 amps DC including the inverters efficiency factor. I haven't seen it at defrost, but then it does not run all the time either.

ken
 
Nobody on the Forum uses "grease" anymore.  Seilerbird has converted us all to WD-40 users! ;D
 
You may want to check out the following articles ( http://www.aegiforensics.com/library/pdfs/Invest-Absorpt-Refrig-Fires-Part1.pdf and http://www.aegiforensics.com/library/pdfs/Invest-Absorpt-Refrig-Fires-Part2.pdf). The use of helium rather than hydrogen seriously reduces the risk of fire from the refrigerator as the only other sources of fire would be an electrical fire as ammonia is not considered flammable by the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) and the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Regulations. Ford's RV Service & Training Center has been evaluating the new Atwood refrigerators side by side with it's major competitor and has seen very good performance results.
 
Gary RV Roamer said:
Atwood has announced they will soon be offering a new type of RV Fridge. Well, sorta new, anyway. It uses the good (?) old absorption technology, but with a twist: It uses helium instead of hydrogen.  Helium, of course, is not flammable like hydrogen, but it's not clear that the flammability of the coolant gases has much, if anything, to do with the recent spate of RV fridge fires.  Seems to me that Atwood is spending money and development time to design a solution that plays to fears rather than actually developing a better RV fridge, but you can decide for yourself.

Gary, the Norcold fridge recall was brought about by a problem with the boiler area overheating, cracking, and releasing the gas mixture at a point in the cycle where the concentration of hydrogen was high.  That led to fires.  I do believe there is a genuine risk, though it's a small contributor to the overall problem of RV fires, most of which are electrical in origin.

The properties of hydrogen and helium are sufficiently similar that I doubt there's much R&D involved in choosing one over the other.  There is presently a worldwide shortage of helium however which may pose problems for manufacturing the new fridges.  We'll see.

 

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