It is hoped that the electrical system improvements of the past year will make this thing practical. Once the newly-expanded battery bank is in place, which it isn’t yet. Right now we have the worst of all possible worlds, with a cloudy day and a damaged and failing battery bank, and the voltmeter on my wall is telling me I should get my ass out to the porch and unplug the thing. Which is all I wanted to know. But still: The Secret Lair has a refrigerator! Even if I can’t really use it yet. This’ll beat the hell out of a cooler on the woodstove.
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They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
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Woo-hoo!
WTH does the NBA have to do with a fridge?
12V? 24? 120vac? All three?
We have a propane refrigerator in our office grid Alaska house and a 12 volt freezer. Winters are too dark to support the refrigerator but the freezer is on the porch and has te benefit of -40 cold snaps!
Congratulations! I’ve been thinking that your system is grown up enough to support a refrigerator.
Best of luck with the fridge. If it turns out to be too much, you might consider one of the crazy-expensive portable fridges. They look like top-opening coolers. I am only familiar with the Dometic brand. A friend had one built into his boat’s galley, and they are available from a couple of overland trailer (for Jeep) companies. There are other brands. They are probably 5 or 6 times what you spent on your dorm fridge. Then there is Sun Frost which is even more expensive but designed for solar.
Regular fridges don’t have enough insulation. It’s a trade-off between volume and keeping in the cold.
Most of the boaters I know who manage off-grid refrigeration use wind generators, but you probably have 2 or 3 times or more the amount of solar panels.
“Regular fridges don’t have enough insulation. It’s a trade-off between volume and keeping in the cold.”
Don’t remember the brand (“Sunfridge” or something like that), but one outfit that makes 12V fridges and freezers (same unit, just different thermostats) made them so small I questioned the utility, as in 8 and 12 cu ft and design – all were chest-type, not nearly as convenient as standard upright fridges, but chest freezers are more efficient than uprights for the obvious reason. The difference was wall thickness for the extra insulation; R value of polyisocyanurate is about 5 to 6.5/inch depending on how it’s applied, so they had ~R 25 walls. It’s interesting that no refrigerator mfg I’m aware of (readily) publishes the R value of the walls on their products, and that there’s such consumer resistance to refrigeration equipment with much higher R values. Polyisocyanurate certainly isn’t the cheapest insulation, but neither is the electric bill for running a fridge for its lifetime. Another inch of PI could reduce that bill substantially.
Remembered the fridge company name – SunDanzer. Turns out there’s actually a “Sunfridge” as well.
Wow. Updating a whole bunch. Next thing will be wire coming in over the horizon.
http://www.sunfrost.com/efficient_refrigerator_models.html is one of them that I think used to advertise in Home Power magazine.